Rep. Chris Smith: 'We Need to Pray for Obama. He is So Obsessed With Promoting Abortion.'

27-01-2010

• Category:

• Tags:

• pro-life |
• Church in America

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, told CNSNews.com in a video interview at Friday's 37th annual March for Life that American need to pray for President Barack Obama because he is "obsessed" with promoting abortion.

When CNSNews.com asked Smith what pro-life Americans could do to fight for the rights of the unborn, he said: "I think we need to pray. We need to fast. We need to pray for Obama. He is so obsessed with promoting abortion. All of his picks for secretary, under-secretary, assistant-secretary--all the gate-keepers in government--are now litmus-tested pro-abortionists, many of whom come right out of the abortion-rights movement. And these movement abortionists are trying to use everything when we know it, or sometimes when we don't know it, behind the scenes, to promote this agenda. So this is an aggressive pro-abortion administration."

"Clinton was awful," Smith continued. It's even worse under President Obama. So the hard work, the re-doubling of our efforts, the educational efforts. Obviously, the 40 Days for Life, and all the other great ministries that are out on the front line saving women who are at great peril and risk. The post-abortive work that is done so magnificently by this movement needs to accelerate."

"All of that combined, you know, this is the greatest human rights struggle on earth, and I think everyone needs to realize that we need to do even more," Smith told CNSNews.com.

Smith (R-N.J.) also said that the Senate's including abortion funding in its version of the health care bill helped kill the legislation.

"Without a doubt," said Smith. "Congressman Bart Stupak [D-Mich.] and the pro-life Democrats on the House side were absolutely resolute and courageous in saying they would not vote for any health care that did not have pro-life safeguards in it, and certainly something that wouldn't have pro-abortion language in it, and the Senate bill was riddled with pro-abortion expansions, more funding -- and so, frankly, that is why it is now dead."

The Stupak amendment, which is part of the House health care legislation, would prohibit the federal government from allocating taxpayer money to pay for any part of any health insurance plan that covers abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.

Smith cautioned pro-life Americans, however, to not ease up in the fight against federal funding of health plans that cover abortion.

"I am very concerned, though, that President Obama and the Democratic leadership will find some way to resurrect the abortion-funding push," Smith said. "Right now, effective beginning of our fiscal year, the District of Columbia is now paying for abortions-on-demand because President Obama, the abortion president, forced that into the appropriations bill."

"So they have not given up, nor have we," he said. "But I think we should not have a false sense of security about where this administration is going."

Smith went on to say that the Obama administration is implementing a sweeping pro-abortion agenda.

"They're also empowering pro-abortion, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and giving them not millions, but billions of dollars at home and abroad to promote the abortion agenda," Smith told CNSNews.com. "They have kind of deputized all of these NGOs in Africa, Latin America, and in the United States through Planned Parenthood and these other organizations to promote and expand abortions."

Smith added, "Let's not forget one group: Planned Parenthood alone does 305,000 abortions every year in the United States, well over a million globally. They're getting money in massive amounts to promote this killing agenda. So we've had good news. But we're still in this, and we have to be very sober about what lies ahead."

CNSNews.com also asked Smith, "You led the charge with other House members for the Stupak amendment in the House bill. Why do you feel that it is important that federal funding of abortion not be any part of a health care bill?"

"Well, first of all, we want no complicity whatsoever," Smith said. "(A)nd most Americans, according to the polls, want no complicity as well with killing babies and wounding mothers. We know beyond any reasonable doubt now that the women who procure abortions suffer emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually. We know that subsequent children born to women who have aborted suffer anywhere from a third to almost plus-90 percent prematurity for their subsequent children."

"The leading cause of mental and motor retardation in this country -- and anywhere else as well -- is prematurity and low birth weight," said Smith. "Why do we want to expand disability when it is in that instance preventable?"

Smith added that the more the government subsidizes abortion, the more abortion increases.

"We need to realize that, when you pay for it, you get more of it," said Smith. "Even the Guttmacher Institute has found that when we pay for abortions -- and they've done studies on this -- you get 25 percent or more abortions because the government is facilitating and providing the ways and means to enable that abortion. Money does play a factor."

"So when you take out the money," he said, "you're in a much greater position to say, ‘Wait a minute, we not only will not subsidize it, but there's a reason why: Because it destroys babies, and because it wounds mothers.'"

At the March for Life, Smith addressed tens of thousands of Americans, urging them to resist the Obama administration's pro-abortion agenda.

"President Obama, is it really so hard to understand that abortion is violence against children, a pernicious form of child abuse, falsely marketed as choice, a human right, health care and safe?" Smith said. "Abortion isn't health care. There is nothing whatsoever benign, healing or nurturing about abortion."

The March for Life on Jan. 22 is an annual pro-life rally held in Washington, D.C., since 1974 to remember and protest the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which legalized elective abortion across the United States.

http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=35300