Teachers Denounce March

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, April 19 — Pro-life teachers and school staff around the country who are required to belong to the National Education Association let it be known they didn't fancy the union's support of a pro-abortion march in Washington, D.C., April 25.

The association's headquarters in the city were scheduled to serve as a “hospitality center” for the March for Women's Lives, the newspaper reported. The association's state affiliates were also organizing to bring people to the march.

“We're supposed to be for children, and they say it's okay to eliminate our very clientele,” association member Connie Bancroft, a middle-school teacher for handicapped children in Mahoning County, Ohio, told the paper. “That's hard to understand.”

Counter-Punching the March

CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE, April 20 — A legal group has filed suit against the federal government for revoking the permit of pro-life groups who wanted to counter-demonstrate the pro-abortion march in Washington, D.C., April 25.

The American Center for Law and Justice, which specializes in constitutional law, filed the suit April 20 against the interior secretary and the National Park Service, the news service reported. It represented members of the Christian Defense Coalition and Generation Life.

The lawsuit said the government violated the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The park service said it revoked the permit because it would interfere with the March for Women's Lives.

Veep Hails Nat'l Right to Life

THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 21 — At an annual National Right to Life Committee awards dinner April 20 in New York, Vice President Dick Cheney called the organization a “great movement of conscience” that “reflects the compassion of our country and our commitment to equality and dignity for every life,” the New York Times reported.

Cheney promised the Bush administration would defend “confidently and vigorously” the Partial-Birth Abortion Act signed into law last November.

“Your idealism brought the movement into being,” Cheney told the committee. “Your energy has kept it strong. Your faithfulness, integrity and good hearts will see it through until this great nation honors the God-given dignity of every life.”

Utah Hospital to Cut Abortions

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 21 — University Hospital in Salt Lake City has announced it will no longer perform abortions on babies with deformities, citing fears it would lose state funding under a new law.

A new bill enacted by the state legislature would end state funding of any agency that performs abortions except in cases of rape, incest or “permanent, irreparable and grave damage to a major bodily function of the pregnant woman,” the wire service reported.

About 5% of the university's $1 billion budget comes from the state in the form of education funding and Medicaid reimbursement. The legislation goes into effect May 3.