Media Watch
The Specter of a Primary Challenge
Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., hinted at such a run to a cheering crowd of supporters. Toomey, 41, is a convert to the solid pro-life position, Human Events noted.
“The truth is, when I was first a candidate and in my first term, I was still struggling with the issue of banning all very early-term abortions,” Toomey said. “Somewhere toward the beginning of my second term — after the birth of my daughter and after a lot of thought, reflection and prayer — I realized that the only way to be at peace with my conscience would be to be 100% pro-life, to support a ban on abortion from the moment of conception.”
Toomey has accrued a 100% pro-life voting record since 2000, according to the National Right to Life Committee.
Specter is remembered for helping block President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987. He is currently the strongest Republican supporter of human cloning.
Contraceptive Exemptions in Arizona
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 20 — The Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee decided by a 6–3 vote to pass along a bill that would spare Catholic employers a crisis of conscience, the Associated Press reported.
Currently, state law requires all employers in the state who provide prescription drug coverage as part of health insurance to pay for contraceptives. The 2002 bill did include narrow exceptions for religious organizations that “hire people of the same faith and provide goods or services related to their faith.” But this law still required Church hospitals, for instance, to pay for contraceptives sought by non-Catholic employees. Similar laws are being challenged in New York and California.
Ron Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference, argued that this mandate was unjust. Republican Sen. Mark Anderson, sponsor of the new bill, said it would expand the current exemption to cover “any religious corporation, association, educational institution or society.”
National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day
AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE, Feb. 20 — Rock for Life, a youth outreach sponsored by the American Life League, is encouraging students to wear pro-life T-shirts to school on April 28 as part of National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day.
The campaign already tapped into teen-agers’ love of rebellion: A school official in Pennsylvania told a student to remove a pro-life shirt because its message was allegedly the equivalent of a swastika, reported the American Life League. In Ohio, a student was threatened with suspension for wearing Rock for Life's “abortion is homicide” shirt.
“Our goal is to have every pro-life student in America wear a pro-life T-shirt to school on April 28,” Rock for Life said. “You have a constitutional right to free speech in your public school. Exercise that right by making the sanctity of human life the dominant message in your school on April 28.”
To obtain a T-shirt, visit the group's Web site at www.rockforlife.org/special_events/tshirt_day.htm.
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- March 9-15, 2003
