 |
|---|
| Home |
| Who We Are |
| What We Do |
| Contact Us |
| References |
| Story |
|
Report Highlights Anti-Family Laws The 12 anti-family actions included in the bill, which the president signed December 16, 2009 are: Elimination of abstinence education. Federal funding for abstinence sex education programs in schools will be redirected to more condom-based comprehensive sex education programs. Spreading the wealth. Means-tested welfare programs such as “housing, food stamps, and health care” will benefit from a 30 percent increase in funding over last year by increasing taxes and the deficit. Needle exchange. Federal funds will now be available for programs that provide new needles to drug addicts who turn in used needles in the name of preventing “the spread of infection.” Local health agencies and law enforcement do have the ability to “opt-out” of receiving these funds. Planned Parenthood funding. Federal funds for family planning services under Title X increased by $10 million. Planned Parenthood receives the largest portion of $315.5 million in Title X funds targeted toward comprehensive sex education and so-called “family planning services” offered by groups like of Planned Parenthood. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). This bill allocated $5 million in additional taxpayer funding to UNFPA, which promotes population control through such practices as China’s mandatory one-child policy, enforced through measures as extreme as forced abortion and sterilization. International family planning. One of President Obama’s first executive acts was to rescind the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibited the use of federal funds to support organizations that either promote or perform abortions overseas. The omnibus bill grants an additional $103 million to these groups, who may now receive and use American taxpayer dollars to further anti-life activities abroad. Limiting free speech. This bill lifts the ban on using federal funds to implement or enforce the “Fairness Doctrine,” which insists on equal time for opposing viewpoints in media, especially relative to talk radio and television. Four of the anti-family items in the omnibus bill are specific to Washington, D.C. They are: Ending the D.C. Scholarship Program. Despite a 2009 Department of Education report finding that participants in this program demonstrate a “statistically significant increase in reading scores,” Congress and the President have chosen to disallow any new participants to enter the five year-old program, which provides education scholarships for D.C. families to move their children out of one of the nation’s worst public school districts, and into safer and more effective private schools. Public funding of abortion. A federal prohibition on D.C. using local funding to promote or pay for abortions for residents was lifted. Taxpayer-financed domestic partner benefits. Not only does the bill lift the longstanding ban on using federal funding to cover health care benefits for the domestic partners of D.C. employees, but it also makes federal funds available for domestic partnership registration. Legalized medical marijuana. D.C. will now be authorized “to use local funds to start and implement a medical marijuana program.” Needle exchange for drug abusers. In addition to lifting the decade-long ban on D.C. using local funding for a needle exchange program, the final version of the bill neglected to include a provision that would have prohibited such programs from being available within 1,000 feet of a school, day care, or youth center. Copyright © 2010. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.
|
