Barack Obama emphatically promised more than a year ago, "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." Will he keep his word?
The Freedom of Choice Act is a sweeping bill that would abolish all pro-life regulations across the nation, from parental notification laws to bans on federal funding of abortions. The Office of the General Counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops identified 13 categories of pro-life laws that would be stampeded and nullified by FOCA. As far-reaching as the decision of Roe v. Wade is into the states' jurisdictions and our lives, even it, for example, showed certain respect for state laws and limits on infringing regulations in the medical field. FOCA shows no such restraints; it nails shut the coffin on pro-life choices and safeguards. 
And why has Obama pledged his allegiance to pass FOCA? Not only because he has the most passionately liberal pro-choice record of nearly any politician but also because, as he told a meeting of Planned Parenthood during his campaign, "it is time to turn the page" to a new day, when pro-life views and laws and debate on abortion are passe. And if he and the Democratic majority have their way, America will have that new day, one in which hundreds of thousands more abortions will be performed annually. (I still think it is utterly hypocritical that a president and a political party who pride themselves on providing and protecting minorities don't include the unborn among those minorities.)
The fight to pass FOCA is being waged despite a new nationwide survey revealing that about 4 in 5 U.S. adults would limit abortion's legality. About 1 in 3 would limit abortion to rape, incest or saving a mother's life. One-third also would limit abortion to either the first three months of pregnancy or the first six months. Only 9 percent said abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy. These statistics are in stark contrast to the goals and objectives of FOCA, which would close the culture debate on abortion in an unprecedented way for any piece of legislation.
America doesn't need to "turn the page" on culture battles, such as abortion; it needs to reopen the pages of its history to our Founders' heightened views about the rights of all human beings in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. And we need to revive and re-instill that value of humanity back into society, our children and our children's children.
Under our Constitution, the federal government should protect that right to life. But besides affirming that foundational human right, the details and debates of the laws governing abortion should be left to the states. Despite the Supreme Court's unconstitutional striking down of abortion laws nationwide in 1973 and instituting a completely unconstitutional federal right to abortion, there is still much we can do at the state level to protect human life by promoting pro-life legislation and education. That is, unless FOCA is enacted into law.
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