TAMPA FL - Tuesday afternoon, Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and National Abortion Rights Action League President Nancy Keenan held a phone presser to blast the Republican National Convention's platform for endorsing the passage of the Human Life Amendment.
"This would outlaw all abortions in America," Wasserman-Schultz said in a press release Tuesday. "This is dangerous."
NARAL President Nancy Keenan, who was also on the call, said as a member of the Democratic National Convention's Platform Committee, she knows that women do not want to vote for anyone that would support the "extremist" Human Rights Amendment in the RNC's platform. Click on image to listen to 6 minutes of the press conference:
The Republican National Committee has included the same language supporting the Human Life Amendment since 1980. ABC reports this year's platform language on the sanctity of life is as follows:Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th Amendment protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and the infirm; just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial birth abortions, permitted states to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by exacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties to health care providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender-discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a revision of federal law 42USC289.92 to bar the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop life-saving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
We also salute the many states that have passed laws for informed consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health-protective clinic regulations. We seek to protect young girls from exploitation through a parental consent requirement; and we affirm our moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women challenged by unplanned pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with counseling and adoption alternatives and empower them to choose life, and we take comfort in the tremendous increase in adoption that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.
Wasserman-Schultz and Keenan went on to condemn the RNC's statement on the sanctity of human life and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's statements and activities coordinating with the platform position.
