Your Voice Is Needed!
Congress is poised to take up a pair of bills with grave implications for families.
The newly convened, Democrat-controlled Congress is poised to take up a pair of bills with grave implications for families -- and your voice is needed to keep the ill-advised measures from passing.
In the Senate, lawmakers are scheduled next week to consider a bill that could strip everyday Americans of their rights to free speech. Some provisions of S. 1 would limit citizens' ability to express their views to the very officials they sent to office to represent them.
Even more pressing, a bill to expand federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research is expected to be voted on Thursday in the House. HR 3 seeks to override President Bush's limits on the use of tax money for the suspect science, which requires the destruction of human embryos.
S. 1 aims to clean up recent lobbying scandals that have plagued the halls of our government. While most of the bill is good, it contains a provision, Section 220, that will severely limit the ability of Americans to stay abreast of the important issues facing our country.
Instead of addressing the true lobbying problems – high-paid lobbyists buying influence with members of Congress with international trips and fancy dinners – Section 220 will place the bulls-eye squarely on you.
Section 220 will require that organizations such as Focus on the Family Action that alert Americans to important legislation affecting our country be burdened by miles of new red tape. These bureaucratic restrictions are unconscionable, and failure to comply could result in $100,000 fines.
Equally unconscionable is the embryonic stem-cell bill, especially in light of a recent study from Wake Forest and Harvard that discovered in amniotic fluid a new source of stem cells that doesn't involve the destruction of human embryos. Scientists who discovered the cells have used the source to create muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory.
This study provides more evidence that there is no need to destroy human life in order to treat disease or otherwise benefit mankind. In fact, there are no clinical trials anywhere in the world where embryonic stem cells are being used in patients. To the contrary, research using cells taken from non-embryonic sources such as bone marrow and cord blood have been used to treat at least 70 conditions -- and now similar therapies may be developed using cells from amniotic fluid.
Focus on the Family Action's Dr. James Dobson is urging you to place phone calls today to your federal lawmakers urging them to prevent these travesties. Call both of your U.S. senators and urge them to oppose the unfair grassroots lobbying provisions (Sec. 220) and ensure that they are removed from S. 1. Then call your representative and ask him or her to vote against HR 3 -- because there is no need to destroy life to save life.
To reach your congressman and senators, call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.