In the News

When 15 House pro-life Democrats joined Republicans earlier this month to pass the Protect Life Act amending the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act by explicitly prohibiting federal funding of abortion (or abortion coverage) because the Obamacare law does not, somebody should have told former Rep. Steve Driehaus and Ohio U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Black.

Cain has described himself as pro-life, and at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, he told his audience, “I believe in life from conception, period. No exceptions.” However, his commitment to life was called into question by some pro-life advocates when he chose not to sign the Susan B. Anthony List pledge. The pledge, offered to each major GOP presidential candidate, included four specific measures to fight abortion.

“A candidate’s view of women and the unborn must be crystal clear to the pro-life voter, and Herman Cain’s confusing and fluid position on pro-life policy is unsettling,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the SBA List.  “When the lives of millions of the unborn are at stake, what a presidential candidate would do to advance pro-life priorities must be stated clearly and unequivocally.”

The SBA List previously touted support it received from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which authored a brief of amicus curiae last year defending SBA’s free-speech claim against Ohio Revised Code 3517.21(B), arguing that certain provisions in the statute — namely those that dictate what is “true” or “false” political speech are “unconstitutionally vague and overbroad and have the effect of chilling the Susan B. Anthony List’s right to freedom speech. … The people have an absolute right to criticize their public officials, the government should not be the arbiter of true or false speech and, in any event, the best answer for bad speech is more speech.”