Fact-checking Focus on the Family on Ryan-DeLauro
Following yesterday’s introduction of The Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act, Focus on the Family made numerous inaccurate statements about the bill in their online publication, Citizenlink. Here’s a fact check to set the record straight.
FALSE CLAIM: “Democrats in the U.S. House have introduced a bill purportedly aimed at reducing abortions, but which would, in fact, increase funding of sex education without a major abstinence component.”
THE FACTS: The funding for sex education in the bill would go towards teen pregnancy prevention programs that emphasize abstinence. In addition to including an abstinence-emphasis and providing complete and medically and factually accurate contraception information for teens, the sex education provision in the bill encourages family communication and teaching teens about the responsibilities and pressures that come with parenthood, how to develop healthy relationships, and how to make responsible decisions. All programs must also incorporate proven strategies that delay sex, reduce teen pregnancy, reduce the number of partners of teens who are sexually active, or improve contraceptive use.
FALSE CLAIM: “The bill, the Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act, also calls for increased access to contraceptives and expanded Medicaid family-planning coverage. …’It’s about death…’”
THE FACTS: The two Medicaid provisions of the Ryan-DeLauro bill would provide contraception to low-income people, and the majority of women having abortions are classified as economically disadvantaged. This bill will help address the disparity in access to contraception that’s leading to disproportionate abortions among low-income women. The provisions would not pay for abortions. Under Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services policy, abortion “may not be claimed as a family planning service” under any circumstances. Furthermore, the bill increases Title X funding, which will widen access to contraception for low-income women. Title X currently prevents 1.94 million unintended pregnancies and 810,000 abortions per year, and has prevented 20 million unintended pregnancies and 9 million abortions over the past two decades according to the Guttmacher Institute, which is widely cited by both pro-choice and pro-life sources.
FALSE CLAIM: “[American Life League vice president Jim] Sedlak doesn’t buy the claim that the bill has support from some pro-lifers.”
THE FACTS: More than 20 pro-life leaders have offered statements of support for the bill, including megachurch pastors and other influential leaders together representing millions of people. These leaders include Rev. Joel Hunter (Senior Pastor of the 10,000-member Northland – A Church Distributed), Rev. Samuel Rodriguez (President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which represents 15 million born-again Hispanic Christians), Adam Hamilton (Senior Pastor of the 13,000-member Church of the Ressurection), Dr. William Shaw (president, National Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest African-American denomination), and Vivian Berryhill (president of the National Coalition of Pastors’ Spouses, which represents 2,500 pastors’ wives). Even the immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Frank Page (Pastor, Taylors First Baptist Church, Taylors, SC) has issued a statement of tentative support. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Sojourners are also both pro-life organizations that support this legislation.
FALSE CLAIM: “[T]he bill’s mention of adoption promotion is simply the other side ‘throwing us a bone.’”
THE FACTS: The bill includes substantial support for adoption, including grants to establish national information campaigns to educate the public about adoption, including foster care adoption, that promote accurate and positive information and messages on adoption and the benefits it can bring to children and families. The bill will also increase the adoption tax credit from $10,000 to $15,000 for all children and makes the credit refundable.
Special thanks to Third Way for their expertise and comprehensive fact sheets on the Ryan-DeLauro bill.