Please forward this message to your e-mail lists ASAP!
Dear Friends of LifeTree,
This is an important week at the North Carolina legislature for pro-life bills! Crossover Day has been extended to Thursday, May 1st. Those bills without a direct financial impact on the state budget must be enacted in one of the chambers (House or Senate) by May 1, 2003 to have a chance of becoming law in the next two years. We sent information about several bills last month. Three of them are at a critical stage and key legislators must be contacted about them now – Ban on Assisted Suicide, Woman's Right to Know, and Extend Conscience Protection.
Our April 19 alert focused on S145 (now entitled “Assisted Suicide”) and the Senate Judiciary II Committee. This bill would ban assisted suicide. Sen. Forrester has drafted a new proposed version of the bill (“version 6”), which addresses each of the problems we highlighted in the original “Physician Assisted Suicide” bill. We know that the committee chairman and members have heard these concerns from many of you. They have responded, and the “version 6” draft of this bill deserves an expression of your support. Please contact Senator Forrester about S145 and thank him for making the changes. Please contact the Chairman and members of the Judiciary II Committee and encourage them to adopt this revised (“version 6”) language.
Another very critical bill is Abortion—Woman's Right to Know (H998). Although this bill has 61 sponsors and co-sponsors (a majority of the House), it has not yet been heard by the House Rules Committee. It is especially important that Speakers Morgan (Republican) and Black (Democrat), and Representatives Culpepper (Rules Chairman) and Brubaker be contacted about H998 and urged to give a favorable committee vote and send this bill to the floor of the House. You will recall our description of this bill in our April 9 alert. North Carolina Right To Life has also issued an Urgent Alert about this bill. Please rain down an avalanche of letters, emails and telephone calls to these members of the House in support of this bill.
Also, please look at the list of 61 sponsors and co-sponsors of H998, here. If your State Representative is not one of them, please ask him or her to pledge to support the bill (and if they do, please tell us!) If H998 becomes law it will save thousands of lives every year.
Another important bill is Refuse to Abort/Extend Conscience Protection (H962). It is also in the House Rules Committee, and this bill must meet the May 1st “Crossover” deadline. Practically speaking, that means that it must be considered by the Committee no later than this Tuesday, April 29. So, when you contact Speakers Morgan and Black, and Representative Culpepper today about the Woman's Right to Know bill, please also ask that they hear H962. It would extend conscience protection to pharmacists and other health care providers who do not wish to participate in an abortion.
The Senate companion bill is Abortion/Extend Conscience Protection (S942), which is in the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee. The two people who could decide to move this bill forward are the Co-Chairmen of that committee – Sens. Bingham and Purcell. Please call or email them today (Monday, April 28!) and ask that their committee consider S942 in time to meet Crossover.
May God bless you for helping.
Elizabeth D. Wickham, Ph.D.
Executive Director, LifeTree
LifeTree@lifetree.org.nospam (remove the ".nospam")
919-785-0855
PO Box 17301
Raleigh, NC, 27619