Dear U.S. Senators, members of Congress, American and global leaders, and anyone who really cares about women. . . .
If you agree with us when we say that the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act has been held hostage too long, please keep reading. We are writing, though, not to urge you to compromise on the bill’s language upholding taxpayer conscience rights through the Hyde amendment — far from it. We respectfully call on you to be more vocal in explaining to the American people that money for abortion should have no place in this legislation.
If you are on the side of the women, men, teens, and children who have been made slaves to ruthless individuals, you are actually on the side of the American public, two-thirds of whom tell pollsters that they oppose public funding for abortion. And you are on the side of the babies who are slaughtered by the greatest civil rights violation of our day, abortion.
The senators who are blocking the anti-trafficking bill are hearing the voices of the abortion lobby — and women, mothers and their babies are being hurt. Abortion is a bad product.
By refusing to allow a vote on this measure, even a debate, the U.S. Senate is being held hostage (willing or not) slaves to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and Emily’s List. They and pro-abortion politicians have procured for Planned Parenthood alone $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds over a three-year period according to a new GAO report. Their masters are now demanding more money and will sacrifice aid to the oppressed to get it. They should all be ashamed.
We encourage you, therefore, to stay strong in your defense of life, born and unborn. The frightened runaway snared by the web of trafficking; the victim of rape and incest; she deserves protection, not a coupon for the destruction of the one other innocent victim in her nightmare of human atrocities. Her baby, as innocent and fully human as any wanted child conceived in a loving marriage, is equally deserving of protection.
As we approach Passion Week, we are reminded of he who came to set the captives free. As the debate on the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act resumes in April, we ask you to remember that to direct a young woman from one destroyer of life, her sexually abusing trafficker, to another, an abortionist, does not set her free. It does not show her love.
Those who are seeking to overturn decades of Hyde Amendment protections — protections not just for taxpayers, but also for babies and their mothers — cannot win. If they do, victims lose, life is devalued, and our society grows that much more hard-hearted.
Please speak on the Senate floor, if possible. Shout from the rooftops, if necessary. Abortion does not solve the problems of trafficking, rape or incest. Abortion hurts the mothers, kills the babies and gives the perpetrators permission to traffic again, to rape again, to commit incest again.
On the other hand, our compassion offers life, not death. Let the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act offer life.
Sincerely,
The voices crying out for the voiceless.
Dr. Alveda C. King grew up in the civil rights movement led by her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She is a pastoral associate and director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries. Her family home in Birmingham, Ala., was bombed, as was her father’s church office in Louisville, Ky. Alveda herself was jailed during the open housing movement. Read more reports from Dr. Alveda C. King