Davis bill to reduce abortions to return Democrat hopes to appeal to both sides
By Bill Theobald
Tennessean Washington Bureau
December 7, 2006

WASHINGTON - When the new Congress convenes next year, Lincoln Davis is hoping to accomplish something thought by many to be impossible: pass legislation to reduce abortions that abortion opponents and abortion rights activists both can support.

The Pall Mall Democrat plans to reintroduce legislation filed this fall that provides funding for a cafeteria of support programs intended to make it easier for pregnant women, especially poor women, to keep their children and in the process reduce the estimated 1.3 million abortions each year in the United States. These include increased access to health care, nutrition assistance, help to allow new mothers to attend college and more funding for child-care programs.

"It gives both sides a chance to join legislation that could reduce abortion" substantially, Davis said. He has four Republican co-sponsors.

No exact cost estimates are available for his bill, but it would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Davis' proposal is one of two that were largely lost in the pre-election hoopla. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, filed a similar bill, but one that would provide more funding for contraception and other family planning programs.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which op-poses artificial contraception, prefers Davis' approach. So does the National Right to Life committee, which sees ulterior motives in Ryan's legislation.

"We don't want the federal government further subsidizing the infrastructure and propaganda efforts of the abortion industry," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life.

Ryan's bill, Johnson said, would funnel "hundreds of millions of dollars" to Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute, which does research on sexual and reproductive health.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood and Guttmacher counter that, without additional resources for preventing pregnancies, the Davis bill will not reduce abortions.

Jeff Teague, president of Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee, said that "affordable, low-cost, easily accessible birth control" would do far more to reduce the number of abortions.