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Related Pages
Ending Abortion
How You Can Help in Any of
a Number of Ways
Contact Your Elected
Officials
Finding Out What the Key Issues Are
See Key Federal Issues at CatholicAnew
See Key Federal Issues at National Right to
Life
Some Important Federal Issues Aren't Listed as Current at All Pro-life
Legislation Sites
Find Key Issues in Your State
See Key Federal Issues at CatholicAnew
Sample Letters on Current
Issues
http://www.catholicanew.com/abortion-action-gov-pt-main.htm
Summaries of current issues and sample letters to help you contact your elected
officials about them.
See Key Federal Issues at National Right to Life
Legislative Action
Center
http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/home/
To see the key issues listed at the Legislative Action Center of National
Right to Life, do the following:
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Start at the Legislative Action Center (link above);
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Click on the Issues and Legislation tab, and see a list of current
legislation, key legislation previously introduced by the House, and
key legislation previously introduced by the Senate;
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Click on the Current Legislation link, and see current key bills in
Congress organized into the following categories: Abortion; Human embryos
(includes human cloning); Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide; Free speech about
politicians; Adoption; and Abortion Alternatives;
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Notice that, in the right column, you can see whether NRLC supports or opposes
each piece of legislation;
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Click on the link for a piece of legislation, for example, the "Freedom
of Choice Act," and see a brief summary of it;
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At the bottom of the About this Legislation portion of the summary
of a bill, there may or may not be a link to more information about the bill,
which could help you formulate your message to elected officials. For example,
if you clicked on the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA), at the bottom of the
About this Legislation portion of the summary, click on the
here link. In this example, then see the letter to Congress.
Who to Contact
Contact Information
Some Important Federal Issues Aren't Listed
as Current at All Pro-life Legislation Sites
It appears that legislative-action areas of different pro-life sites have
different ways of treating issues. There may be several reasons for this.
Some organizations may focus on certain pieces of legislation. Others, for
other reasons, may not aim to present a comprehensive list of current
legislation. Some organizations add new bills to their site more quickly
than others do. Also, when bills that don't pass by the end of a Congress
expire, some organizations immediately remove those bills from their list
of current issues, listing only bills that have been introduced or reintroduced
in the new Congress.
Case in point is FOCA, the so-called Freedom of Choice Act. With the start
of the new Congress, National Right to Life's (Capwiz) Legislative Action
was tidied up, and it no longer lists FOCA under "Current Issues." However,
FOCA is a crucial current issue: during his campaign, the then senator Obama
promised Planned Parenthood that the first thing he'd do as president is
sign the "Freedom of Choice Act," and the act would greatly increase the
number of abortions. Even though FOCA isn't listed in NRLC's Capwiz area,
NRLC certainly continues to work hard to fight FOCA and has extensive resources
regarding it in the other areas of its site.
Find Key Issues in Your State
Your state legislature may be considering legislation about which your
communication to
your state senator,
House representative, and governor, and possibly others could make a
difference. To find out, do the following:
-
See if you can find information regarding current legislation at
the pro-life organization
in your state; if you can't find any there, contact them and ask them
where to go to see current life-related legislation in your state;
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Even if the pro-life organization in your state lists some current legislation,
they may not yet list the most recent legislation. To check for new legislation,
check the State News and Issues area of LifeNews.com at
http://lifenews.com/statenews.html
Skim for headlines about bills and other legislation. See, for example,
the headline there for
Minnesota Legislature Sees
Introduction of FOCA-Type Bill Promoting Abortions;
You might also to do a Google search
for "current pro-life legislation NameOfYourState" (try the search with and
without quotation marks);
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Once you know the name or number of a piece of current legislation, go to
your state legislature's web site by doing the following:
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Go to the State Legislatures Internet Links (Web Sites) page
of the National Conference of State Legislatures at
http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm
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Select your state in the first menu, and select Bills in the second
menu;
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Click on the Get Legislature Links button;
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At your state legislature's site, look for a search utility with which you
can search for the piece of legislation by number, name, topic, or other.
Try searching by different criteria if your first attempts don't produce
the legislation. Contact the site if you need help finding the search utility
or the legislation (Note: a keyword search, if available, may search only
the bill title and description and not the full text of the bill);
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Once you find the legislation, see its text and authors.
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If you want a simpler explanation of the legislation or more information
about it, do a Google search for it.
If you know both the name and number of the legislation, enter both into
the Google search. If you know only the name or the number, also enter the
name of your state into the Google search.
If you live in Minnesota, see the
Minnesota area at CatholicAnew.
Who to Contact
Contact Information
Related Pages
Ending Abortion
How You Can Help in Any of
a Number of Ways
Contact Your Elected
Officials
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