Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
To get anything done in the U.S. Congress, with issues split up the middle, one has to compromise.
Democrats opposed a bill that would require criminals convicted of sex slavery, human smuggling, and sexually exploiting children to pay higher penalties, and the money would be used to help the victims.
Republicans stipulated that none of the funds could be used to kill unborn babies. Liberal lawmakers stalled, and the Senate voted to end debate.
The Washington Examiner reported that the two sides “struck a deal” on the bill. The victims’ fund includes private and federal money. The Republicans will allow the use of the private funding — the convicted traffickers’ penalty — to kill babies, and not the federal funding. In exchange, Republicans will push through “speedy” consideration of Loretta Lynch as Attorney General…if the Democrats agree not to filibuster the bill. An excerpt:
According to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, the money has been split so that restrictions on abortion do not apply to fees collected for the victims, which Democrats said constituted an expansion of abortion limitations. The segregated fund would pay for law enforcement services and shelters, not medical services.
Money for medical services for the victims would be fenced off in a fund furnished by taxpayer money. Federal restrictions on abortion funding would apply to that fund.
“This is a way to eliminate extraneous provision and still keep the spirit of this bill,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a main negotiator, said when the deal was announced.
So the victims’ money will be divided into “private” and “government,” and disbursed accordingly. Who really wins? Certainly not the aborted babies. Federal law permits taxpayer funds to be used to abort babies in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.
