Insider Report: Recap of the Human Services Committee Hearing

Posted by Alicia Torres (March 11, 2010 at 4:03 pm)

The Barbra Flynn Currie Special–Reproductive Health and Access Act–has been served into the Springfield legislative line up and made it back to the House Floor! Everyone already knows this much—that HB 6205 is now eligible for a full vote in the House, but in case you missed my play-by-play of the committee hearing (which you can still enjoy @nunrun), I was there…and here is what really happened:

A boisterous crowd was gathered in a 4th Floor room of the Stratton Office Building in Springfield by 8 AM. When the reps finally rolled in, Naomi Jacobson (committee chairwoman) called (dis)order, and the hearing ensued.

Chief Sponsor Rep. Currie Brings the Same Old Lies

Currie was the second rep at bat, and brought up her Blue Plate-er. The roll call on the bill was extensive . . . every pro-abort org you never heard of was somehow miraculously in the room. Yet, there was a good showing from the pro-lifers, too.

Currie had her family practice physician friend from the University of Chicago  give a Deja Vu performance (essentially same script from last year for HB 2364). Then they let the opposition ‘present,’ but not until pro-life warrior Patti Bellock grilled Currie, making sure everyone knew that tax money would be used to pay for abortions. But Currie very blithely reiterated more than once that it costs us tax payers far less to pay for an abortion than for a birth—talk about disturbing!

Pro-Lifers Give Powerful Testimony

Mary-Louise Kurey of the Archdiocese of Chicago Respect Life Office gave fantastic testimony, highlighting the tremendous financial burden this bill would impose on citizens, as well as the mandated comprehensive sex education, which falls very short of being age-appropriate (lets just say, they want to teach your 5 year old to do things you would never do).

Kurey was followed by Clark Forsythe of Americans United for Life, who gave pristine legal analysis of the bill. A young woman named Julie, an abstinence educator from Illinois, brought it full circle by concisely sharing the positive impact of abstinence education, which would be severely compromised if not obliterated by HB 6205.

Rep. Patti Bellock Pulls No Punches

Patti Bellock pulled through with some more questions that continued to ruffle Currie’s feathers. Then Currie and Jacobson played their inside baseball, putting Laura from the ACLU center stage to deliver her far from Shakespearean Soliloquy on just how wrong the “opposition” was on HB 6205. There was no room for response to several of her blatant lies.

Currie huffed and puffed, and blew the vote in. With 5-2 in favor of the bill (Bellock, 47th district, and Tim Schmitz, 49th district, were opposed to the bill), HB 6205 was sent back to the House floor for a second reading and is now up for a vote. NB, Sandy Cole, our pro-abort Catholic friend from the 62nd district, was out sick that day and unable to vote, but her sentiments were represented by Elizabeth Coulson from the 17th district, who voted in favor of HB 6205.

Are we shocked? Of course not. But now is not the time to sit back! Rally your friends, family and fellow citizens to contact their reps and tell them to vote NO on HB 6205. We need the same public outcry that defeated HB 2354 last season to come back and kill this bill before it ever reaches a vote. Together, by the grace of God, we can do it!!

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