Richmond, Va., Jul 7, 2010 / 04:13 am
“Countless hours” of behind-the-scenes advocacy helped add significant restrictions on abortion funding to the Virginia budget, the director of the Virginia Catholic Conference (VCC) has explained. Recounting how years of work finally succeeded, he said the participation of involved Catholics made “the critical difference.”
In an account posted on the blog of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, VCC head Jeff Caruso noted that the Conference has pushed for restrictions on abortion since its inception in 2005. Its figures showed that Virginian taxpayers have been paying for more than 100 abortions per year.
“Promotion of laws that uphold the sanctity of life is an important part of the pro-life work of Catholic Virginians,” Caruso noted, saying that this includes outreach to women in crisis pregnancies and post-abortion outreach.
Members of the VCC’s e-mail advocacy network “consistently” voiced their opposition to paying for abortions in “hundreds” of e-mails to their delegates and state senators, he recalled. However, in each General Assembly session the House of Delegates would approve abortion-funding restrictions but these would be rejected by “a few Senate leaders” during final budget negotiations.