Colorado Right To Life Kicked Out of National RTL
Two Days After Dr. James Dobson Concedes
"Ending partial-birth abortion… does not save a single human life."
 
Today in Kansas City Missouri, National Right to Life's board voted to disenfranchise a state chapter, Colorado Right To Life, from the umbrella organization. Two days ago, Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, admitted in a mass email that, "Ending partial-birth abortion… does not save a single human life." An unusually-public feud erupted within the movement after CRLT co-signed a series of open letters to Dr. James Dobson exposing that the Gonzales v Carhart U.S. Supreme Court ruling on partial-birth abortion (PBA) is not even a hollow victory for anti-abortionists.
 
An Open Letter published in the Colorado Springs Telegraph Gazette on May 23 began a barrage of criticism leveled at National Right To Life, Focus on the Family, and other industry groups for fraudulent fundraising in support of the PBA ban. WorldNetDaily.com (WND), a conservative, editorially pro-life online news outlet reported on June 7, " the fact that the legal [PBA] ruling, itself, does not and cannot be used to proscribe [prohibit] a single abortion ." Another concession to the Open Letter coalition came from the Thomas More Society's Pro-Life Law Center. The partial-birth abortion ban is " not going to stop any abortions as such," said TMS counsel Paul Linton who authored briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in support of the PBA ban, "They're still going to take place by other means."
 
Dr. Dobson released his June 2007 Action e-mail on Monday, and on Tuesday, a National RTL committee voted to remove state affiliation from its Colorado Right To Life chapter, CRTL being one of the pro-life organizations which has broken ranks with the movement's larger groups and is exposing the PBA fundraising irregularities.
 
Now that the 15-year battle to outlaw partial-birth abortion has ended with a ban and a ruling that have no authority to save a single life, CRTL's public rebuke is leading to frequent pro-life industry concessions such as in this Washington Post excerpt: "Chuck Donovan, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, a Washington advocacy group allied with Dobson, said... "there are certainly a fair number of people, including in our own building, who think… that, practically, there may not be even one fewer abortion in the country as a result." And according to WND, " the ban on partial-birth abortion is meaningless as it relates to the actual killing of unborn children," if the assessment of Life Dynamics' Mark Crutcher is correct. "In the final analysis… [the PBA ban's] practical implications for the unborn are zero," said Crutcher.
 
"We will tell the truth that National Right To Life doesn't want told," said Brian Rohrbough, president of Colorado Right To Life, "that NRTL advocates a strategy of child-killing regulations that undermine personhood and distract from the real battle." And Leslie Hanks, V.P. of Colorado Right To Life added, "As a fundraiser, partial-birth abortion has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, but as a way to save lives, it has no authority to save a single child." Discussions of new affiliation are underway between CRTL and another principled pro-life organization fighting for the personhood of the pre-born.