{"id":574,"date":"2008-12-17T15:09:30","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T15:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html"},"modified":"2008-12-17T15:09:30","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T15:09:30","slug":"the-nonfight-over-the-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html","title":{"rendered":"The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The religious conservative and pro-life groups have made blocking the Freedom of Choice Act one of their top priorities.   FOCA, as its called, would potentially overturn state laws restricting abortion, and Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood during the campaign that he would sign the law.<br \/>\nApparently, the pro-life groups can declare victory already.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB122947155578512197.html\">According to the Wall Street Journal, women&#8217;s groups submitted a list of top 15 priorities &#8212; and the Freedom of Choice Act wasn&#8217;t on the list.<\/a>  Given that supporters don&#8217;t have the votes, and the law would alienate Obama&#8217;s pro-life liberal supporters, it&#8217;s extremely unlikely that Obama is going to put any muscle behind this right now.    In all likelihood, FOCA is dead for the foreseeable future.<br \/>\nThat won&#8217;t necessarily stop pro-life groups from campaigning against it. Sometimes groups oppose ideas less because they have to and more because it&#8217;s an issue that revs up their constituents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The religious conservative and pro-life groups have made blocking the Freedom of Choice Act one of their top priorities. FOCA, as its called, would potentially overturn state laws restricting abortion, and Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood during the campaign that he would sign the law. Apparently, the pro-life groups can declare victory already. According to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The religious conservative and pro-life groups have made blocking the Freedom of Choice Act one of their top priorities. FOCA, as its called, would potentially overturn state laws restricting abortion, and Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood during the campaign that he would sign the law. Apparently, the pro-life groups can declare victory already. According to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-17T15:09:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act - Steven Waldman","og_description":"The religious conservative and pro-life groups have made blocking the Freedom of Choice Act one of their top priorities. FOCA, as its called, would potentially overturn state laws restricting abortion, and Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood during the campaign that he would sign the law. Apparently, the pro-life groups can declare victory already. According to&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-12-17T15:09:30+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html","name":"The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-17T15:09:30+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-17T15:09:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/the-nonfight-over-the-freedom.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Non-Fight Over The Freedom of Choice Act"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}