Federal Abortion Information Depository (FAID)
Federal Abortion Information Depository (FAID)
Purpose: To assist physicians in providing full disclosure, and to provide citizens with a central clearinghouse for information regarding relevant to decisions regarding abortion.
Method: The Library of Congress would be required to establish and maintain an thoroughly indexed depository of all documents and materials which citizens believe are relevant to making an informed abortion decision. The indexing should be by author, title, and relevant subtopics. To minimize costs, the submitting individuals and organizations would be required to fill out an appropriate form for each submission which would indicate which search topics the article(with page number reference) should be cross-referenced. This search by subject, indexed bibliography should be made available as a World Wide Web site. Submitters could even be required to submit electronically filled out forms. Deliberate misrepresentation (i.e., the submitter notes that an article on breast cancer should be indexed as relevant in several hundred other subject areas) will expose the submitter to heavy fines. This approach keeps costs of personnel needed to maintain the depository very low.
Some Statutory Language: (This is drawn from our model legislation for states) The FAID shall maintain receipt-date stamped files containing at least one copy of each edition of any document submitted by outside agencies regarding:
(1) Known or claimed adverse effects of abortion;
(2) Predisposing risk factors to post-abortion sequelae.
(3) Alternative management techniques for crisis pregnancies.
(4) Any other information which would be relevant to a reasonable patient or to the standard of care offered by abortion providers.
(5) Copies of any document filed in the Federal Abortion Information Depository shall be available to public inspection.
Value: This Depository can be used to help establish the standards for full disclosure. Our state model legislation would have this same type of depository established by each state. It would be most convenient if this was done once at the federal level with funding for maintaining this WWW accessible index. It will also be an avenue for making a lot of the anti-abortion findings more readily accessible, and thus help to bypass the screening-bias of many peer reviewed medical journals which refuse to publish findings which are critical of abortion. It will become the organizing focus for a great collaborative effort by pro-lifers who trying to together the information which makes our case.
Political Implications: This is merely an information clearinghouse. It will be difficult for pro-aborts to oppose without exposing that they facts, findings, and opinions of others make them nervous; they can oppose it only if they fear that this clearinghouse will provide a voice to “politically incorrect” viewpoint. Because it is a low cost item, it would also be hard to oppose for budgetary reasons, especially since it could conceivably serve as many as 1.5 million women per year.
