For his Irish friends, Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) is a “shining light.” His Irish friends are the anti-abortion activists of Ireland’s Pro Life Campaign, who have announced Smith as speaker for their conference in Dublin this Saturday, as reported by Right Wing Watch.
Ireland stands out in Western Europe as one of very few countries to criminalize abortion – its hesitation to lift abortion bans often attributed to its strong Catholic heritage. Pro-life politics are even to be found in the nation’s constitution, where the Eighth Amendment states that the life of an unborn child is equal to the mother. Abortions in Ireland are only legal if the mother’s life is in danger. In cases of rape, incest, or fatal fetal abnormalities, where the child would not survive outside the womb, terminating pregnancies is a crime and the woman might face up to 14 years in prison. For this reason, thousands of Irish women are forced to travel abroad to have abortions every year.
It is barely surprising that Chris Smith, called “the House’s most vocal opponent of abortion rights” by The Hill, would like Ireland’s tough stance on abortions. Smith once condemned the Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade that led to legalizing abortion as “infamous, reckless and inhumane.”
The Republican, who has chaired the Congressional Pro-life Caucus for 32 years, faced public scrutiny for a journey similar to his Ireland trip four years ago. In 2011, he traveled to Kenya. The African country had enacted a new constitution, allowing for abortions when the mother’s health is at risk. Despite the fact that Kenya’s abortion laws are far more restrictive than the U.S. regulations, Smith slammed the constitutional exception. Smith’s trip was taxpayer-funded, with House records indicating it might have cost over 8,000 dollars.
The Kenyan constitution that Smith railed against had been approved by 67 percent of voters. Nevertheless, he took his anti-choice fight to the African nation, where 2,600 women each year die due to complications after unsafe abortions.
In 2005, Rep. Smith wrote a letter to the Ethiopian Embassy criticizing the country’s decision to decriminalize abortion.
Back in the United States, Smith and his allies introduced the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” Among other controversial provisions, the bill would force Internal Revenue Service agents to ask ‘intrusive’ questions during audits regarding abortions. For example, a woman who used tax benefits to pay for an abortion would have to prove she was a rape/incest victim or her life was in danger to qualify for the benefits under the Hyde amendment – which bans federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or risk to the mother’s life.
Despite his obscure, globalized pro-life crusade, Representative Smith has managed to stay out of the spotlight. Perhaps it’s time to ask him a few uncomfortable questions. We should ask about his support for Ireland’s abortion laws, for example, which have been harshly criticized by a UN Committee as serious human rights violation. We should ask about his taxpayer-funded trip to undermine reproductive rights in Kenya. But especially, we should examine his plan to make the IRS police abortions here in the United States.
