Bill Asks President Bush to Boycott Beijing Olympics

Pro-lifers hope for bipartisan opposition to China's forced abortion policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) - The Communist Chinese Olympic Accountability Act, introduced on Tuesday, if passed would forbid federal government officials and employees, including President George W. Bush, from attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, in protest against the nation's disregard for human dignity, such as its one-child policy.

Republican Thaddeus McCotter introduced the bill opposing US political representation at the Olympic opening ceremonies, "based upon communist China brutalizing protesters in Tibet, supporting and enabling Sudan's genocidal regime, forcing a one child policy upon Chinese families, persecuting Chinese citizens for freely exercising religion, repressing free and independent labor unions, engaging in wanton environmental degradation, and systematically denying the Chinese people their basic freedoms."

"We are not talking about athletes, who are going in the spirit of competition of the games, but we don't need politicians going because politicians, unlike athletes, send political messages," McCotter explained.

"President Franklin Roosevelt did not attend the 1936 Berlin Olympics; and President Bush should not attend the Beijing Olympics. In the grand sweep of history, President Bush's attendance at these games will be an unwelcome and unnecessary stain upon his legacy as a champion of human liberty."

"The Chinese government has a brutal history of forcing women to abort their babies. Everyone from both sides of the aisle can agree that this barbaric practice must end. It's horrific that any country would allow abortion at all, but forcing abortions falls to another level of evil," stated Andrew Flusche, staff attorney for American Life League.

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the Chinese one child policy in 1979 as a "temporary measure." This past March, however, nearly three decades later, the Chinese government indicated that the policy would remain in effect over the next decade.

Under the policy, many Chinese women pregnant with a second child face fines, forced sterilization, or forced abortion from the government.

While President Bush currently plans to attend the opening Olympic ceremonies in August, Flusche contends that "a truly pro-life President would do nothing that would ever lend a shred of support to abortion."

Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has given cautious support to the idea of boycotting the opening ceremony."I think boycotting the opening ceremony, which really gives respect to the Chinese government, is something that should be kept on the table," she said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already decided not to appear at the summer opening ceremonies.

"China's strangulation of Tibet is only an extension of the suffocation of liberty in China itself. Should the Olympics go off as planned, China will rightly conclude that the world has made its peace with Beijing's oppression, and is indifferent to whether the Olympic rings are used as shackles. A modified boycott would expose that as a lie," wrote Fr. Raymond J. De Souza in the National Post, encouraging Canadian officials to boycott the Olympic Games.

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