By Peter J. Smith
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill that allows the District of Columbia to fund abortions and legalize the consumption of marijuana for medicinal purposes, but phases out a school-voucher program designed to help lower-income class parents send their children to a school of their choice.
Despite the opposition of a coalition of pro-life Democrats and Republicans, the Financial Services Appropriations bill passed Thursday evening by a 219-208 margin. The measure allocates $768 million in federal funding for the D.C. government, but reversed a long-standing Congressional ban that prohibited the federal district from using public money to subsidize abortions for lower-income women.
The Financial Services Appropriations bill also dropped a decade-long provision that prevented the federal district from legalizing medical marijuana through the initiative process. The bill also establishes a needle-exchange program for drug-users in order to slow the spread of HIV, but slashes $50 million from the government's anti-drug media campaign, reducing its budget to $20 million.
Although lower-income families may soon have public assistance to obtain abortions, the measure eliminates by 2010 the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provided parents a voucher of $7,500 per child that gave them the freedom to send their children to the private school of their choice. The policy affected the education of 1,716 low-income students, but was opposed by teachers unions and the Obama Administration.
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