Bankruptcy Reform Legislation: Rejection of Schumer Amendment Seen as Pro-Life Victory

Catholic World News reported last week that "[p]ro-lifers scored their first major victory of the 109th Congress ... when the Senate rejected an amendment to a bankruptcy bill that would have singled out pro-life protestors. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, would have made it illegal specifically for abortion activists to use bankruptcy to protect themselves from court-ordered fines related to their activism."

As a former bankruptcy and creditors' rights attorney, I should be better informed about this bankruptcy reform bill. But I'm not. My understanding is that its purpose is to make it harder for individual debtors to walk away from unsecured debt (like credit cards) by utilizing the provisions of Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. While I generally think that it is a good thing, in principle, to hold people accountable for their debts, I hope that this bill isn't just a boon to the credit card industry at the expense of those who have fallen on hard times, often through no fault of their own. I do know that this particular bill has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress.

But the purpose of this post isn't to dwell on the nuances of the new legislation, but rather to point out just how truly vicious Chuck Schumer must be to try to use bankruptcy legislation, the purpose of which is to give its beneficiaries a second chance in life, in order to strike at his political enemies in the pro-life movement. In his career in the House and the Senate, Schumer has shown himself to be a gun-grabbing, devout-Christian-hating (especially when they are Catholic judicial nominees), abortion-loving punk. Thankfully, he was thwarted last week in his efforts to keep pro-life activists in financial ruin for the rest of their lives.