Abortion is not health care
Prolife people work to keep abortion out of health care reform legislation
Both houses of Congress are pushing toward votes on sweeping “health care reform” bills that currently contain far-reaching pro-abortion provisions. Despite public statements by President Obama that “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,” all of the major bills under consideration would put the federal government into the business of subsidizing elective abortion on a huge scale which would be a drastic break from long-standing federal policy.
The bills that are under consideration in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House are incredibly complex and confusing. The house version, HR 3200, The American Affordable Health Choices Act, has received the most scrutiny. The text of the bill is more than 1,000 pages long. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mt.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released a draft health care bill called “America’s Healthy Future Act.” The bill contains an array of pro-abortion mandates and subsidies. If you examine the fine print, you will find that both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House proposals, as written, represent the greatest threat to the sanctity of human life since Roe vs. Wade of 1973.
These bills could force every American taxpayer to fund abortion-on-demand, throughout all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever, including partial-birth abortion.
It doesn’t matter, private insurance or government-run, every single abortion in America could be covered as a “basic benefit.”
Furthermore, each bill could release subsidies to actually create and fund abortion clinics from coast to coast.
Prolife laws put in place to protect unborn children and women in all 50 states will be in jeopardy.
A conscience clause, which truly protects health care workers from being forced to engage in abortion-related activities, will be eliminated.
We would all be forced to fund abortions, no matter what our beliefs.
The President and pro-abortion members of Congress have repeatedly and vehemently denied that any of these abortion provisions exist. But why, then, have they refused to add language that would explicitly exclude abortion in all aspects of health care reform? In four congressional committees, committee chairmen and majorities rejected amendments to keep elective abortion out of the “public plan” and to prevent federal subsidies from going to private plans that cover elective abortion. Some in main-stream media are reporting the abortion realities in health care reform proposals. TIME, FactCheck and The Associated Press have come to these conclusions:
Time magazine reported on August 24, 2009, that “the health-care reform proposed by House Democrats, if enacted, would in fact mark a significant change in the Federal Government’s role in the financing of abortions.”
As the independent FactCheck.org reported in an August 21, 2009, analysis, “Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.” FactCheck.org also wrote: “Obama has said in the past that ‘reproductive services’ would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who choose the ‘public plan’ would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies.”
The Associated Press article, “Gov’t insurance would allow coverage for abortion,” printed on August 5, 2009, highlighted abortion coverage in health care reform. The article begins, “Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.”
And then there is the rationing of health care. In addition to the coverage of abortion in national health care reform proposals, concerns over the rationing of health care are real. A substantial part of health care subsidies, under current proposals, would be paid for by reducing Medicare funding for older people in order to cover the uninsured. Currently, health care reform proposals fail to provide a sustainable method of financing the subsidies. Over-promising while under-funding health insurance for the uninsured will almost surely lead to rationing.
Stay informed by visiting the Right to Life of Michigan web site, www.rtl.org. Congressional Contact information and resources can be found in the Prolife Action Center.
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