Healthcare reform: Opposition forms
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- President Barack Obama's push for health care reform could be the worst thing for the pro-life cause since Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationwide, said individuals and groups that oppose abortion.
The three health care reform bills currently in Congress do not specifically mention abortion. But legal precedent proves abortions could be covered by federal tax money unless excluded in legislation, pro-life members of Congress said. Legislation also could mandate abortion coverage for most insurance plans.
The Obama administration has not ruled out the possibility of publicly funded abortions, said Peter Orszag, White House budget director, on "Fox News Sunday" July 19.
"We would be very naive and foolish in the extreme if we didn't notice the game that's being played here," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus for 27 years. "It's Orwellian."
Obama would be misleading Americans and Pope Benedict XVI in promising to reduce the number of abortions if language excluding abortions is not added to the legislation, said Smith, a Catholic.
Thousands of abortion facilities could spring up as a result of the legislation, and funding could cause an increase in abortions because lack of money would be one less barrier in a woman's decision, Smith told Catholic News Service July 20.
"It makes a quicker abortion that much more possible because she's at a moment of vulnerability," he said.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also weighed in on the issue.
"No health care reform plan should compel us or others to pay for the destruction of human life, whether through government funding or mandatory coverage of abortion," wrote Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, in a July 17 letter to Congress. A copy of the letter was released by the USCCB July 21.
"Any such action would be morally wrong. It also would be politically unwise. No health care legislation that compels Americans to pay for or participate in abortion will find sufficient votes to pass," the bishop said.
A May Gallup Poll found that a majority of Americans are calling themselves pro-life for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1995.
Before the 1976 passage of the Hyde amendment, which prevents Medicaid from spending federal money on most abortions, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that abortion is covered under Medicaid because it fit in such mandatory care categories as "family planning" and "outpatient services," said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America.
Before Hyde, Medicaid funded as many as 300,000 abortions annually. Now, 46 percent of health care plans cover abortion.
The Hyde amendment would not apply to the affordability credits -- proposed as part of health care reform -- which would be given to people who earn up to 400 percent of the poverty level to help them buy health insurance, because the credits would be separate from Medicaid, Day said.
"If you don't specifically say abortion won't be funded, it will be," Day told CNS. Nineteen Democrats in the U.S. House appealed to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to exclude abortion from the health reform plan in a June 25 letter.
Those who support keeping abortion legal said abortion and reproductive health should not be treated differently from other health care.
Reproductive care includes abortion, said Marjorie Signer, spokeswoman for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which has about 36 member organizations. Individual denominations in the coalition may have separate stances on health reform, but the coalition as a whole would support publicly funded abortions as long as doctors are not forced to provide procedures.
"Both an objecting provider and a requesting individual have rights and responsibilities," Signer said. "The word here is respect. The word is not force."
Seventeen states use state funds to provide all or most medically necessary abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive health advocacy group.
According to a July 20 Wall Street Journal story, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., a Catholic, said he was working on compromise language to allay fears that health care reform measures would allow federal funding of abortion. Such wording could be voted on by July 24.
By Angela Cave
Catholic News Service
