President Barack Obama will participate in a conference call Wednesday, Aug. 19, to promote his health-care agenda.
Organized by Faith in Public Life, it includes several groups that belong to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). The RCRC's stand on health-care reform includes the inclusion of "reproductive health services," a code word for abortion.
Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, said on a Monday conference call that his group's mission is to keep health-care reform alive as a "moral" issue.
"The key thing is we don't want abortion to enter this debate and sabotage health-care reform," he said. "Neither side should try to win political gains on abortion during the health-care debate."
Wallis said the goal is abortion neutrality, which he defined as "not changing federal law with regard to abortion."
But, as pro-life groups have pointed out, the House bill, H.R. 3200, establishes a federal health plan that does not exclude abortions. Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said abortionists would send their bills for services to the federal government for payment.
"The actual provisions of the legislation being backed by the White House and promoted by Wallis and his allies," he said in an e-mail, "is about as far from neutrality on abortion as you can get. If you wanted to sign up with the public plan, you would have no choice except to buy an abortion-on-demand policy."
Ashley Horne, federal issues analyst for Focus on the Family Action said it's a good example of the fox watching the hen house.
"Pro-abortion supporters like President Obama and religious leaders meeting to discuss so-called abortion neutrality in the health-care bill?" she questioned. "They know that the only acceptable strategy is to specifically exclude taxpayer funding of abortions in the language of the bill. Period."
Contact: Kim Trobee
Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: August 12, 2009
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