One of the raging controversies in the 2010 election was a simple question about a profound issue: Is abortion covered in the health care reform law or not? "No," say the president and the congressional Democrats. "Yes," says the collective pro-life community, including ourselves.
More importantly, "Yes," said a majority of voters in the districts of pro-life Democrats who pledged themselves to vote against any bill that paid for abortions. In the end, they gave in to pressure from their leader, Nancy Pelosi, and the toll on them was high. These were the "Stupak 20," but now only nine remain. Their leader, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, didn't even bother to run for re-election. One didn't survive his primary. The others lost on Nov. 2.
During his State of the Union message on Jan. 27, 2010, the president looked the nation in the eye and said that in the health care bill, no federal dollars would be used to pay for abortion. On March 24, he signed an executive order to declare the same, because the pro-life members of the president's own party weren't buying what he had said, and without their votes the bill would die.
About that executive order, let me quote one of the ablest pro-life analysts in D.C. — Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC): "It has the appearance of having been very carefully crafted to provide … political cover for certain members of Congress. …" Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, called the order "a symbolic gesture." It had no teeth.
The bill (now the law) does cover abortion. And it does so in four ways:
1. Through so-called "high-risk" insurance plans operated by the states. The feds quickly approved three such plans over the summer, from Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Maryland. All of them included abortion coverage, until the NRLC pointed this out publicly. When the whistle blew, the administration quickly stripped out the abortion funding.
By the way, when the White House removed the coverage, the American Civil Liberties Union objected, saying, "…There is nothing in the (health care) law that requires … this broad and highly restrictive abortion ban." (For once, we agree with the ACLU.)
2. Through private health insurance plans that are subsidized with tax money to make them more affordable. People who sign up for these must write two checks — one for the premium, and another that goes into a special pool to cover abortions. Why two checks? It's a cosmetic cover-up to allow the president to say what he did in his State of the Union speech. Even if you oppose abortion, you still must write that second check.
3. Through direct subsidies to Community Health Centers around the country. In this $7 billion slice of the law, there are no prohibitions against abortion coverage in the range of health services to be offered.
4. In the multi-state plans to be offered by private companies and regulated by the federal government. There must be at least one plan that does not cover abortions. So what about the other plans? You take a guess.
We had hoped that pro-life Democrats could have resisted the terrific pressure that was applied to them by the Democratic leaders who badly needed abortion in the bill in order to appease the pro-aborts in their political base. In order to do that, lawmakers had to pretend that abortion was not covered, because a clear majority of the country does not want abortion paid by tax dollars — no matter their personal opinion about the issue.
The election shows that the political cover-up has largely failed, thanks to the Susan B. Anthony List, NRLC, FRC Action and CitizenLink, all of which helped expose the ruse. When the Republican leaders take control in January, we pray they will acquit themselves in much better fashion, and we have high hopes they will.
Contact: Tom Minnery
Source: CitizenLink
Publish Date: November 24, 2010
