Hmmm, let’s see. Sun rises in the east; winter colder than summer; Washington, DC is closer to Baltimore, Maryland than to Hong Kong—certainties whose givenness is rivaled only by the sure knowledge that President Obama would threaten to veto H. R. 7—the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act set to be voted on in the House of Representatives today.
But, a friend of the President might respond, there is no need for H.R. 7! Didn’t Mr. Obama, going all the way back to March 2010, assure the American people that “The Act [ObamaCare] maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges”?
Yup, he did. But, as Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) pointed out, this is flatly not true. Wasn’t true nearly four years ago and is even more demonstrable false today.
The President and his allies in the House and Senate want the discussion to veer off onto number of rabbit trails by insisting that H.R. 7 does things that it plainly does not. We focus on what the legislation actually does.
HR. 7 would codify the principles of the Hyde Amendment on a permanent, government-wide basis, with respect both to longstanding federal health programs and to the new programs created by the Obamacare law.
A lot is at stake. As NRLC wrote in a letter to the House, “A Member’s vote on H.R. 7 will essentially define his or her position, for or against federal funding of abortion, for the foreseeable future.”
By Dave Andrusko, National Right to Life
