Abort Healthcare Reform: Keep Abortion Out of The Health Care Bill (Call Your Reps. Say No To Tax Dollars Funding Abortion)
The Senate health-care bill, on which the House is expected to vote this weekend, opens the door to government funding of abortion. That’s the conclusion of the National Right to Life Committee, and it’s mine as well. The Senate could have adopted the Stupak-amendment language, which clearly bars abortion funding, but chose not to. There is no way to fix the bill now.
Some people are claiming that the bill, even though it lacks the Stupak language, does not fund abortion. These claims are dubious. The people making them often say, for example, that the community health centers funded by the bill do not perform abortion–but there are no reporting requirements that would allow us to know that they don’t, let alone that they won’t in the future. There are no legal restrictions on the use of the new CHC funds to pay for abortion.
As such, pro-lifers–even those pro-lifers who believe, as I do not, that this bill is otherwise a good idea–cannot in good conscience support the bill.
Nor should pro-life Democrats delude themselves that a deal is now possible. Promising a vote on a separate pro-life bill is meaningless since there is no reason to think the Senate would pass it. The only way to block abortion funding is to defeat this bill–which means that a vote for it is a vote for abortion funding.
What do you think?
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