By Dave Andrusko

How does the saying go? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But what should the response be if you’ve tried to fool me 50 times?

Of course I am talking about the assurances from the Obama Administration that run like rivers of water in spring time. Knowledgeable pro-lifers have never been snookered by the most pro-abortion President in our history, but not everyone keeps as close tabs as we do.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

We know that Americans are being told with increasing levels of certitude (as George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s This Week characterized the remarks of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius yesterday) “that no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” Our job is to puncture the myths as soon as crop up.

Given what’s gone before; given whom Obama hangs with; given what assurances he has given to the Abortion Lobby; and given the convoluted-split-hairs-to-hide-the-truth way Obama and the pro-abortion Congressional Democrat leadership have operated on health care “reform,” why would anyone not on the Obama payroll put an ounce of credibility into Secretary Sebelius’s assurances? Before documenting the history of misdirection and falsehoods, let’s briefly parse what was said on “This Week.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Sebelius, what's wrong with that, making it explicit in the bill that no public funding should go toward abortions?

SEBELIUS: Well, I think that's what the president intends to do.

“Think” and “intends”—not exactly cast-iron assurances. A moment later….

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you're saying it will go beyond what we have seen so far in the House and explicitly rule out any public funding for abortion?

SEBELIUS: Well, that's exactly what the president said and I think that's what he intends. That the bill he signs will do.

Actually, that is not what the President said, a point of clarification that cannot be made too often. However, having mischaracterized what Obama said, then she is free to say, “I think that’s what he intends.”

If you go to http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/Advisory090809.html, you’ll find a wonderful analysis under the headline, “National Right to Life on the health care debate: On government-funded abortion, Obama has duped the news media with head fakes and doubletalk." I will reproduce just two points, but please read the analysis in its entirety.
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#1. As amended by the House Energy and Commerce Committee with the Capps Amendment (or Capps-Waxman Amendment) on July 30, the House health care bill (H.R. 3200) would explicitly authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to pay for elective abortion under the government-run insurance plan (the "public option"). As FactCheck.org concluded in its August 21 analysis titled "Abortion: Which Side is Fabricating?," "Obama has said in the past that 'reproductive services' would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that." The abortion coverage would not be optional; no person would be allowed to enroll in the public option without contributing to the abortion fund.”

#2. Since July 30, the White House, dozens of congressional Democrats, and many news media "factcheckers" have publicly asserted that the Capps Amendment provides that the "public option" may not spend "federal funds" on elective abortion, but only "private funds." … Yet, the claim that a federal agency would be paying for a service with "private funds" is beyond misleading -- it is absurd on its face. The public plan would be an arm of the federal Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), part of the federal Executive Branch. Once the agency collects "premiums" from enrollees, they would be as much "federal funds" and "public funds" as any funds collected by the IRS.
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Always keep in mind what then-candidate Obama said to the political arm of Planned Parenthood in 2007: that funding for "reproductive care," including abortion, would be "at the heart" of your health-care plan, and that the "public plan" would cover such services. He is joined at the hip to the Abortion Establishment to which he has promised the sun and the moon.

You would have to be willfully blind not to see that President Obama will support legislation that would represent drastic breaks with decades of federal policy against funding abortions in government-subsidized health programs.

Part One