Mirroring Hyde or Mirroring the Hidden Pro-Abortion Agenda?
Part One of Three

By Dave Andrusko

Part Two is an encouragement to use Social Networking to get the word out about TN&V. Part Three is a sobering look at the assisted suicide debate in the United Kingdom. Please send your comments on any or all of the three parts to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like, follow me on http://twitter.com/daveha.

Yesterday NRLC eloquently responded to the pro-abortion language in the health care "reform" bill offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In a word--actually two words--it was "completely unacceptable." I've reproduced the statement below and will tack on a couple of comments after that.
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National Right to Life Committee Rejects Reid Abortion Funding Language as
"Completely Unacceptable," Calls for Enactment of Stupak-Pitts Amendment

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Ca.), who has a 100% pro-abortion voting record, said in a press release following release of the Reid language: "It appears that their approach closely mirrors my language which was originally included in the House bill." The Capps language referred to was opposed by NRLC and other pro-life organizations and was deleted by the House by a vote of 240-194 on November 7, as 64 Democrats (one fourth of all House Democrats), along with 176 Republicans, voted to replace it with the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment would prevent federal subsidies for abortion by applying the principles of longstanding federal laws such as the Hyde Amendment to the new programs created by the health care legislation. Those principles prohibit both direct funding of abortion procedures, and subsidies for plans that cover elective abortions, in existing federal programs such as Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and the military.

Regrettably but predictably, Reid rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts language. Instead, Reid has sought to please the militant minority that demands funding of abortion through federal programs, even though substantial majorities of Americans believe that abortion should be excluded from government-funded and government-sponsored health programs.

The Reid bill establishes a big new federal health insurance program, the public option (although now referred to in Reid's bill as the "community health insurance option"). The bill authorizes (on page 118) the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions throughout the public option program. This would be federal government funding of abortion, no matter how hard they try to disguise it.

In addition, the bill creates new tax-supported subsidies to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand.

National Right to Life will continue to fight for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, and to oppose the stubborn attempts of congressional Democratic leaders to establish new federal government programs that will fund coverage of elective abortions.

For extensive further documentation on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and other aspects of the issue, visit the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org/ahc.
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Congresswoman Capps, as noted above, said that the approach of the Reid language "closely mirrors my language which was originally included in the House bill." NRLC has explained, on numerous occasions, why the Capps language was completely unacceptable. Fortunately, it was deleted when the House adopted the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, but, unfortunately, it's been disinterred and put back in the Senate bill promoted by Majority Leader Reid.

Just as Reid's language mirrors Capp's pro-abortion language, Stupak-Pitts mirrors the pro-life language of the Hyde Amendment. Don't take my word for it. Gerald Seib, of the Wall Street Journal, noted last Friday that "The Hyde Amendment's language is reproduced almost precisely in the Stupak amendment."

In genuinely extending the principles of the Hyde Amendment that govern all of the current federal health programs, the Stupak-Pitts amendment maintains longstanding federal policy. Disingenuously the Capps' language would insert the federal government into the abortion-funding business in two very big ways, both of which would mark sharp breaks from longstanding federal policy (see above).

In so doing, Capps' proposed House bill language--and now the language in Reid's Senate bill–are doing exactly what pro-abortion President Barack Obama told ABC's Jake Tapper last week shouldn't be done–"in some way sneaking in funding for abortions…"

Please send your thoughts and comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two
Part Three