Many
details of the legislation have not yet been
determined. But this much is clear:
President Obama, with the help of some of
the most powerful Democrats in Congress,
will attempt to use "health care reform" as
a vehicle to impose sweeping pro-abortion
mandates on the American health-care
delivery system.
"The
pro-abortion movement sees federal 'health
care reform' legislation as a golden
opportunity to force-feed abortion into
every nook and cranny of the health-care
delivery system," explained NRLC Federal
Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.
"Their goal, as they sometimes put it, is to
'mainstream' abortion. They hope to
use the structure of a federal health-care
law to make abortion on demand accessible in
every region of every state, paid for by
taxes and by government-mandated private
insurance premiums."
Johnson
warned, "If these people succeed, the result
will be a very large increase in the number
of abortions performed in
America."
President
Obama's Position
Throughout
his political career as an
Illinois state senator and as a U.S.
senator, Barack Obama was a strong supporter
of the entire agenda of the pro-abortion
lobby. He led the opposition even to bills
that won support from many other
pro-abortion lawmakers, such as the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the
Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. He
consistently opposed any limitations on
government funding of abortion on demand.
On
July 17, 2007, during Obama's campaign for
the Democratic presidential nomination, he
appeared before the annual conference of the
Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Speaking of
his plans for "health care reform," Obama
said, "in my mind, reproductive care is
essential care, basic care,
so it is at
the center, the heart of the plan that I
propose."
[emphasis added]
Under his
plan, Obama explained, people could choose
to keep their existing private health care
plans, but "insurers are going to have to
abide by the same rules in terms of
providing comprehensive care, including
reproductive care ... that's going to be
absolutely vital."
Regarding
Obama's statements, the
Chicago Tribune
reported: "Asked about his proposal for
expanded access to health insurance, Obama
said it would cover 'reproductive-health
services.' Contacted afterward, an Obama
spokesman said that included abortions."
("Democrats Pledge Support for Wide Access
to Abortion," by Mike Dorning,
Chicago Tribune,
July 18, 2007.)
This
position was later elaborated on in the
written response that the Obama
presidential campaign sent to a pro-abortion
group, www.rhrealitycheck.org, in December
2007, which said: "Senator Obama believes
that reproductive health care is basic
health care. His health care plan will
create a new public plan, which will provide
coverage of all essential medical services.
Reproductive health care is an essential
service – just like mental health care and
disease management and other preventive
services under his plan. And private
insurers that want to participate will have
to treat reproductive care in the same way."
[emphasis added]
NRLC's
Johnson commented, "In Obama's vision,
federal law should
require
employers to provide health insurance
coverage for their employees, and the same
law should require
coverage of abortion on demand, which Obama
regards as basic 'preventive' medicine, in
all such plans."
In
addition to imposing mandates on private
employers and insurers, Obama and many
congressional Democratic leaders also want
all Americans to have the choice of
enlisting in a health plan run entirely by
the government. Obama consistently has
opposed (as an
Illinois state senator, U.S. senator, and
presidential candidate) all limits on the
funding of abortions in Medicaid and other
government-run health programs.
Democrats
Map Out
Stealth Strategies
The
pro-abortion forces know that the
pro-abortion policies they hope to impose do
not have broad public support. A national
Zogby poll conducted in late November of
2008 asked if "a bill that would force many
employers to provide health insurance to
their employees" should "require insurance
plans pay for abortions when the abortions
are performed as a method of birth control,"
to which 71 percent said no while 20 percent
said yes.
NRLC's
Johnson said this public opinion is one
reason why Democratic congressional leaders
hope to leave as little time as possible
between the time that they unveil the actual
"health care reform" legislation, which
might occur in May, and the time that the
House and Senate hold votes on the
legislation, which is currently planned for
June or July.
"In 1993,
the
Clinton health-care scheme failed in
Congress partly because people had time to
study it and to react to its radical
implications," Johnson said. "This time,
the Obama Administration and congressional
Democratic leaders hope to succeed with a
combination of speed, deceptive terminology,
expensive propaganda and attack ads by the
pro-abortion groups, and sympathetic
coverage by the mainstream news media, in
order to ram their 'reforms' into law.
Anyone who doesn't like that had better
start speaking up, right now." (See "Action
Request" at the end of the article.)
Johnson
noted that a detailed analysis of the
Democratic "reform" proposals must await the
unveiling of the actual legislation, which
is currently being written by Congressional
Democratic committee chairmen in
collaboration with Obama Administration
officials. However, he warned, crafters of
the legislation may try to camouflage the
pro-abortion mandates.
One
mechanism for such concealment would be to
use the legislation to create a board or
commission within the federal Executive
Branch, on which Congress would confer
future authority to declare specific "health
services" to be mandated. Or, the bill
could be written to confer such blank-check
authority on the Secretary of the Department
of Health and Human Services.
"Pro-life
Americans should vigorously oppose any
federal 'health care reform' legislation
that does not explicitly exclude abortion
from the scope of any government-defined or
government-mandated package of health care
services," Johnson explained. "A bill
that delegates authority to some committee
to require abortion coverage is simply a
covert, two-step method for imposing
sweeping pro-abortion mandates on all
employers and all citizens."
The actual
legislation might turn out to contain
pro-abortion mandates even more sweeping
than those already outlined.
The
"health care reform" legislation pushed by
President Clinton in 1993, which failed in
Congress after being strongly opposed by
NRLC and many other groups, would have
required access to abortion in every region
of every state (referred to by pro-life
forces as the "abortion clinic mandate").
The Clinton-backed legislation would also
have invalidated all state laws that
interfered with access to abortion – for
example, parental notification laws.
"A health
care bill that mandates access to abortion,
and that invalidates all state laws that
impede such access, would be basically the
so-called 'Freedom of Choice Act' under a
different title," Johnson commented.
Republican
congressional leaders have already expressed
objections to some elements of the
anticipated Democrat-crafted legislation,
including the concept of creating a
government-run insurance plan that would be
open to all Americans, regardless of income
level, which would compete with private
insurance plans. Many observers believe
that the creation of such a "public option
plan" would be a stepping stone towards a
complete takeover of health-care financing
by the government – that is, a "single-payer" system such as that found in
some European countries.
Pro-life
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who is
the ranking Republican on the Finance
Committee, which has jurisdiction over some
aspects of health care legislation, said at
a March event hosted by the Kaiser Family
Foundation that the question of whether to
create a government-run insurance option is
"a deal-breaker for Republicans if it's in,
and it's a deal-breaker for Democrats if
it's not."
But,
Grassley added, "I told you that abortion is
about the only issue I know of that's not compromisable."
Abortion
Mandates Top Priority
for PPFA and Other Pro-Abortion
Groups
The imposition of sweeping pro-abortion
mandates as part of "health care reform" is
currently the top priority of many
pro-abortion organizations, such as the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
(PPFA).
These
organizations are pushing for the abortion
mandates both in public statements and in
less visible lobbying efforts.
In a "wish
list" memorandum signed by PPFA and over 60
other pro-abortion organizations and
submitted to the Obama transition team in
November 2008, the groups said, "It is
imperative that the President put forward a
health care reform plan that guarantees
access to comprehensive, high-quality,
affordable health care for all. . . .
Comprehensive benefits must include access
to the full range of reproductive health
services, including contraception, maternity
care, and abortion care." (See "Pro-abortion
Alliance Submits 55-Page Wish List Memo to
Obama Transition," January 2009 NRL
News.)
PPFA
President Cecile Richards participated in a
"health care summit" held at the White House
on March 5, and used the opportunity to
argue that the legislation must expand "access" to the services provided by her
organization.
(PPFA
clinics provided over 300,000 abortions in
2007, making the organization the nation's
largest abortion provider. At going rates,
it appears that over one-third of
PPFA-affiliated clinic income is generated
by abortions.)
In a press
release issued the same day, Richards said,
"We must develop a health care reform plan,
which ensures that every person has access
to affordable, high-quality health care,
including comprehensive reproductive health
care, from a provider of their choice."
Recently,
the school of public health at
Columbia University issued a report,
co-authored by the immediate past board
chair for Physicians for Reproductive Choice
and Health, that openly called for inclusion
of abortion in a national health care
system.
The
report, endorsed by the deans of 38
university public health schools, complained
that "federal and state laws prohibiting the
use of public funds for abortions spill over
into private-sector financing as well. Four
states prohibit private insurance policies
sold in the state from covering abortions
unless the mother's life is in danger, while
11 states either restrict, or prohibit
abortion coverage under policies sold to
public employees. A new national
health care plan should provide the full
range of family planning services,
medications and devices, and assure
confidentiality so that women seek needed
care in a timely way."
The report
also implied that such federal legislation
should override state laws requiring
parental notification or consent for
abortions performed on minors, asserting
that "almost all health care workers support
the notion of confidentiality, particularly
for adolescents . . . ."
The
Columbia report served as a basis for a
non-binding resolution (H. Con. Res. 48)
that was introduced in the House of
Representatives in February by Rep. Jan
Schakowsky (D-Il.), the co-chair of the
Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, that
calls for the enactment of health care
legislation that "guarantees a level of
benefits and care, including comprehensive
reproductive health care," which is code
language that encompasses unrestricted
abortion coverage. As of
