Using Health Care "Reform" to "Mainstream Abortion"

NRL News
Page 9
April 2009
Volume 36
Issue 5

Using Health Care “Reform” to “Mainstream Abortion”
By Dave Andrusko

Pro-abortion allies outside the Obama Administration are increasingly demanding that sweeping pro-abortion mandates be imposed on the American health care delivery system. President Obama and the pro-abortion congressional leadership are in full accord with the goal but know they must use stealth since the policies they hope to impose do not have broad public support.

On April 30, National Public Radio’s Julie Rovner did an analysis of Obama’s first 100 days vis à vis the abortion issue under the headline, “Obama Struggles for Middle Ground on Abortion.” (You don’t have to listen very long before you realize that Obama’s actions to date on abortion hardly qualify as “middle ground.”)

Here are a few excerpts from the report, which you can read online at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103667590

“The place [the abortion issue is] likely to come up is in discussions of overhauling the nation’s health care system—one of the president’s top health care priorities.

“Abortion rights supporters have made it clear that they see ensuring access as a key priority.

“‘I think the big picture here is how do we make sure that all women and families, regardless of their income, can get access to the full range of health care options, and I think health care reform is going to provide a platform for doing that,’ said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.”

Rovner immediately adds, “abortion opponents will fight that just as hard,” and then includes this from NRLC.

“‘We think that any [health overhaul] legislation that goes through Congress has to explicitly exclude abortion,’ said National Right to Life’s Douglas Johnson. ‘We don’t want the government running any abortion plan. If people want to buy abortion insurance, that should be purely a private transaction and not something the government is administering.’”

It is crucially important to recognize that Obama fully supports the inclusion of abortion coverage, the result of which will be a large increase in the number of abortions.

In 2007, while running for President, 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).

Then there is this, from a story that appeared in the April issue of NRL News:

“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,” NRLC Federal Legislative Director Douglas Johnson said.

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.

The stakes are enormous. “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,” explains NRLC’s 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.”

ACTION REQUEST:
What You Can Do Now

Please take a few minutes to communicate with your two U.S. senators and with your representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, to urge them to oppose any federal “health care reform” legislation that does not explicitly exclude abortion.

Here are two of the ways that you can communicate with your federal representatives on this important issue:

(1) Go to the NRLC Legislative Action Center at http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/home There you will find a tool that makes it easy to send an appropriate message to both of your U.S. senators and to your U.S. House representative, urging them to vote against any “health care reform” legislation that does not explicitly exclude abortion. When you fill in your mailing address, your messages will automatically be sent by e-mail to your representatives in Congress.

(2) Telephone the U.S. Senate switchboard at 202-224-3121, and ask to be connected to the office of one of your two U.S. senators. Once connected with the senator’s office, say that you want to be recorded as urging the senator to oppose any “health care reform” bill unless abortion is explicitly excluded. Tell the staff person that you wish to receive a letter explaining how the senator will vote on this issue, and make sure that the staff person takes down your mailing address for this purpose.

Then, hang up and repeat the process for your second U.S. senator. Finally, repeat the process for your representative in the U.S. House by calling 202-225-3121. If you don’t know who represents you in the U.S. House, just give the operator your zip code and you will be connected to the office of the correct House member.