Obama famously told Saddleback church Pastor, Rick Warren, last Sept. that the question of when life begins is “above his pay grade”. But ensuring that that life is snuffed out on anyone’s whim, at any stage in a pregnancy, on the taxpayer’s dime, is most assuredly not.
Last March, pro life groups were shut out of Obama’s “health care summit”, while groups like Planned Parenthood, The Human Rights Campaign, La Raza, The Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the National Partnership for Women and Families were included.
I’d estimate the likelihood of any pro life provisions making it to the bill are slim to 0. Make that 0.
“The two central ‘health care reform’ bills currently moving in Congress – the Kennedy bill and the House Democratic leadership bill – each contain provisions that would, if enacted, represent the greatest expansion of abortion since the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in 1973,” said NRLC Federal Legislation Director Douglas Johnson in a press release Friday.
“These bills contain multiple provisions that would result in federally mandated insurance coverage of abortion on demand, massive federal subsidies for abortion, mandated creation of many new abortion clinics, and nullification of at least some state limitations on abortion.”
Johnson explained to LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) today that the bulldozing of pro-life protections flows from what he calls the “abortion mandate” embedded in the bill.
“We know from a great deal of experience and many court decisions that [an ‘essential benefits package’] will include elective abortion unless Congress explicitly says otherwise,” said Johnson.
“Once abortion is defined – as it would be – an ‘essential benefit,’ then other things flow from that,” he continued. “The law requires that every health network show that it has adequate access to these mandated services. … So you would have federal bureaucracy refusing to certify health plans unless they show they have local access to abortion. There would have to be the establishment of many more abortion providers across the country to meet this mandate.”
Even that, said Johnson, would not change America’s abortion landscape enough to fit the scope of the bill.
Asked whether he foresaw the elimination of state abortion regulations such as waiting periods under the reform package, Johnson replied, “that would certainly be targeted as an obstacle to what’s now under this bill … a federally guaranteed service. It’s in conflict with the purpose of the federal law.”
Asked about the bill’s similarity in effect to FOCA – legislation that would make abortion a “right” not subject to any government regulation – Johnson said the bills as they stand “have kind of a built-in Freedom of Choice Act.”
“There may still be some particular situations or laws that touch on abortion outside the context of healthcare delivery so that I don’t say they exactly duplicate each other,” he said, “but the major purpose of the FOCA to strike down [abortion regulations such as] the parental notification, the waiting period – these kind of things would be, quite likely, nullified under this healthcare legislation.
“But the general principle is quite clear in the bill: that once the feds have said this is a service you have a right to, no state could stand in the way of it.”
I’m not sure how all this squares with Obama’s promise to the Pope , last week, that he was committed to reducing the number of abortions in the U.S. Maybe it’s just me, but I would think that making abortion more accessible and affordable would actually increase the number of abortions.
Obama’s choice of “Science Czar”, the forced abortion and strerilization proponent, John Holdren, makes me suspect that that is the ultimate goal.
Like I was saying the other day, watch what he does, not what he says…..even if you’re the Pope.
Nice Deb 