Senate Agrees to Abortion in Health Care Debate
- Nov 24, 2009 - 3 -
Sixty had been on Harry Reid’s mind for weeks—the number of votes necessary to put the Senate majority leader’s 2,000-page health care reform bill on the road to passage. He would need every one of a handful of noncommittal senators to reach 60. And shortly before 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21, 60 senators fell in line, voting along party lines to begin debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, with all fence-sitters now in tow and not a single vote to spare.
With that regrettable vote, the Senate joined the House of Representatives—which passed its health care bill (H.R. 3962) two weeks earlier by a razor-thin margin, 220-215—in setting the stage for a government takeover of health care. Neither bill is palatable. Both include a government-run option, significant cuts to Medicare, and more taxes. Both would result in higher premiums, a crowding out of private plans, and rationing of care.
Yet one defining difference separates the House and Senate bills: abortion funding. The House voted 240-194 to include explicit language—the Stupak-Pitts Amendment—barring federal funds from covering elective abortions under its reform, while the Senate chose to begin debate on the Reid bill with an authorization for federal funding of abortion. Apparently, 60 senators value political expediency more than unborn human lives and the consciences of millions of Americans who will be forced to underwrite “health care” resulting in the destruction of those innocent unborn lives.
Many are hiding behind a smoke screen, saying the Reid bill is consistent with the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion, with rare exceptions, under Medicaid. They argue that federal funds will not be used to fund abortion because they are segregated insurance premiums. Not so.
It’s all spelled out on pages 118-124. In a section-by-section analysis of the abortion language in the Reid bill, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s Barrett Duke points out that “there are no non-federal funds in the United States Federal Treasury. They are all federal dollars.”
The Reid bill uses federal funds to pay for abortions directly and indirectly, as Duke details. It appears that under the government-run public option every enrollee is required to pay each month into an account that will cover elective abortions. Every health insurance exchange is required to have a minimum of one plan that pays for abortion-on-demand for any reason. And the Reid bill subsidizes abortion in private plans.
Linking abortion with health care is a travesty of monumental proportions. Sixty-one percent of Americans agree that public funds should not be used to cover abortions, according to a CNN poll released last week.
Senators should be held to account for moving forward on an abortion-funding health care bill. Dismissing the vote as no more than a procedural exercise neglects history. In the last decade, 97 percent of bills agreed to by a motion to begin debate—such as last Saturday’s Senate vote—eventually passed on a final vote, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
As the Senate prepares to begin debate Nov. 30 on the Reid health care bill, they need to hear from their constituents. One message trumps all others: Any health care bill must include, at a minimum, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment prohibiting federal dollars from funding elective abortions. Anything less would be an unprecedented miscarriage of public trust.
To view Barrett Duke’s analysis of the abortion funding in the Senate health care reform bill, please click here. Barrett Duke, Ph.D., is vice president for public policy and research of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
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1 On Nov 25th, 2009, at 4:55pm, Richard Humphries wrote:
The Democratic Bill covers most of the nearly 50 million people without Health Care. The Republican Bill only covers about 3 million uninsured. Health Care for every American is a moral issues for our Country. How we provide it is a political issue. The Republican approach is contemptuous and disgraceful. I think Christ would have sat down,put His head in his hands and say: “They just don’t understand!”
Dick
2 On Nov 28th, 2009, at 5:29pm, Virgie Metts wrote:
It’s too bad the three pro-life Senators caved in to the Democrats that are trying so hard to get abortion of all types covered by the tax dollars of america.
I hope the people in those three districts remember this when it comes time to vote.
3 On Dec 21st, 2009, at 1:48pm, man of God wrote:
Mr. Humphries
HOw does one compare the moral value of ‘insurance’ to a ‘human life’?
You are right..Christ would probably say..Father forgive them for they KNOW what they do…
It’s called sin