Keep abortion funding out of health care reform
- Anti-abortion protesters mark the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal, in Washington January 22, 2008. Reuters
Some may argue that the government cannot or should not restrict benefits when it purchases insurance, the same way it does when reimbursing directly for medical procedures. But that argument already failed when it came up in the 1990s in the context of Medicaid managed care plans, and the Hyde Amendment was revised to cover them, as well.
Some on Capitol Hill are also arguing that if people can opt for private health insurance that funds abortion and receive a tax break for their purchase of such insurance, then poor people dependent on direct government payments for their health insurance cannot be denied similar coverage. But this presumes that there is no difference between what people may do with their own money and what they may do with the taxpayers’ money. That argument makes sense only if we assume it’s all the government’s money in the end.
Seventy-one percent of Americans do not want to pay for abortion, as a November 2008 Zogby poll showed, and they do not want their employers to provide health care that pays for abortion. H.R. 3200 is a massive bill that mandates health benefits, grants enormous authority to the HHS secretary and creates a public health insurance option. In its current form, H.R. 3200 would fund and mandate abortion coverage, which would make every American taxpayer complicit in the killing of hundreds of thousands of unborn children each year.
No matter what form of health care reform emerges from the current debates and discussion, Congress should add a provision to the legislation to permanently exclude abortion from taxpayer-funded health care or health insurance. Let your member of Congress know that you oppose any health care reform that uses taxpayer money to pay for or provide coverage of abortions.
Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council.