President Barack Obama Officially Endorses Abortion-Funding Health Care Bill

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 6, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

President Barack Obama Officially Endorses Abortion-Funding Health Care Bill

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 6
, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — With a new statement released today from the White House, President Barack Obama finally officially put his imprimatur on the House health care bill that contains massive abortion funding. Obama has previously been criticized for saying he wanted no abortion funding but lobbying for the bill.

Now, with the new statement from his administration, Obama is officially on record supporting the bill, HR 3962, and its abortion funding components.

"The Administration strongly supports House passage of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a bill that represents a critical milestone in the effort to reform our health care system," the administration said in a statement for Obama.

"The Administration looks forward to continuing to work with the Congress on this legislation and urges quick action on this landmark bill," it said.

The statement said the bill "meets the President’s criteria for health insurance reform" but makes no mention of abortion.

The statement also says Obama "is pleased that the bill includes a public health insurance option offered in an exchange" — even though that is one abortion-funding component of the bill.

The legislation sets up abortion funding in two ways — first, it sets up the public option. That is a government-run health care plan that will pay for abortions. Secondly, the bill gives members of the public affordability credits that can be used to pay for abortions.

Supporting a bill with massive abortion funding directly undercuts Obama’s pledge in September to craft a health care bill that doesn’t do so.

During an address to Congress in September, Obama said, "One more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."

Leading pro-life organizations say Obama is violating his pledge to Congress and the American people to support health care reform that is abortion neutral.

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, told LifeNews.com, his September comments now amount to an "egregious claim."

The current House health care bill can be summed up in three words: "Planned Parenthood Bailout," he explanied.

"There are currently close to 900 abortion facilities in the United States today, many of them owned or affiliated with Planned Parenthood. The economic downturn has been affecting the abortion industry as well," he said. This has been highlighted over the last couple of days by Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood official who has exposed Planned Parenthood’s drift towards increasing the number of abortions they do in order to increase their profit."

"Under the current House health care bill Planned Parenthood will need to order bank trucks to haul in the government funds they will reap as taxpayer funds are routed to pay for abortions. As the unemployment figure reached 10.2 percent today, is a bailout of the abortion industry the message President Obama really wants to send?" Perkins continued.

Other leaders chimed in, too.

"Obama made promises during the campaign and after that will all be broken if he signs this health care bill," says Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America. "Contrary to his promise to Congress, it will fund abortion. Contrary to his campaign promise, it will increase abortions, paid for by raising taxes on the middle class."

Douglas Johnson, the main lobbyist for National Right to Life, concurred.

"The bill Obama is pushing would create a nationwide federal government program, the public option, that will pay for abortion on demand — with federal funds, of course, because that is what federal agencies spend," he told LifeNews.com. "This is exactly what Obama promised Planned Parenthood in his 2007 speech."

Johnson noted how "Obama told the American people that his health plan would not use federal funds for abortions — but in Obama’s world, words mean what he wants them to mean."

And while Obama has been lobbying members of Congress to support the pro-abortion health care bills, his top spokesman has been misleading reporters about how the Hyde amendment would supposedly stop abortion funding eve though it doesn’t apply to the bills.

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