Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska was one of two pro-life Democrats to find himself declared a traitor by the pro-life movement for supporting the ObamaCare bill that funds abortions.
Despite the unanimous legal analysis of national pro-life organizations, some media outlets and political fact checking web sites indicating the health care reform legislation did not contain sufficient language to prevent abortion funding, Nelson voted for the bill anyway.
Now, the senator is using part of a ruling issued this week against a lawsuit seeking to overturn ObamaCare as a defense of his position.
In the case, brought by Liberty University against ObamaCare for various reasons including abortion, a federal judge appointed by pro-abortion former President Bill Clinton declared the ObamaCare bill free of any abortion funding concerns. Judge Norman Moon wrote that the healthcare law “contains strict safeguards at multiple levels to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services beyond those in cases of rape or incest or where the life of the woman would be endangered.”
Nelson told Nebraska Public Radio’s Fred Knapp on Wednesday, “With the various special interest groups that raised a ruckus about the language and are out there scaring everybody saying that the bill and the new law will require federal money to be spent for abortions or permit it, they’re just wrong.”
Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, told LifeNews.com that her group and her parent organization, National Right to Life, have analyzed the ruling Judge Moon issued and noted he used “citations to only two provisions in the thousand page law, neither of which supports the judge’s statement.”
“The issue is not whether Liberty University has to pay for abortions but whether the U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing health plans that cover abortion, which they are under Section 1303,” Schmit-Albin told LifeNews.com late Thursday. “In Section 1334 of the law the federal government will administer and offer plans in every state that are authorized to cover abortions. Moreover, the judge doesn’t even refer to the many other provisions in the thousand page law that authorize subsidies for abortion and/or authorize pro-abortion mandates.” [related]
Schmit-Albin said her group and other pro-life organizations are “not going to let Senator Nelson justify his actions on the healthcare bill on the basis of one judge’s erroneous comments about two sections of a thousand page law.”
“At every juncture over the next two years where Senator Nelson contends he did right by pro-life language on healthcare, we will remind pro-life Nebraskans that is not the case,” the Nebraska pro-life leader promised. “We will take the word of National Right to Life which deals with abortion case law and statute on a daily basis, over the protestations of Senator Nelson who is trying to justify why he did what he did.”
