Top Senator Dodd Defends Abortion in Health Care Bill: Respects Religious Views
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 20, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A top member of the Senate who is pushing the bill for government restructuring of health care through the chamber is defending the inclusion of abortion in it. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut says covering abortions respects the religious views of Americans.
As LifeNews.com reported last week, the Senate HELP Committee, that Dodd is leading while pro-abortion Sen. Ted Kennedy is out for health reason, approved a bill that would promote abortion.
The panel’s vote to adopt the contentious measure came after all of the committee’s Democrats, minus Sen. Bob Casey, defeated four separate amendments to make the bill abortion neutral.
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, told LifeNews.com that "Kennedy’s bill, which all 13 committee Democrats voted for, would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade."
Now, Dodd is telling CNS News that that’s alright with him.
“I think we handled the issue well," he told the conservative news service when asked about abortion’s inclusion in the Kennedy health care package.
“We like the idea that people have choices and, indeed, the law of the land permits people to make those choices, and we respect that, and we are going to pursue that,” Dodd told CNS News.
“Again, we do not want to discriminate when people have–they have convictions, moral convictions and religious convictions,” Dodd added.
Forcing taxpayers to pay millions of dollars for abortions or see their insurance premiums raised to cover them would likely violate the views of the majority of Americans who are pro-life on abortion.
And that is what the bill would do, according to Johnson.
"It contains provisions under which virtually every insurance plan would be required to cover elective abortion, every local health network would be required to recruit abortionists, and many state abortion laws could be overridden," Johnson said. "The bill also would result in taxpayer funding of abortion on demand."
Johnson said the Kennedy bill in the Senate is not the only measure that is a current crucible for the pro-life community.
"The same statements are true of the similar bill proposed by the House Democratic leadership, H.R. 3200," he told LifeNews.com.
Johnson is calling on every pro-life person to immediately call their members of the House and Senate and to oppose any health care bill that does not specifically exclude abortion funding and coverage. He says time is of the essence.
"The House Democratic leadership says that it intends to have these bills on the floor of the Senate and the House, respectively, during the last week in July, and President Obama is personally pushing hard for quick approval," he said.
"The pro-life movement needs to go to Condition-Red on these bills, which pose a grave and immediate threat to the pro-life cause," he added.
ACTION: Please call your members of the House and Senate immediately at 202-224-3121 and urge them to vote against any health care bill that doesn’t exclude abortion. You can find specific contact info at https://www.Senate.gov and https://www.House.gov.
Related web sites:
National Right to Life – https://www.nrlc.org
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