Poll: Majority of Americans Understand Health Care Bills Mean Abortion Funding
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 19, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The pro-life movement has been working overtime to educate Americans about the fact that the health care bills in Congress would result in massive abortion funding. Despite a slew of mainstream media stories to the contrary, the public appears to have received the message.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday shows a majority of Americans agreed that the health care bills "will likely use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions."
The poll found 50 percent agreed that is true while 37 percent of Americans don’t believe that is likely.
The poll also shows the pro-life community still has much work to do to get the message out as 13 percent of Americans are still unsure about the abortion funding components in the health care bills.
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, talked with LifeNews.com about the results.
"The poll is somewhat encouraging in that 50% of respondents recognize that the Obama-backed legislation would put the federal government into the business of paying for abortions," he says.
Johnson says mainstram media outlets are to blame for the numbers not being higher.
"The number would be even higher if there were not so many mainstream journalists willing to be fooled by the phony Waxman-Capps language adopted in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The White House is trying to smuggle a huge expansion of abortion into law through this legislation, and much of the mainstream media is helping the President hide his intent behind a cloud of doublespeak," he explained.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue has pointed out how the bills fund abortions and says proof is found in how House and Senate Democrats have defeated every amendment to stop abortion funding.
He also noted that an amendment added to one of the House bills in committee specifically authorized abortion funding.
"When Rep. Pitts asked committee counsel whether the amendment by Rep. Lois Capps would allow the secretary of health and human services (HHS) to cover abortion in the public plan, he was told it did," Donohue said. "And since HHS head Kathleen Sebelius supports partial-birth abortion, is there anyone in his right mind who thinks she would balk at authorizing abortion?"
The poll also asked the public to respond to the concerns about rationing of medical care for the elderly, which could be done through the comparative effectiveness provisions in the Senate bill or sections in the House bill giving money for doctors to possibly promote assisted suicide or rationing.
The survey found 45 percent of Americans say it is likely the bill will "allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly" while 50 percent say no and another 5 percent are unsure.
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll also found Americans remain skeptical of the Congressional health care bills and President Barack Obama’s approval rating on healthcare was at 41 percent, unchanged from last month.
Just 36 percent believed his government-run health care plan is a good idea and 42 percent a bad idea.
The poll also found just thought their healthcare would get better under Obama’s plan while 40 percent believed it would get worse.
The poll of 805 Americans was taken from Saturday to Monday and has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Related web sites:
Catholic League – https://catholicleague.org
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