Washington Times Confirms Abortion Funding, Coverage Mandates in Health Care
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 25, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Add the Washington Times to the list of media outlets that is confirming what pro-life organizations have said for weeks — taxpayer-funding of abortion and insurance coverage mandates appear in the government-run health care bills Congress is considering.
The Times joins the Associated Press, Time magazine, and the nonpartisan FactCheck.org watchdog in confirming abortion funding exists.
"President Obama isn’t being straight when he says current health care proposals don’t provide government funding for abortion. They do," the Times newspaper says in a Monday editorial. "If Democratic plans are passed, your taxes will pay for abortions."
"House and Senate sponsors defeated a total of seven different attempts, in four committees, to restrict the use of federal funds for abortions," the newspaper continues.
The Times goes on to describe the Capps amendment a House committee adopted that abortion advocates say prohibits abortion funding but doesn’t.
Section 4 (B) of the amendment reads: "Abortions for Which Public Funding Is Allowed. — The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted."
"You can’t get more explicit than that," the Times says.
It notes the amendment "requires that ‘each premium rating area’ include at least one plan that covers any abortion service — and even all those ‘private’ plans will feature government-financed subsidies."
The Times editorial says abortion funding in the health care restructuring plan is "of utmost importance" to most Americans and could jeopardize the bill.
"For decades, polls have shown that overwhelming majorities of Americans oppose public (taxpayer) funding of abortions even if many of those same Americans support keeping abortion a legal option," it writes. "Even for many who are pro-choice, it is one thing to allow somebody to procure an abortion. It is quite another for the federal government to coerce everybody to pay taxes or fees for another person to procure what many consider to be a grave moral evil."
Although President Obama has said there is not abortion funding in the legislation, the Times says he is being disingenuous.
"President Obama is wrong to promote any plan that provides public subsidies for abortion. No amount of dissembling can cover up the repellent reality of what’s in current health care legislation," it concludes.
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