Obama Expected to Endorse Pro-Abortion Public Option in Health Care Speech
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 9, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — When President Barack Obama gives a make-or-break speech on health care reform tonight, he is expected to endorse the public option. That is the government-run plan that is a major component of the health care restructuring bills in Congress that open the door to massive taxpayer funding of abortions.
According to various previews of Obama’s speech in media reports, Obama will endorse a government-run health care insurance plan but will stop short of demanding that Congress keep it in its final version of its bills.
He is expected to repeat a similar strain to his Labor Day remarks in Cincinnati, where he told labor leaders, “I continue to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help improve quality and bring down costs."
That, political observers say, gives Obama the wiggle room he needs to sign a bill that leaves that out of a measure he could sign and claim as a victory.
It also helps him bow to the reality that passing legislation with a government option may not be possible in the Senate, where moderate Democrats are joining Republicans in opposing such a plan.
Obama talked about his goal for the speech in an interview with Good Morning America on ABC. He has blasted pro-life groups saying they are lying about how the bills allow taxpayer-funded abortions and, there, he appeared to attack pro-life advocates who have been criticizing the abortion and rationing components of the bills.
“I, out of an effort to give Congress the ability to do their thing and not step on their toes, probably left too much ambiguity out there, which allowed then opponents of reform to come in and to fill up the airwaves with a lot of nonsense," he said.
“So, the intent of the speech .. is to … dispel some of the myths and, frankly, silliness that’s been floating out there for quite some time," he added.
Obama is also expected to reach out to Republicans and independents by tossing them a bone with remarks concerning the need for medical malpractice litigation reform.
Obama will follow up the speech with political rallies for the pro-abortion health care bills later this week and over the weekend.
During the speech, Michelle Obama is expected to sit with average Americans who are without health insurance as a way to highlight how Congress should approve the pro-abortion plan.
Republicans have said that Obama needs to move in a different direction and acknowledged that the public opposes the current pro-abortion plan.
“At this point, there really should be no doubt where the American people stand: the status quo is not acceptable, but neither are any of the proposals we’ve seen from the White House or Democrats in Congress," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.
But Obama met with the pro-abortion leaders of the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid yesterday and they told him they have the votes to approve a bill with the public option.
With Republican lawmakers opposing the pro-abortion bill unanimously, Pelosi can only afford to lose 38 members of the 256-member Democratic caucus and still get a bill through the House.
However, a report in The Hill, a newspaper that focuses on Congress, shows 23 members have already said publicly in town hall forums or to their local media that they will not vote for HR 3200, the current House bill that includes abortion funding.
The leading pro-life Democrat in the House has already said he has more than the 38 Democrats needed to stop the bill who will vote no if abortion funding remains in it.
Rep. Bart Stupak, a Michigan congressman who is the co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, told CBS News in July that 40 Democrats will not support the bill or the rules for debate on it unless the abortion funding is nixed.
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