Congressman: Abortions Could Increase By One-Third Under Health Care Bills
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 21, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The pro-life community has been up in arms about the taxpayer funding of abortions in each of the three main health care bills Congress is considering. But the leader of the pro-life caucus in Congress drove the point home over the weekend in a well-received speech.
Speaking at the Values Voters Summit sponsored by the Family Research Council, pro-life Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey made it abundantly clear what would happen under the current legislation.
Smith predicted that abortions could rise by as much as one-third because of the massive abortion subsidies and mandates found in HR 3200 and the Kennedy and Baucus bills.
Unfortunately, he said, President Barack Obama and White House personnel are hiding that fact.
“Never have I been more concerned about the promotion of abortion coming out of the White House,” Smith said. “The unborn child and his or her mother are more at risk now than ever, since Roe v. Wade itself."
He added that Obama and his administration have been “demonstrably false and extraordinarily misleading" in talking about abortion and the health care bills.
Smith urged pro-life advocates to continue doing all they can to ask their members of Congress to support amendments to the bills to remove the abortion funding and mandates.
“On health care, we must stand firm for no further diminution of protection of the unborn child and no further expansion of culture of death,” Smith said.
Smith highlighted two new polls showing Americans don’t want the health care bills to fund abortions.
A Rasmussen poll found just 13 percent want the health care bills to make it a requirement that abortions are funded while 48% believe any government-subsidized health care plan should be prohibited from covering abortions.
And a Public Opinion Strategies survey, also released this month, showed 43 percent of adult voters would be less likely to support a health care reform bill that funds abortions while just 8 percent would be more supportive.
The poll found voter intensity is strong with over one-third (36%) of voters saying they would be much less likely to support the plan.
Public Opinion Strategies found 58% of Americans disagree with the statement, “If the government is going to make a public health plan available for all Americans it has an obligation to provide abortion services under that plan.” Just 38 percent support it.
“Against all that, the abortionists teamed up with Barack Obama, the abortion president, to coerce you and I to support abortion” with federal tax dollars, Smith said.
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