Pro-Life Groups: Votes on Baucus Amdts Confirm Abortion in All Health Care Bills
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 30, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — With a Senate committee rejecting yet another pro-life amendment to make sure the health care bills in Congress don’t include abortion funding, pro-life groups say there is one conclusion. That is that every one of the health care bills under consideration contains abortion funding.
The Senate Finance Committee this morning rejected the Hatch amendment to make it clear that the Baucus health care bill would not fund abortions.
"This action leaves no doubt that the health care bill that will come to the Senate floor in a few weeks will contain provisions that would result in massive subsidies for abortion coverage," Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee said.
Johnson told LifeNews.com after the vote the battles to stop abortion funding are not over as "the full Senate will have to vote on the pro-abortion subsidies, and other pro-abortion components as well."
The pro-life legislative guru also noted that the near unanimous opposition to the anti-abortion funding limits by members of President Barack Obama’s party "is one more proof that President Obama’s public statements that he does not want federal dollars used for abortion are completely phony — part of an ongoing political hoax."
Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, agrees.
She told LifeNews.com that the defeat of these important amendments illustrates the gap between rhetoric and reality on the Hill over abortion in health care reform.
"President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have all told the American people that abortion will not be in health care reform," she said. "Nevertheless, the defeat of these amendments demonstrates the gap between rhetoric and reality."
"These rhetorical assurances are not adding up to action," she added. "The pro-life community will continue a vigorous fight to keep abortion out of health care reform."
Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, says the vote against the amendment makes it so the Baucus legislation explicitly includes elective abortion and would subsidize health plans that cover all elective abortions.
"By defeating Senator Orin Hatch’s amendment on abortion funding we once again see Democrat leaders determined to create massive new government subsidies for plans that include abortion on demand," he said.
"Without the Hatch amendment, the Baucus bill creates a back-door way around the Hyde Amendment by subsidizing plans that cover abortion," he continued.
Perkins also said the Hatch amendment was contrary to claims from pro-abortion groups.
"While Senator Hatch’s abortion funding amendment would keep government federal funds from paying for abortion or plans that cover abortion, it clearly stated that it would not prevent women from obtaining their own separate abortion policies if they choose to do so," he told LifeNews.com.
"It’s unfortunate that Democrats on this committee, other than Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), aren’t satisfied with giving women the choice to pay for abortion coverage," he said. "Instead, these Senators want to require the federal government to subsidize health plans that cover elective abortion."
"Rather than maintain the status quo on abortion funding or conscience rights, the Baucus bill will greatly increase the number of abortions in our country and offer fewer protections for health plans that refuse to cover elective abortion," he concluded.
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