Obama Has Only Read "A Decent Part" of the Pro-Abortion Health Care Bills
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 6, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In recent weeks and months there has been some controversy about whether members of Congress will actually read the pro-abortion health care bills they are considering. Yesterday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs gave a telling answer about whether the president has read them.
"I was just wondering, before the President signs it will he himself read it or rely on staff to read the text of the bill?" a reporter asked during Monday’s press briefing.
"Well, I think he’s read a decent part of the legislation that’s been bandied around right now," Gibbs responded.
The comment comes after Gibbs joked about Obama reading the bill when he was asked a similar question in August.
“I don’t know what his vacation plans are currently,” said Gibbs at the time.
The question of members of Congress reading the pro-abortion health care bills has produced some interesting quotes in recent weeks.
Sen. Tom Carper, a pro-abortion Delaware lawmaker, told CNS that the language in the bills is “arcane,” “hard stuff to understand” and “incomprehensible."
“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life," he admitted.
Another debate has surfaced about making the final pro-abortion health care bills available online and to the public before the House and Senate vote on the floor.
And as of now, there is no assurance that members of the public, or even the senators themselves, will be given the chance to read the legislation before a vote and that upsets Michael Franc, president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation.
"The American people are now suspicious of not only the lawmakers, but the process they hide behind to do their work," he said.
Meanwhile, the Sunlight Foundation has begun an effort to get Congress to post bills online 72 hours before lawmakers vote on them.
"It would give the public a chance to really digest and understand what is in the bill," Lisa Rosenberg, of the group, told the Examiner, "and communicate whether that is a good or a bad thing while there is still time to fix it."
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