Obama Violates Pledge, Heads to House to Promote Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 5, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — President Barack Obama told Congress and the American people in September that his "plan" for health care reform didn’t include abortion funding. Yet, Obama is headed to Capitol Hill tomorrow to push the House health care reform bill that includes massive abortion funding.
The White House has yet to confirm the details of the Friday meetings that were initially reported by the Associated Press.
However, it appears Obama will meet with House Democrats who have reservations about the bill — which means Obama will meet with pro-life and moderate Democrats who need more arm twisting because they oppose the abortion funding in HR 3962.
That would appear to run counter to Obama’s pledge to support a health care reform bill that did not force Americans to pay for abortions with government funds.
During an address to Congress in September, Obama said, "One more misunderstanding I want to clear up — under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."
Two pro-life leaders told LifeNews.com on Thursday that Obama’s meeting to push the bill is a clear violation of that pledge.
"Obama made promises during the campaign and after that will all be broken if he signs this health care bill," says Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America. "Contrary to his promise to Congress, it will fund abortion. Contrary to his campaign promise, it will increase abortions, paid for by raising taxes on the middle class."
"His aggressive lobbying for this bill is an indication that this bill, the one that breaks his promises, is the bill he wants," she said.
Douglas Johnson, the main lobbyist for National Right to Life, concurred.
"The bill Obama is pushing would create a nationwide federal government program, the public option, that will pay for abortion on demand — with federal funds, of course, because that is what federal agencies spend," he told LifeNews.com. "This is exactly what Obama promised Planned Parenthood in his 2007 speech."
Johnson noted how "Obama told the American people that his health plan would not use federal funds for abortions — but in Obama’s world, words mean what he wants them to mean."
This isn’t the first time Obama has broken his pledge to Congress to support a bill without abortion funding.
A Politico report earlier this week indicated that in private meetings and chance encounters and during Air Force One flights, Obama has worked "behind the scenes" to promote the current pro-abortion health care bills.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a top abortion advocate who is responsible for the Capps amendment that allows abortion funding in the new health care reform bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled last week, confirmed to Politico that Obama has been lobbying for the bills.
"He’s making phone calls, meeting with members" and spending considerable time lobbying members of the Senate, Waxman confirmed.
In fact, Politico notes that, earlier this month, Obama asked pro-abortion Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to stay in the Oval Office after a key strategy meeting with Wyden and others in order to personally lobby him to support the Baucus bill, which funds abortions.
“He made it clear, it was important to him,” Wyden said about the private meeting.
And while Obama has been lobbying members of Congress to support the pro-abortion health care bills, his top spokesman has been misleading reporters about how the Hyde amendment would supposedly stop abortion funding eve though it doesn’t apply to the bills.
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