Pro-Abortion Groups Issue Alerts to Oppose Pro-Life Stupak Health Care Amdt
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 6, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Abortion advocates have reacted angrily to the allowance of a vote today on the Stupak amendment, which would prohibit abortion funding under RH 3962, the health care reform bill. They are calling on lawmakers to reject the amendment and force Americans to fund hundreds of thousands of abortions.
Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards sent an email to her members with an "emergency" alert opposing the Stupak amendment.
She complains that House Democrats allowed the vote on the amendment after "the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops met with leaders in the House of Representatives in their bid to eliminate" abortion funding.
"If the bishops and their anti-choice partners in the House succeed, they’ll permanently alter health care in America, even taking away benefits from women that they have today," Richards contends, even though that is not the case.
She called the efforts of pro-life advocates, including the Catholic bishops, to secure a vote on the Stupak amendment "a discriminatory, mean-spirited attack on women."
Richards calls on abortion advocates to ask their members to vote no on the Stupak measure and to urge abortion advocates through Twitter and Facebook to do the same thing.
NARAL president Nancy Keenan also issued an email alert to her members while noting that the vote will ultimately be a close one where the stance of ever member of Congress matters.
"Women’s coverage for abortion services rests in the hands of Congress – and that vote is going down to the wire," she wrote. "The vote will be extremely close. One vote could make the difference."
Keenan claimed that the Stupak amendment would prohibit women from getting or paying for abortions with their own money, even though the amendment can only cover money the government spends.
"Right now, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services. That’s the status quo," she claimed. "The proposal we’re fighting, led by Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and Republican Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, would make it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women."
However, a different analysis found that 46 percent of private health insurance plans cover abortions. https://www.lifenews.com/nat5264.html
The 85 percent figure is based on figures from the Guttmacher Institute that has problems.
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee previously told the Weekly Standard how the number is wrong and the study biased.
"This report was based on voluntary responses sent to AGI by insurers who were selected by AGI to be surveyed by complicated criteria described in the report," he said. "Moreover, the report itself said that ‘some of the insurers reporting that abortion was covered narrowly interpreted this to mean when a pregnancy threatens a woman’s health.’"
"Clearly, then, AGI arrived at the 87% figure by counting any respondent in its sample that covered abortion even to save the life of the mother. Thus, this report is essentially useless in estimating the extent of private insurance coverage of elective abortion," Johnson explained.
Ironically, Keenan’s email on the Stupak amendment claims it "is dangerous and based on outright lies."
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