Pro-Life Group’s Analysis of Bob Casey Compromise: It Still Funds Abortions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 18, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The National Right to Life Committee has already condemned the language Sen. Bob Casey offered in an attempt to put forward a compromise to get Sen. Ben Nelson to back the pro-abortion health care bill. Today, in a letter to Casey, it outlined how his amendment would not stop abortion funding.
The Casey language will likely be incorporated into the manager’s amendment that Senate Leader Harry Reid will offer this weekend to get all 60 Democrats to oppose the filibuster of the bill Republicans are supporting.
"Your proposal completely fails to correct any of the major pro-abortion provisions in the underlying Reid bill," the letter from NRLC said. "We believe that your proposed language in no way improves the highly objectionable provisions of the Reid bill that authorize subsidies for health plans that cover elective abortion, and that authorize federal mandates for private health plans to cover elective abortion."
"Under your language, federal funds would be used to pay the premiums of private health plans that pay for elective abortion on demand, for tens of millions of Americans. This is completely unacceptable," the letter states.
National Right to Life focuses on the opt-out clause in the Casey language.
"Your proposed provision to allow an individual enrollee to decline the coverage of abortion at best misses the point, and might even be considered to add insult to injury," it says.
"Numerous public opinion polls demonstrate that sizable majorities of Americans believe that government programs should not pay for abortions or for insurance plans that cover abortion. In contrast, the Reid bill, as modified by your proposal, would effectively enshrine in federal law the doctrine that elective abortion is routine health care, and then deign to allow individual citizens to declare themselves to be conscientious objectors," NRLC tells Casey.
The Right to Life letter also focuses on the Mikulski amendment to the Senate health care bill that makes it so the Obama administration could force insurance companies to pay for abortions.
While the Nelson amendment would have alleviated that concern, the Casey proposal "does not incorporate any such anti-mandate language."
"For all of these reasons, the Nelson-Hatch (Stupak-Pitts) language is the only acceptable solution to the far-reaching pro-abortion problems in the Reid bill," NRLC concludes. "We respectfully urge that you discontinue your effort to paper over the sweeping pro-abortion provisions in the Reid bill, and instead join your colleague, Senator Ben Nelson, in urging Senator Reid to add the full Nelson-Hatch Amendment to his manager’s amendment."
NRLC agrees with some other pro-life provisions Casey placed in his proposal but said they don’t mitigate the fact that the Reid bill, even with his amendment, would still contain massive abortion funding.
Also, NRLC thanked Casey for allowing it to view and analyze the language, especially "since the manager’s amendment is being crafted behind closed doors, and Senator Reid intends to demand that the Senate adopt the entire voluminous manager’s amendment without any opportunity for further amendment, and little opportunity even for debate."
Related web sites:
NRLC letter to Casey – https://www.LifeNews.com/CaseyProposalNRLCOppositionLetter.pdf
NRLC – https://www.NRLC.org
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