Sam Brownback: I Hope Abortion Kills Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill in Congress
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 22, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In an opinion piece posted at the Politico web site, Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback says he hopes the abortion funding in the government-run health care bill will ultimately defeat the bill. As LifeNew.com reported today, abortion advocates may have to choose between abortion and the bill.
That’s because a conference committee must merge the House and Senate bills into one bill that either funds abortions and may be defeated by pro-life advocates or one that doesn’t fund abortions and may be defeated by pro-abortion activists.
"Even if the Democrats are able to ram this bill through the Senate, there is still hope that it may founder in the conference with House Democrats," Brownback writes.
"Both abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion advocates on the House side have pledged to vote against the current abortion-funding language in the Reid amendment and called it unacceptable," he said. "Since the Democrats are working with a thin margin of support for the bill in the House, it is just possible that the attempt to use health care reform to force taxpayer funding for abortion will end up killing the bill."
Brownback says in the Politico piece that the abortion funding divide "is now the central debate in reconciling the differences between the House and Senate Democratic bills."
"If the issue of abortion funding brings down this bill, it will be a victory for the cause of protecting innocent human life. That would be an irony that Henry Hyde would have greatly appreciated," Brownback concludes.
In the editorial, Brownback describes how the bill funds abortions.
"Despite the promises of the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership that the health care bill would maintain the status quo on the issue of abortion, the legislative language revealed by Majority Leader Harry Reid late last week radically changes that status quo and sets the tragic precedent of providing federal funding for abortion," he explains.
"The amended bill in the Senate does not include the Stupak amendment language from the House bill that would prohibit federal funds from being used to pay for elective abortions," he continues.
"Instead, states are given the option to opt out of providing insurance coverage of abortions. But while states are given the option to opt out, taxpayers in a state that opts out would still see their federal tax dollars fund elective abortions in other states. In other words, even taxpayers in states that opt out of providing abortion coverage cannot opt out of paying for elective abortion," Brownback writes.
"The bill would also undermine existing state restrictions on abortion because it pre-empts state laws and conflicts with some existing state regulations. What abortion proponents have been unable to achieve through the legislatures or the courts, they would now achieve through a so-called health care reform bill," he concludes.
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