Americans Support Repeal of Pro-Abortion Health Care as Executive Order Sits
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 14, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — For the second week in a row, a national poll has a strong majority of Americans supporting the repeal of the pro-abortion health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law. The results come as the Obama administration is delaying on implementing a disputed executive order.
The order will supposedly eliminate some of the abortion funding under the health care law, but pro-life groups say that’s not true.
As was the case last week, a new Rasmussen Reports poll found 58% of likely voters favor repeal of the national health care plan adopted into law by Congress in late March. Just 36 percent oppose repeal.
These findings include 47% who strongly favor repeal and 28 percent who are strongly opposed.
"Rasmussen Reports has been tracking sentiments about repeal since the plan’s passage, and opposition to the legislation remains as strong since its adoption as it was beforehand. Support for repeal since March has ranged from a low of 54% to a high of 63% in mid-May. Opposition has ranged from 32% to 42%," pollster Scott Rasmussen said.
Most voters (50%) continue to believe that the health care plan is bad for America while 39 percent say it will be good.
While 83% of GOP voters and 62% of unaffiliated voters support repeal, 59% of Democrats oppose it.
When Congress passed the government-run health care bill, it did so without any limits on abortion funding and language mandating taxpayer financing of abortion in certain circumstances.
Obama eventually issued a controversial executive order supposedly taking the abortion funding issue off the table.
However, virtually every pro-life group said it would not mitigate the abortion funding because it doesn’t have the effect of law, could be reversed in the future, and because it didn’t tackle much of the abortion funding in the bill. The Obama administration could also ignore the order and not put it in place when the health care law goes into effect.
House Republican Leader John Boehner, in a meeting last week with President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders at the White House, asked Obama to provide a progress report on abortion and health care. Boehner is looking for more information on Obama’s disputed executive order.
During the meeting, Boehner noted that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, in her recent report on implementing the health care law Obama signed, did not make any mention of efforts by the administration to implement the executive order.
"While the Obama Administration plows ahead on implementing what it regards as the ‘popular’ aspects of ObamaCare, administration officials have been coy about their aims for putting into practice the president’s executive order on taxpayer-funding of abortion," Boehner’s office said.
"Boehner is still awaiting a response, other than a cryptic reply that executive order guidance was still being developed," it said.
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