House GOP Leaders Push Discharge Petition Against Pro-Abortion Health Care
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 30, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — House Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor announced today they will sign discharge petitions promoted by Reps. Steve King and Wally Herger that would force votes in the House on legislation seeking to undermine the pro-abortion health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law.
The King discharge petition – which repeals portions of ObamaCare — has already been filed and the Herger petition is expected to be filed within the next month, or as soon as permitted under House rules.
"The American people asked Congress and President Obama not to pass the massive health care overhaul, and they were ignored. Three months later, they remain opposed to it, worried about the consequences it is having for job creation, the national debt, and the cost and quality of their health care," Boehner and Cantor said in a statement.
They added: "The House should immediately vote on and pass legislation that would implement the will of the American people with respect to the president’s health care law."
King’s petition would force a vote on his bill, which would repeal the portions of ObamaCare that originated in the Senate and clear the way for Congress to start over with new legislation, such as the one Republicans sponsored with no abortion funding.
Herger’s forthcoming discharge petition would force a vote on his bill, which would repeal all of ObamaCare, including the provisions enacted through the reconciliation process, and replace it with the pro-life health care bill the GOP put forward.
“Either course of action would begin to implement the will of the people with respect to ObamaCare. Accordingly, we will be signing both discharge petitions, and encouraging our colleagues to do the same," the GOP leaders said.
Boehner met with Obama earlier this month at the White House and asked him to provide a progress report on abortion and health care — specifically with regard to the executive order he signed that has not been implemented. https://www.lifenews.com/nat6409.html
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. https://www.lifenews.com/nat5793b.html
Obama eventually issued a controversial executive order supposedly taking the abortion funding issue off the table. https://www.lifenews.com/nat6184b.html
However, virtually every pro-life group said 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. https://www.lifenews.com/nat6166.html
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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