Pro-Abortion Groups Play Defense After Obama Health Care Abortion $ Exposed

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 30, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Pro-Abortion Groups Play Defense After Obama Health Care Abortion $ Exposed

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 30
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In new interviews today with the web site Politico, leaders of pro-abortion groups admit they’re playing defense now that pro-life groups exposed the way in which the Obama administration had planned to fund abortions in health care until they forced officials to back down from the plans.

The National Right to Life Committee exposed the abortion funding in the high risk health insurance pools the new ObamaCare law created. Obama officials allowed three states to fund abortions in the newly-created program.

The Obama administration authorized abortion funding in three states before backing down and issuing proposed guidelines limiting the funding — although they will only apply to the high risk pools and pro-life groups will still have to ferret out abortion funding in other programs.

Reacting to the developments, pro-abortion groups admit they were caught off-guard but now promise to watch the Obama administration closely on future abortion funding aspects of the health care law.

“This is not the outcome we expected,” Laurie Rubiner, Planned Parenthood vice president for public policy, told Politico. “We now know we need to be vigilant to make sure there aren’t other areas of the law where there is silence. There is a whole host of areas that we’re going to be watching like a hawk.”

Laura MacCleery, government relations director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the political web site: “We’re stuck in a slow backpedal. There needs to be a sense that, while health reform moves us forward, it moves us backwards in terms of reproductive rights.”

Politico also indicated the fundraising numbers for NARAL are down thanks to a strong abortion advocate in the White House and the inability for the pro-abortion group to issue dire warnings and catastrophic predictions about banning abortions as they could when pro-life President George W. Bush was in office.

While NARAL brought in $3.2 million in 2004, that total has dropped to $526,431 to date for the upcoming November elections.

“To be completely honest, it’s really hard,” NARAL’s political director, Elizabeth Shipp lamented about fundraising currently. "We have a triple whammy with Obama in office, a Democratic majority in Congress and, on top of that, there’s the recession. It’s really hard in this environment to get people ginned up about the importance of elections.”

Shipp expressed a level of frustration with the Obama administration for not working hand-in-hand more with pro-abortion groups.

“It’s an issue for us politically in our department here in NARAL,” Shipp said. “They’ve got to pay closer attention what’s going on around them. They count on us, we count on activists and, frankly, you’re making it really hard to get them excited.”

Still, the level of discontentment is not enough for abortion advocates to discount the very lengthy pro-abortion record Obama has developed.

"I think overall he has been a wonderful president for us,” Planned Parenthood’s Rubiner told Politico. “Nothing is perfect, right?”

 

Sign Up for Free Pro-Life News From LifeNews.com

Daily Pro-Life News Report Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report
Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here. Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.