Exploiting the Healthcare Debate to Restrict Abortion
September 16, 2009 - 7:00am (Print)
This article originally appeared on Salon.com.
It was discouraging to hear Barack Obama, the man I supported for president, announce so resolutely during his speech to Congress last week that "under our [healthcare] plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion." It was infuriating, however, that before the morning cock could crow following the speech Jim Wallis of the antiabortion organization Sojourners was claiming that the president's remarks on abortion were just what "a broad coalition of the faith community had asked for -- no federal funding for abortions."
I had been prepared for Obama to close the door on a healthcare reform package that would include funding abortions for women who rely on Medicaid for health coverage. Low-income women already lost that right 30 years ago when the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde Amendment. I believe a principled compromise to maintain the status quo on abortion is justified if it gets us better healthcare for millions of men and women and security from the rapaciousness of the insurance industry. And no pro-choice organization wants to bear the responsibility for healthcare reform failing. And so, tacitly, pro-choice leaders have basically accepted that the Hyde Amendment restrictions, as well as those that deny federal workers, women in the military and women who get healthcare on Indian reservations funding for abortion, would be reflected in the healthcare package.
Unfortunately, the good will shown by the pro-choice community has not been met with a good-faith effort by Wallis and his friends. They now hope to use the president's promise as a way to press for further restrictions on abortion coverage in the final healthcare legislation. As one moderate pro-life leader told me, "It is going to be a long fall." All the talk about finding common ground on abortion and the emergence of moderate pro-lifers is floundering as Wallis and a few others prepare to push Congress and the White House for further concessions. "[The president's] commitment to these principles," said Wallis, "means we can now work together to make sure that they are consistently and diligently applied to any final healthcare legislation." For Wallis, that means that "no person should be forced to pay for someone else's abortion and that public funds cannot be used to pay for elective abortions."
Before the congressional recess, the moderate pro-lifers and pro-choice leaders had pretty much agreed that both sides would not seek provisions in healthcare reform that would change the status quo. Rep Lois Capps, D-Calif., codified that agreement in an amendment to the House bill. The Capps Amendment gave those opposed to abortion both the guarantee they wanted that providers would have adequate conscience protection against having to provide abortions and a prohibition on the use of federal funds to pay for abortions in accordance with Hyde and other current federal law. It made no change in the ability of private insurance plans to decide whether or not to cover abortions, but prohibited private plans from using federal subsidy dollars for abortions. It provides that every state have at least one plan that offers abortion coverage and one that does not, so that someone really opposed to abortion can buy a plan that does not cover that service.
This, it now seems, is not enough for Wallis and company. They now want to be sure that if an anti-choice person chooses a plan that does cover abortion, the minuscule part of his premium that is allocated to abortion coverage for all subscribers is not used for abortion. Stephen Schenk, a moderate pro-life Catholic and a professor at Catholic University, wants healthcare reform to extend the Hyde Amendment beyond those groups that are already denied coverage to everyone. "If we are stuck with the Capps Amendment," he says, "we are going to have problems." Chris Korzen of Catholics United, a small Catholic advocacy group that claims to be progressive, is worried that the public option plan is going to offer abortion coverage. Although it will be funded through premiums and there will be at least one private plan in the "exchange" that those opposed to abortion can buy, Korzen is now poised to oppose abortion coverage in the plan most designed to help low-income people.
Enough already! This is not an attempt to achieve common ground and use common sense. This is not that different from the hard-line Catholic bishops and Family Research Council effort to use public policy and healthcare reform to make abortion less available than it already is and stigmatize every woman who even contemplates it. And frankly, while Christian progressives like Korzen and Wallis are spending all their time worrying about abortion, they're ignoring the major gap in all the plans -- the exclusion of undocumented workers living in the U.S. I always thought faith-inspired social justice advocates were the ones I could count on to go out on a limb for what is right, even if it gives the president they helped elect a hard time. I guess I was wrong.
The irony of all this is that Wallis and Korzen don't represent the majority views of either mainline or progressive religion on abortion. How long the mainline pro-choice faith community will allow Wallis and a few small groups of progressive Catholics to use healthcare reform to push for further restrictions on abortion remains to be seen. For Wallis and others to assert that denying poor women the same access to abortion as other women is moral and "what a broad coalition of the faith community had asked for" is as dishonest as claiming, like Joe "You Lie" Wilson, that the healthcare reform plans are going to provide coverage to undocumented workers.
The broad coalition Wallis refers to is, in fact, a specific group that is largely in favor of federal funding for abortion. All the members of the group have done is to put that support on the back burner in hopes of getting healthcare reform passed. Organized under the umbrella name "40 Days for Healthcare Reform," the coalition draws on about 25 denominations and independent interfaith groups for various actions. Many of these groups are on record as supporting public funding for abortion and have worked to overturn the Hyde Amendment. They include the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the Unitarian Universalist Association, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church USA, Faith in Public Life, and the Disciples of Christ. Some religious groups that are not part of the 40 Days campaign are also on record as supporting Medicaid funding for abortion. The National Coalition of American Nuns has no position on abortion itself but has since 1976 supported providing federal funds for poor women's abortions, asserting that it would be discriminatory to coerce poor women into continuing pregnancies by denying them the same right to decide as women who can afford to pay for their own abortions.
So eager are Wallis and his antiabortion friends to convince the media and policymakers that progressive religion is antiabortion that they have stacked the deck and excluded some pro-choice organizations from the effort to pass healthcare reform. The Web site for the 40 Days campaign sets forward criteria for membership that exclude religious groups working on "single issues" -- code for abortion. For example, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice was told that if it sent in a sponsorship fee for one of the many actions, its check would be returned. The group, founded by the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church, had sent a letter to members of Congress strongly supportive of federal funding for poor women's abortions in healthcare reform. The letter is signed by religious leaders like the deans of the Howard University and Episcopal divinity schools, as well as Nancy Ratzen, president of the National Council of Jewish Women and a member of Obama's faith-based advisory council.
Wallis and the rest need to be called to accountability for their decision to push an antiabortion agenda in the midst of what was meant to be an effort to reform healthcare. Otherwise, we will see the moral commitment most mainline and progressive religious groups have to respecting the consciences of poor and low-income women deeply compromised. Abortion is not going to sink healthcare reform, but poor faith leadership can sink the opportunity of poor women for a decent life.
I respectfully suggest to Jim Wallis that he needs to develop way more skepticism about utterances by Barack Obama, such as the President's September 9 statement, "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." That is because under the pending bills being advanced by the President's top allies in Congress, federal dollars would be used to fund elective abortions on a huge scale.
The pro-life amendments that would have prevented this were voted down at the direction of senior Democratic lawmakers allied with the White House in four different congressional committees -- and the White House staff rightfully claimed part of the credit, as reported more than once in reports posted by pro-abortion commentators on this very website.
Moreover, Mr. Wallis should consider that for months, the President, his staff, and his congressional allies have actively misrepresented the actual language in their bills that would result in government funding of elective abortions. The latest statements by Mr. Obama, echoed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius in recent interviews, are most likely a continuation of their strategy of employing contrived terminology, misdirection, evasion, and misrepresentation.
To Mr. Wallis and to all, we say: Watch what they do, not what they say.
Regarding the current legislation, the abortion components are no illusion. The current House bill, H.R. 3200, as amended in committee with the Capps-Waxman Amendment, would explicitly authorize the public plan to pay for elective abortions (as Francis Kissling tacitly acknowledges in her essay above). The funds that would be spent on those abortions would be federal funds, as a matter of law and as that term is used throughout the government. It would work like this: The abortionists would send their bills to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, and they would receive payment checks drawn on a U.S. Treasury account, in federal funds, which are the only kind of funds that DHHS can spend.
This would be direct federal funding of elective abortion. It would be a drastic break from decades of federal policy, under which federal funds do not pay for abortions and do not subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions (except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest).
The claim by some pro-abortion advocates (such as Kissling) and the White House, that the public fund, which would be a federal program run by a federal agency, would be spending "private funds" on abortions is absurd on its face -- a political hoax. Federal agencies are not allow to spend "private funds." The funds they spend are called "federal funds."
Another issue: The House bill, and the bill that Senator Max Baucus is about to unveil, would create big new federal subsidy programs to help tens of millions of people buy health insurance. Under the Capps Amendment, private plans that cover elective abortions would be eligible to receive these federal subsidies. Under the House bill, all of the money that would flow into the premium-subsidy fund in the U.S. Treasury would be general federal revenues and proceeds of special taxes -- i.e., all would be federal funds. When the government pays for insurance, it pays for what the insurance pays for. All of the payments from the Treasury fund to insurance carriers also would be federal funds, of course. (The details of the financing of the Baucus premium subsidy program are not yet available.) This, too, would be a complete break from longstanding federal policy (under Medicaid, Federal Employees Health Benefits program, etc.), under which federal funds do NOT subsidize health plans that include abortion coverage (except life of mother, rape, and incest).
In short: A vote for the House bill, with the Capps-Waxman Amendment, is a vote to create big new federal programs that would pay for elective abortions directly with federal funds, and pay for private insurance coverage of elective abortions with federal funds. If Senator Baucus adopts the Capps-Waxman approach (and this is not yet known), then he will have just one more bill to authorize federal subsidies for elective abortion coverage.
The preposterous claims (by lifelong foes of the Hyde Amendment, such as Kissling) that the Capps-Waxman Amendment incorporated the Hyde Amendment principles, and was a good-faith "compromise," at this point have been so thoroughly discredited that even as faithful an Obama shill as Chris Korzen at Catholics United ("a small Catholic advocacy group") clearly feels the need for a bigger fig leaf.
The real fight to keep the federal government out of the abortion subsidy business is being carried forward by the likes of Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mi.), who co-chair the House Pro-Life Caucus. Mr. Stupak is pushing for an amendment to prohibit the abortion subsidies -- the same amendment that was earlier blocked by the Democratic leadership, with collaboration of White House staff.
Memo to Mr. Wallis: I am advised that Mr. Stupak has not received any letter from President Obama endorsing his amendment. In fact, according to an article published just a couple of days ago in The Weekly Standard, "Stupak has asked repeatedly for a meeting -- or even a few minutes on the phone -- with Obama to clear up any misunderstandings, but the White House hasn't granted his requests." ("Democratic Dissenters," by John McCormack, The Weekly Standard, Sept. 21, 2009)
National Right to Life recently put out a paper discussing what we see as superficial and erroneous reporting in the news media regarding the Capps Amendment and its effects, here.
The full documentation that all of the funds spent by the H.R. 3200 public plan would be federal funds, and that all of the funds that flow into and out of the premium-subsidy fund also would be federal funds, is here.
The full documentation that the actual Hyde Amendment (the current federal law) would not cover the new programs proposed in H.R. 3200, despite untenable claims to the contrary by the likes of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and RHRealityCheck.com blogger Amanda Marcotte, is here.
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
If the Democrats gave into your demands and made it illegal for insurance companies to cover abortion---which is the only thing that would satisfy your tortured logic over what constitutes "federal funding for abortion"---would you support the health care bill?
I'm not interested in continuing to try to get you to back off your dishonest definition of "federal funding for abortion", since it's your story and you're sticking with it.
Let's talk about the meta-truth. Would you support health care reform if the Democrats gave in on this demand? 87% of insurance companies cover abortion, and your demand would require them to stop. That's a pretty big blow to women, but if we hurt women that badly in exchange for covering all Americans, would you sign on?
Or is "abortion" a cover for a larger anti-health care agenda?
Jehovah Reigns
I've known so many girls who have obtained abortions and not one of them feels good about it down the road. Many were very young and had seductive groups, some church groups, and peers talk them into it. I've worked in a medical building right next to a building where abortions were performed on Saturdays. I never saw a happy face come out of an abortion clinic. I've never known anyone who's pregnancy occurred as a result of being raped and I've never known anyone woman who's life was in jeopardy if she carried her baby full term. I worked for 7 years in a hospital, most of those years in the Adult Critical Care Unit and have seen just about everything there is to see. Nothing shocks me anymore.
What ever happened to parents, schools and churches either teaching good ol' abstinence and/or birth control methods. Why is it that as soon as someone is pregnant we ask them if they're going to terminate? Why is it that the word "choice" as become to mean ending the life of your unborn? How have we gotten to this place in our society that women, the crown of creation, have become just another common thug and murderer? And why is it that we're supposed to accept this as OK? How have we let this creep into our heads over this last generation ?
And why is it that it's in the best interest of our country and our populace to be forced to pay for abortion on demand? To murder hundreds of thousands of unborn humans?
I'm here to take a stand for the unborn and be totally counter-cultural. Murdering your unborn child should have never become a political issue...it's a moral and spiritual issue! I'm so disgusted with the people who have, day after day, year after year planted thoughts and ideas into our heads that it's just fine and acceptable to murder an unborn child and now I'm enraged that the Gov't is going to force me to pay for it.
You can call me a racist if you like, but always I will be, protecting the unborn and the elderly. If you don't like it I have a few names I could call you too.
I will agree with you that most unintended pregnancies are not due to rape, and that (as far as my unmedical opinion goes) teens who give birth are more likely to live through child birth than not. But even assuming a 5% rate of these things, that's still a lot for a nation of millons, correct?
Also there is a difference between these two concerns:
Concern 1: "I've known so many girls who have obtained abortions and not one of them feels good about it down the road...I never saw a happy face come out of an abortion clinic."
Concern 2: "How have we gotten to this place in our society that women, the crown
of creation, have become just another common thug and murderer? And why
is it that we're supposed to accept this as OK?"
When I add these two concerns together, I'm a bit confused if you want girls to feel good down the road. For example, how do you feel about this site:
It is a site where women who don't regret their abortions, who would have done them again, speak from their own words. Surely, you take their testimony as seriously as those who are regretful, correct? If not, why?
Also, even though you say that your years as doctor has allowed you to see "just about everything there is to see.", have you ever heard the testimony of doctors who provide abortions to women - how these doctors risk their livesto keep their patients safe from harassing anti-abortionists?
I don't believe you are one of those harassers. I don't know if you've ever demonstrated outside an abortion clinic, but I'm hoping all you did was hand out literature. You're no angry clinic shouter, right? I don't see that in your words, even if your beliefs are strongly anti-abortion.
Would you want these women to feel good about their decisions? Or would you prefer that they accept that they are "another common thug and murderer"?
I see your sentence...
"that women, the crown
of creation, have become just another common thug and murderer?"
my question is this: are these the only two options for female identity? To be "the crown of creation" vs "another common thug and murderer?"
Is there more to these women? Do you want these teen girls to feel good about themselves?
So, the religious right's notion of 'common ground' isn't to lower prices, isn't to assure that the poor can finally access health care, isn't to end the venal fraud insurance companies practice. Their notion of 'common ground' is to make sure that no woman in the country can purchase comprehensive reproductive health insurance.
What's next? The 'moral' justifications for forcing rape victims to pay for their own forensic investigations? Blaming the pro-choice community for the failure of this 'reform' effort? We should have a contest.
I wish to thank Francis Kissling for describing 'Sojourners' as an anti-abortion community. It and it's allies serve no other purpose and have no other function.
The only difference between the American anti-abortion movement and the Taliban is about 8,000 miles.
Dr Warren Hern, MD
