Last week, presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs claimed
that "there's a law that precludes the use of federal
funds for abortion that isn't going to be changed in
these health care bills." Gibbs also said "there's a
fairly well documented federal law that prevents it"
(funding of abortion).
Mr. Gibbs means the Hyde Amendment. Lying is a strong
word, but both Mr. Gibbs and Majority Leader Harry Reid-
who says the Hyde Amendment would prevent federal
funding of abortion under the proposed health care
bills, know full well that the Hyde Amendment will not
stop any abortions from being authorized and either
funded or subsidized by the health care bills. The Hyde
Amendment will only prevent federal funding of abortion
through Medicaid (except for rape, incest and the life
of the mother). Further, Hyde is not a permanent law. It
is a yearly amendment or rider that has been attached
every year for the last thirty three years to Health and
Human Services bill. It can be removed if not approved
by both Houses of Congress and the President.
There is no federal law that would prevent the new
programs created by the health care bills under
consideration from paying for abortion on demand. That
would require language written directly into the bills.
But such language has already been defeated by five
congressional committees. Speaker Pelosi is refusing to
even allow the House to vote on an amendment to the
health care bills to prevent government funding of
abortion.
Gibbs, Reid, the President, Pelosi and others have good
reason to mislead, lie, obfuscate, and create
smokescreens about abortion so they can smuggle abortion
into health care reform. Recent polling by
International Communications Research and others
show that Americans oppose public funding of abortion
(67-19 percent), requiring "people to pay for abortion
coverage with their health insurance premiums" (56-32),
and don't want their "own insurance policy to include
abortion" (68-24). 43 percent would be more likely to
oppose "the President's proposed health plan." Only 8
percent would be more likely to support it if it "paid
for abortions."
Senator Harry Reid is leading the charge and providing
cover for abortion.
Reid has previously said that he could support a
health care bill that covered abortion. Reid knows that
the Baucus bill and the House bills both cover abortion
using public funds and he knows that the Hyde Amendment
will not stop abortion coverage in the health care
reform bills.
The Baucus bill to be voted on in the Senate Finance
Committee this week, will fund and subsidize abortion on
demand. It will mandate that at least one federally
subsidized insurance program in the proposed health care
exchange will be required to cover abortion in each
coverage area. Any attempt to say it does not is an
effort to deceive the public and smuggle federal funding
of abortion into health care.
Funding and subsidizing of abortion is an important
issue to Americans. Shame on Robert Gibbs, Harry Reid,
Senator Baucus and others who are misleading the public
and shilling for the abortion industry.
