Is Abortion Health Care, or Is it Not?
The health care debate, the greatest challenge of the Obama presidency, has abortion at its epicenter, and no one realizes this more than the White House. In recent weeks, President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have all insisted that the health care proposals under consideration would not cover abortion.
Nevertheless, that's not the reality we face on the Hill. Recently, we had a meeting with senior White House officials to focus on our serious opposition to the abortion mandate in health care reform. They reiterated the president's statement from his address before Congress and were noncommittal about specific language that would address the current concerns of pro-life advocates.
The truth is that the health care packages under consideration do include abortion funding. Without a specific statutory amendment that includes an explicit ban on federal funding and coverage, we face health care reform that includes abortion.
Lost in the debate over whether or not abortion is "in there" - whether or not you can flip to a certain page and point to a particular clause related to abortion funding - is an understanding among political elites that this is a watershed battle over definition. It's existential, if you will, and comes down to a very straightforward question: Is abortion health care, or is it not? [reference]
Part of the dishonesty in the debate is to maintain that since the current health care bill does not fund abortion in writing that effectively abortion won't be funded. Well abortion isn't funded in the Medicare law, but it takes the Hyde amendment each year to keep Medicade from in fact paying for abortion. Every amendment to the health care bill to pacifically forbid abortion funding has been struck down. The defenders of the bill just keep going on lying that the bill does not fund abortion. The Presidents reassurances mean nothing considering his track record and that the bill has yet been changed by his party. The trick has always been to leave the bills vague enough so that the courts could step in and define what it means. They let the courts do the dirty work for them.
Charmaine Yoest very good article goes on to how the attempt to define abortion as health care, as just another procedure, is going. If we let the culture of death to define the terms than the word "health care" will mean nothing. Just as the health of the women was broadened to include mental health so as to allow abortion, this further definition will be disastrous.
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All of the health care options will be through private insurance companies. The individual insured may pick a plan that covers abortion or not. The Federal government in no way funds or subsidizes abortion.
Catholic zealots, of which you are most likely one, will not accept even the legality of abortion, much less its coverage under a health insurance plan. Why do you bother to discuss it?
That you even hold this conversation with yourself is pointless.
Reddog.
So should we have accepted the legality of slavery when it was legal? Does legality make it right? So the Nazi by legally defining Jews as non-persons make it fine. We define the child in the womb as non-persons.
Our conversation is not pointless since it has stalled the health care bill since it is not just "Catholic Zealots" who can see the humanity of the unborn. There are also pro-life atheists such as Nat Hentoff who see abortion as being wrong.
No not all off the healthcare options are via private insurance. The president still supports a public option which would be a government run insurance that would use Federal money to fund abortion. Right now they are working on a bill to fund abortion in Washington D.C. Plus since the government funds Planned Parenthood it is already funding abortion. Money is fungible and Planned Parenthoods abortion business is supported by having funds in other areas.
All of the health care options will be through private insurance companies.
I don't believe that for a moment. A "government option" really, honestly precludes a private insurance company. Also, Obama has said in the past he wants a single-payer system ultimately. Another thing that precludes private insurance.
Jeff beat me to it, but he asks a good question: just because something's legal, does it make it right? Was slavery somehow justified because the laws of our land allowed it? And there are pro-life atheists, secularists, Jews and Protestants - this isn't a Catholic only thing.
So, you guys want to hold any chance for universal health care, something the Pope says is a basic human right, hostage to legal abortion?
Personally, I don't have strong feelings one way or another. I think it costs too much but we're already spending so much on the Wars, bailouts and stimulus, why not at least get something for the money that will benefit someone.
Obama benefits from no health care. He's on the record as for it but doesn't have to pay the price and can still use it like a club to beat the Republicans next election. That's exactly what the Clintons did and don't think it wasn't exactly what they planned.
I think you're shooting yourselves in the foot. Be my guest.
Yes, healthcare is a human right. We have that. Health insurance is not. What is abhorent is that some people do lose everything when tragedy strikes, and others do not get life saving care. Still, we can address all these issues through hospitals and insurers, without a huge gov't price tag. The waste is horrendous, esp. the greed of the dme's and other medical supply comapanies. Also, reddog, you didn't answer Jeff's question.
Abortion as a supposed health care that we must pay for is unconscionable. Moreover, doesn't it make you uncomfortable that Obama surrounds himself with people whose ideas directly contradict Catholic social doctrine yet rather vie to prove all of Pope Paul VI's predictions regarding society?
Then again, I'm just one of those "zealots" who believes all people were created in the image and likeness of God - at conception!
Abortion is birth control and murder. Is artifical contraception health care, too?
Socialism Obama-Pelosi-Reid-style is not Christian charity nor is it catholic social justice teaching. Socialism is envy and hatred. It is aggravated theft perpetrated by the government and truly is organized brigandage.
I think there is typo in the posting. The second to last sentence includes the following statement: "the terms than the world health care will mean nothing"
I think it should read "the terms than the WORD 'health care' will mean nothing"
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