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Opinion-The
Health-Care Bill Will Increase Abortions In The U.S.
Don Nelson
Reno Gazette Journal
July 30, 2009
Massive increases in abortion, the largest since Roe v.
Wade, are looming because health care proposals such as HR
3200, "America's Affordable Health Care Choice Act," will
not only fund abortion, they also will mandate coverage of
abortion on demand in virtually all of America's health
care plans, preempt abortion-reducing state limitations
and protections, and create an abortion clinic mandate.
These proposals will reverse America's steady reduction in
abortions.
HR 3200 might not use the word abortion, but unless
Congress excludes abortion from being defined as an
"essential benefit," the broadly worded mandatory
categories of coverage will be interpreted by courts to
include abortion. And that's how President Barack Obama
and abortion advocacy groups believe it should be
interpreted.
In July 2007, Obama told Planned Parenthood that
"reproductive care is essential care, basic care, so it is
at the center, the heart of the plan I propose." Private
insurers will "have to abide by the same rules in terms of
providing comprehensive care, including reproductive
care..." The Obama administration said "reproductive care"
includes abortion.
HR 3200 also will create an abortion clinic mandate by
requiring plans that use a provider network to ensure the
"adequacy of such network" so enrollees have access to
services covered. And once abortion becomes a federally
mandated "essential benefit," networks will need to take
steps, including establishing new abortion sites in the
service area, to meet standards required by the "health
choices commissioner."
HR 3200 will bring huge increases in abortion. The
American taxpayer paid for 300,000 abortions every year
between Roe in 1973 and 1976, before* the Hyde Amendment
excluded abortion funding. In 1993, the Congressional
Budget Office wrote that "the federal government would
probably fund between 325,000-675,000 abortions each year"
if taxpayer funding were resumed. It would be much higher
because under HR 3200, populations receiving federally
funded health care would be much larger than populations
on which the 1993 estimates were based.
Abortion advocates' claims that 18 percent to 35 percent
or even 50 percent of women who would have aborted did not
abort because of the Hyde Amendment mean that there could
be 200,000-500,000 more abortions every year. Sixty-nine
percent of Americans oppose lifting the Hyde Amendment.
HR 3200 makes clear that standards in the bill or written
by the "Health Choices Commissioner" will preempt state
abortion laws. This could nullify limitations on abortion
such as waiting periods, parental involvement and other
laws that could be regarded as impeding access to a
federally guaranteed benefit. (There wasn't room for this
comment we submitted: These protections and
limitations, along with Hyde, have been the backbone in
reducing abortions.)
Abortion must be excluded from any health care reform bill
or a massive taxpayer-funded increase in abortions will
ensue.
* Note:
in the RGJ the word "when" appears instead of "before."
We are not sure if this is the RGJ's error, or Nelson's
when he sent it over. Nevertheless, the meaning is
"before." The US taxpayer paid for 300,000 taxpayer
funded abortions through Medicaid before the Hyde
amendment explicitly excluded abortion.
Don Nelson is president of Nevada LIFE (Life Issues
Forum and Education). |
