The Abortion Industry’s Three Biggest Myths about Health Care Reform
- MYTH: Pro-life groups want to strip reproductive health from health care reform.
Reality: Pro-life groups want to protect women’s reproductive health. And we do not want to deny women insurance coverage. However Americans United for Life Action, along with the vast majority of Americans, believes that “Real health care respects life!” No matter what Planned Parenthood says, abortion does not equal reproductive health. And health coverage should not include the destruction of unborn children. Furthermore, no one should be forced to violate their conscience by performing, referring for, paying for, or providing coverage for abortion. And make no mistake, that’s what the bills under consideration would do.
- MYTH: The health care reform bills before Congress will not change the “status quo” regarding insurance coverage of abortion.
Reality: An amendment added to H.R. 3200 permits the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to include abortion as a mandatory minimum benefit in the new public health care plan, and requires taxpayer funded abortion through the provision of affordability credits for plans that cover abortion. The current Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, is staunchly pro-abortion and would certainly include abortion in the plan, allowing for immediate federal funding of elective abortion coverage. The provision also requires that all areas of the country contain one private plan that covers abortion.
The Senate HELP bill delegates to a “Medical Advisory Committee” the role of deciding what benefits any private or public health care plan must offer. This Committee is expected to include abortion as a required minimum benefit. Further, based on court precedent, private plans would be forced by the government to include coverage of abortion — this is a drastic change from the status quo in which private plans may elect to cover abortion and individuals may choose whether or not to purchase health insurance that offers coverage of abortion. Ironically, “pro-choice” activists are trying to take consumer choice out of health care.
- MYTH: The health care reform bills before Congress do not mandate abortion coverage.
Reality: Both H.R. 3200 and the Senate HELP bill mandate abortion in several ways:
1. an amendment to H.R. 3200 permits and may require abortion coverage in the public health insurance plan, and permits taxpayer funding of private plans that cover elective abortion;
2. prior court holdings which state that abortion is included within several of Medicaid’s mandatory categories of care (inpatient services, outpatient services, and preventative care) will certainly apply to any federal statute revising Medicaid and involving health care reform, and;
3. the rejection of several key pro-life amendments in the House and Senate Committees, where the inclusion would have ensured that abortion was not funded in the bills, demonstrates that the bills are intended to mandate abortion.
If you’re going to a town hall meeting this month, download our special town-hall flyer and distribute it to show your friends and neighbors to show that Real Health Care Respects Life.
