Does the current health care bill provide for taxpayer funded abortions? The answer to that question changes depending on who you ask. According to the president the bill maintains the status quo and is neutral on the issue. Further scrutiny of the language in the bill, however, reveals that the President isn’t being completely honest.
Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life, points out that the health care bill represents, “the single greatest expansion of abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.” How can she be right and the President wrong especially if there are no specific provisions in the bill that allow for taxpayer monies to be spent on abortions? Simply put, this bill allows for employees to choose insurance policies that cover abortion procedures. These policies will be paid for by a system of coerced government subsidies funded by taxpayer dollars. It is indirect but the net effect is that under this bill the pool of taxes we will all pay will subsidize insurance policies that include abortion coverage.
There is a law on the books that prevents the government from directly funding abortion procedures with taxpayer dollars. It was passed in 1976 and is called the Hyde Amendment. The house version of the health care bill included an amendment named after Rep. Bart Stupak, a democrat from Michigan, who wanted the health care bill to be under the same restraints covered in the Hyde Amendment. His amendment, known as the Stupak Amendment, would prevent taxpayer funding of abortions directly or indirectly, but the bill currently being debated is not the house bill that includes the Stupak Amendment, but the senate bill that does not.
There has been an effort, spearheaded by Rep. Stupak, to add to the current bill the amendment he was able to add to the house bill. Rep. Stupak has met with all sorts of opposition from the President and his allies in the house and senate. Rep. Stupak went on record explaining why the top democrats do not want his amendment to be added to the current bill:
“What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”
So it comes down not to a question of life but of money. The implications of the logical conclusions of this debate are chilling. What is the monetary value of a life? How can the state protect itself from the financial consequences of allowing unwanted children to be born?
We can debate the merits of a government run health care system ad infinitum. I am perfectly pleased to have that debate. I am, however, very disturbed to see a day where we essentially do a cost to benefits analysis on whether or not to allow someone to live. This may sound like a stretch but I urge you to take this legislation to its logical conclusion. I believe an honest examination will convince you as it has me that we are sailing into dangerous waters where the state, not God, assigns us our rights.
HT: Al Mohler
There are no words to describe how all this legislation concerning human life makes me feel. I only know that God breathed into man the breath of life and only God should take life away. I do not believe that “we the people” of the United States will stand before God blameless if this is allowed to continue. We the voters can get these clowns out the our federal gov. and elect new legislators to work on our behalf.