I find it non-shocking, but still amazing, that for more than a few Democrats -- including the president, it appears -- it's more important to have federal funding for abortion than a health care reform bill that passes. I am puzzled and dismayed, though, by the line taken by Jody Bottum at First Things, to wit:
That the House of Representatives managed not to fund abortions while passing the new health-care bill is the good news. That it managed to pass the health-care bill without funding abortion is the bad news, too. In an odd way, it's maybe even worse news than if the leading Democrats in the House had succeeded at including abortion funding, which is clearly what they wanted to do.
If I'm reading the rest of his post correctly, for Bottum it was worse for the pro-life Stupak Amendment to pass because it made it easier for Democrats to get a health-care bill passed? That's a depressing conclusion from that source. I mean, I understand not wanting to vote for the health care bill for whatever reason, but for the editor of a conservative religious (as distinct from political) journal to take the position that stopping health care reform is more important than establishing protections for unborn life in any health care reform that passes shows a regrettable level of political partisanship.
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I'm not going to wade into reading the comments on this one, but I'll add my 2 pennies as a moderate abortion rights supporter. (By moderate, I mean I'm strongly pro-choice in the first trimester and get more and more willing to allow restrictions beyond that, and I'd prefer to spend money and effort on preventing unwanted pregnancies than terminating them.)
I think the Stupak amendment represents a good compromise, and I certainly hope neither Obama nor anyone else jeopardizes this health care bill over that. (I'll be sending an email about it to him and my Democratic senators.) I'm not willing to go to the wall for *insurance coverage* of abortion. I'm not sure why someone would even legitimately need abortion coverage. They aren't catastrophically expensive, and if a woman is having so many that it's worth a higher insurance premium, then perhaps a little incentive to use birth control would be in order. Come to think of it, many plans do NOT cover birth control methods! If they did, perhaps fewer women would be seeking abortions. Nope, keep the Stupak amendment, Dems, and lets get with something that will actually help people.
"The contrary is in fact true. Most private health care plans available today include coverage of abortion. However, not only would Stupak deny coverage of abortion in the public option plan (which would be in line with Hyde)"
How does that follow? If a person buys a plan from the Public Option out of their own pocket, it's functionally identical to buying a private plan that covers abortion. Federal funds are not involved, just their private premium payment.
In general, the compromise position, that would simply have prohibited any of the insurance companies from using public subsidy funds to cover abortion, was far more in the spirit of the Hyde amendment, which is punitive enough.
"And it will reduce the number of abortions."
It will reduce the number of safe, legal abortions that poor people have. IT will have little effect on the total number and won't do anything to reduce the rate of abortion among wealthier people.
Butting better funding for preventive birth control in place, if not outright assuring that it was freely available though all coverage plans, would have done far, far more to reduce the number of abortions.
For those who think that Congress will somehow sneak abortion cioverage in later-- why the cynicism? The Hyde amendment has survived decades after all. And if this congress, the most liberal in 30 years (if not longer) can't pass abortion coverage, why do you think some later Congress will be able to? Is Congress going to get even more liberal? Somehow I don't see that. At least not in any reasonable time frame.
By the way, does the Stupak Amendment ban coverage or medically indicated abortions? The Hyde Amendment does not (and also allows federal funds for rape/incest situations), I've seen some hand-wringing on this, but no real facts.
As for First Things, regrettably it became a partisan rag, at least on matters of current political events. Its articles and essays on non-political topics are excellent (or were: I haven't been able to find it in bookstores for months), but if the GOP is somehow involved, it decscends quickly to hackery. That was initially Fr Neuhaus' fault. I often had the impression he would defy the Pope in order to espouse the Gospel according to St Bush II. Bottums showed some independence at first, but it sounds like he's been corraled back onto the plantation too. Seeing global warming denialism or Bush's tax cuts defended (and on wholly secular grounds) in a journal dealing with Religion and Public Life is frankly absurd. Leave that to the National Review please!
Karl G
How does that follow? If a person buys a plan from the Public Option out of their own pocket, it's functionally identical to buying a private plan that covers abortion. Federal funds are not involved, just their private premium payment.
You forget that as currently structured, the public option will not be available except to a fairly small group of people in particular circumstances (generally they would be working for very small businesses; larger businesses will be required to offer private insurance that meets certain criteria and will not have the public option available to them; some of these would be subsidized by the government).
Additionally, there are federal dollars used to subsidize health insurance premiums up to 400% of the federal poverty guidelines (that's about $88,000 for a family of four or about $43,000 for a single person) as well as federal subsidies for small businesses (with a payroll under $500,000) to help with offering insurance.
People receiving government subsidies for insurance (public or private) may not enroll in a plan that covers abortions.
Geoff,
I don't forget about either of those. But in either case, the public plan will have some portion of its revenue coming in as private money, not subsidies. A similar thing would be true for all other private insurance plans. None of them will be supported on subsidies alone. So long as the books are kept properly and only private money is used to pay for abortion services, then they Hyde amendment is fully respected.
And as it stands, and will still stand under the bill, every employer based plan will still be receiving the subsidy inherent in the tax exemption for paying for health insurance, but will not be subject to similarly overbearing restrictions.
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