How Overhaul Ought To Deal With Abortion

IBD Editorials ^ | September 9, 2009 | RUTH MARCUS

[Kaslin]

Item: "President Obama and top Democratic congressional leaders are pushing hard for health care bills that would result in federal government funding of abortion on demand!" warns the National Right-to-Life Committee.

Item: A television ad broadcast by the Family Research Council shows an older couple — Harry and Louise on Medicare — sitting at their kitchen table and worrying about how to afford a needed operation. "They won't pay for my surgery, but we're forced to pay for abortions," says the older man.

Item: House Minority Leader John Boehner asserts that House Democrats' health bill "will result in federally mandated coverage of abortion on demand in virtually all of America's health plans," making it "illegal for health care providers nationwide — even Catholic and religious-based hospitals . . . to provide anything less than abortion on demand for anyone who seeks it."

You're going to be hearing more of the same. Don't believe it. These inflammatory statements do a disservice to a complex issue of public policy: How, in the context of health reform, to balance the deeply felt views of both sides in the abortion debate.

I am firmly in the camp of those who think the abortion decision should be left up to the woman. But I respect those who fervently believe that abortion is the taking of human life, and so I am sensitive to concerns that their tax dollars not be used to pay for the procedure.

Actually, let's remember: Tax dollars already are used to pay for abortion. Even the Hyde amendment, which since 1976 has prohibited the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions, makes an exception in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother.

[Kaslin]

[Salvation]