Obama Threatens
to Veto Bill For No Abortion $ in Obamacare
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com
10/12/11
The Obama administration released a Statement of
Administration Policy today
threatening to veto a bill the House plans to vote on tomorrow that
ensures no
federal taxpayer funding for abortions under Obamacare.
On September 9, 2009, President Barack Obama
addressed a joint session of
Congress and claimed about the Obamacare legislation: “And one more
misunderstanding I want to clear up—under our plan, no federal dollars
will be
used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in
place.”
To hold him accountable to that pledge, the House
of Representatives will
vote Thursday on legislation that would stop abortion funding in the
program.
H.R. 358, Protect Life Act, makes it clear that no funds authorized or
appropriated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),
including tax credits and cost-sharing reductions, may be used to pay
for
abortion or abortion coverage. It specifies that individual people or
state or
local governments must purchase a separate elective abortion rider or
insurance
coverage that includes elective abortion but only as long as that is
done with
private funds and not monies authorized by Obamacare.
But the new Obama administration statement says:
“The Administration
strongly opposes H.R. 358 because, as previously stated in the
Statement of
Administration Policy on H.R. 3, the legislation intrudes on women’s
reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily
restricts the
private insurance choices that women and their families have today.”
“Longstanding Federal policy prohibits Federal
funds from being used for
abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the
woman
would be endangered,” the new Obama administration statement says,
referring to
the Hyde Amendment, which does not apply to the Obamacare law.
The pro-life movement has already worked to stop
taxpayer funding of
abortions that state attempted to implement under Obamacare. The Obama
administration came under heavy fire from a pro-life group that
discovered, in
three states, officials had approved paying for abortions under new
high risk
insurance programs created under the national health care law. The
National
Right to Life Committee exposed the abortion funding and the Obama
administration responded at first by claiming the executive order Obama
signed
prohibits the funding NRLC uncovered. Then, Obama officials revised the
statement to say they promised the high risk insurance programs would
not fund
abortions in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Maryland
or any other states.
“All the major pro-abortion groups are now openly
proclaiming what National
Right to Life said all along — neither the law Obama signed, nor his
executive
order on abortion, prohibit federal funding of abortion in the
high-risk
program,” Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National
Right to
Life Committee who uncovered the abortion funding, previously said.
The bill also specifies that insurance issuers may
offer health plans that
include elective abortion and may offer separate elective abortion
riders, so
long as they ensure PPACA funds are not used for premiums or
administrative
costs. The bill also clarifies that issuers who offer elective abortion
coverage must also offer a qualified health benefits plan that is
identical
except that it does not cover elective abortion.
The pro-life measure also ensures that state laws
“protecting conscience
rights, restricting or prohibiting abortion or coverage or funding of
abortion,
or establishing procedural requirements on abortion” are not abrogated
by
Obamacare. It also makes it so any state or local governments receiving
funding
under Obamacare may not subject any health care entity to
discrimination or
require any health plan to subject any entity to discrimination on the
basis
that it refuses to undergo abortion training, refuses to require
abortion
training, refuses to perform or pay for abortions, or refuses to
provide
abortion referrals.
ACTION: Contact your member of the House at
http://www.house.gov to urge
strong support for the Protect Life Act and opposition to any weakening
amendments.
This
article may be read in its entirety at lifenews.com
End
Pro-Abortion
Judicial
Tyranny
Through the Sanctity of Life Act
Ending
Pro-Abortion Judicial Tyranny
from
the National Prolife Alliance
There is no question
that the largest obstacle in the fight to enact pro-life legislation to
protect
the unborn is the federal court system. Since the 1973 Supreme Court
decision
in Roe v. Wade, the courts have repeatedly thwarted efforts
to enact
even the most modest pro-life reforms.
With
such
a
hostile
court
system
resigned to blocking all meaningful progress, pro-lifers
are now
turning to the Constitution to end this pro-abortion judicial tyranny.
click here
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