Let me start out today by stating the facts. Abortion is legal in this nation. The abomination known as the Hyde Amendment currently prevents government money from being used to pay directly for abortions.
These two facts are now clashing with each other in health care reform negotiations. Here's a few tastes…
ABC's Jake Tapper reports….
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, an abortion opponent, said later that "no matter what your views are on abortion, you shouldn't ask people to use their tax dollars if they think that abortion is taking a life — to use their tax dollars for those purpose — for that purpose…."
A group of conservative Democrats led by Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) has proposed a compromise that would neither require nor forbid private insurers to cover the procedure as long as no federal funding is used; another group of Democrats and Republicans held a news conference Wednesday to call for an explicit ban on funding.
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In their proposal to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Ryan and four other Democrats say that allowing insurers to chart their own abortion policies as long as taxpayer money isn't used for the procedures represents "a common ground solution" that effectively maintains current law on abortion funding.
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Backers say the bill has been carefully scrubbed for months to remove policies that might alienate either side, such as financial support for the morning-after pill.
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But Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said Wednesday that the bill would effectively subsidize abortion providers by increasing funding for family-planning services and would "further encourage promiscuous sex."
Congress should add a provision to the legislation to permanently exclude abortion from taxpayer-funded health care or health insurance.
How many angels can dance on the end of a pin? Let's count a few….
If radical anti-abortion groups, like Perkins', had their way, all reproductive services (contraception, morning after pills, as well as abortions) would never be paid for with "taxpayer dollars." Tony Perkins tells us all we need to know about the radical nature of the anti-abortion movement in this country. The movement is first and foremost an anti-sex movement….."further encourage promiscuous sex."
If the anti-abortion radicals, those who regard an abortion doctor's assassin as a patriotic hero who was simply following his god-inspired conscience,…..if those anti-abortion forces have their way in the health reform "debate", women everywhere in America will see abortion and reproductive services curtailed.
Obama's basic plan will include an "exchange" where private health policies, as well as a public policy, will be offered to those Americans who do not have coverage from an employer. In addition, those Americans who cannot afford a plan from this exchange will be provided a government subsidy to pay for the plan chosen from the exchange.
The extremists would prohibit any health policy in that exchange from covering the cost of an abortion. You see, tax dollars would be used to pay for an insurance policy that covered the cost of abortion. Not the abortion itself…..but the insurance policy. Even this, the radicals cannot tolerate.
However, setting the radical anti-abortion groups wishes aside for a moment……just how ridiculous is the "argument" that no tax dollars should ever be used to fund an abortion?
In my opinion, pretty ridiculous.
As of 2006, there were 14.6 million government employees. Where does the money come from to pay these employees? From tax dollars. Should those millions be excluded from paying for an abortion with the tax dollars they are paid? Should those employees simply get the money necessary for an abortion from their friends or family members who don't receive their paychecks from tax dollars? Shouldn't a federal employee who opts for an abortion have to demonstrate that the money used for that abortion came from a source other than their federal employer? If not, why not?
For those who would pre-emptively argue that federal employees have earned those tax dollars by, you know, working…..and are, therefore, entitled to do what they wish with their own money……wouldn't the money, in my hypothetical, still originate from tax dollars? And wouldn't that fact deeply disturb the oh-so-sensitive, god-like consciences of the radical anti-abortionists?
In the midst of the totally insane town hall buster-uppers, the gun toters, the vile hand held signs, the Nazi-Obama equivalencies, the socialist stupidities, the death threats…..American women are in danger of having their legal reproductive freedoms further limited by the same forces who today justify assassinating abortion doctors, the same forces who would also prohibit tax dollars from being used to pay for contraception because that would encourage "promiscuity."
The folks working to limit women's legal reproductive options will stop at nothing. They are radicals, extremists. Their "conscientous rights", for some incomprehensible reason, they believe, must be guarded by all costs and means. Not, mind you, because any of these radicals have, or will, ever be forced to have an abortion themselves……they are just so easily offended if someone else does.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you really think calling people who disagree with you "radicals" and "extremists" a hundred times somehow advances your argument ? It doesn't. It only makes you appear to be the extremist.
Bottom line – If you want to abort your child, you go do it. Just don't ask me to pay for it, because I won't.
And your answers to my points are…..what, again?
I was conscientiously opposed to the Iraq crime…..shouldn't I be able to deny my tax dollars from going to pay for that abortion? If not, why not?
Your assertion that abortion is a reproductive option says enough. You could have stopped there without the name calling.
i was on a panel that discussed abortion many years ago ( it was just prior to Clinton running for his 1st term so it has been awhile). We were trying to set party county policy. Anyway, the religious portion of the panel kept bringing up the fact that it was all about the baby, not the mother. The life needed saved etc… So being the smart aleck I am I took it to the extreme and said we should abolish abortion even in cases of rape or incest, after all it is all about the baby. These people jumped all over me with both feet, I was the devil, how could a woman raise a child that is the product of rape? I'm not sure what the point of this story is except at that time I became pro-womans choice but anit-abortion. Most can't reconcile the two but in my mind it is up to the mother but there are other options than abortion. As for paying for birth control by the government I'm for that, actually I'd have the governement pay for any age appropriate medical wellness items, ie. physicals, cancer screens, birth control, etc… And how about putting permanent birth control in tatoo ink, that would save the welfare system!
Smoking Something disagrees, apparently, that women still have a legal right to the reproductive choice of an abortion.
Roe is still in effect, last time I checked.
Steve….I can appreciate your comment here…"at that time I became pro-womans choice but anti-abortion."
Your comprehension of the contradiction seen in pro-life exclusions for rape and incest is a sound one.
And I do believe it's true that most people on both sides of the aisle would rather see fewer abortions.
Thanks for the good comment.
Rev asks, "I was conscientiously opposed to the Iraq crime…..shouldn't I be able to deny my tax dollars from going to pay for that abortion? If not, why not?"
This is a good question, and even though you refused to answer a similar "if not, why not ?" question I posed about the government tracking our computer information, I'll try to answer yours, being the good sport that I am
Let's see. I guess you are right. You can't control where your tax dollars go, and neither can I. I pay for a whole slew of things the government does that I don't agree with. Abortion would just be one more. So, I guess I better modify my previous comment…I don't believe in taxpayer funded abortions, and they are not mandated as a province of the federal government by the Constitution. How's that ?
That's the whole Roe argument. Roe is still Constitutional and therefore protected by the federal government, just as any other right.
Consider the abomination that is the Hyde Amendment.
If all aspects of governance were handled like the odious Hyde Amendment…..government couldn't function at all.
Many folks conscientiously object to their tax dollars going to help poor families. You, yourself, complained about the cash for clunkers program and would have rather not had your tax dollars spent on that program.
But that's the point. We don't get to choose. We elect representatives who pass laws….and we can't simply make up exemptions over conscientiousness after the fact.
Abortion is legal….and therefore, no one has the right to deny tax dollars for the exercise of that right.
It's legal for me to mow my lawn, but that doesn't mean the government has to buy my mower and gasoline so I can exercise that right.
It doesn't mean that it would be illegal to do so, either.
I don't recall any Supreme Court decisions on grass mowing, you know, declaring it legal. Maybe grass mowing should be tested in the Court. I'm all for declaring grass mowing unconstitutional.
I'm sure you are, unless the government mows the grass for me. I don't know that anyone has argued it would be illegal for paid abortions to be included in the bill, just wrong.
Seems like at every turn your arguments don't really make any sense lately, Reverend. Did you stop trying because you're starting to realize that Obama sucks?
"just wrong"?? Who set up the ethics and morality committee? You?
My arguments make sense, and that's why your comments have gone off the rails lately.
It's one thing to believe that government should end Medicare and stay out of health care reform….it's another thing to make stuff up because you believe those things.
Conservatives rarely operate from the basis of the facts and that's why they resort to lies, propaganda and misinformation. And that's what we're seeing in conservative resistance to what most Americans want.
What did I make up? I mow my lawn all the time and don't get squat from the federal government for it.
Your last sentence is a doozy, Reverend. The belief in a need for some reforms is almost universal even among Reps, but it has become obvious that the clowns currently running things aren't capable or honest enough for the job. The latest polls show 54 percent of Americans would rather Obama do nothing than proceed with this fiasco.
Well…when corrupt conservatives in the GOP and media go balls to the wall bonkers covering and screeching about townhall nutcases, when those nutcases scare and intimidate regular ignorant Americans into believing grandma will soon be turned into dogfood….what the hell would you expect from a poll?
And, again, you are wrong….Republicans set forward NO plan, none.
The "some reform" that GOP'ers want is a guaranteed 35 million new customers for their corporate captains. That's not health care reform….that's the same old doo-doo.
Why are you arguing so strongly for the status quo anyway?
Your claims about Republicans setting forward no plans is a blatant falsehood, Reverend. I'm sorry Master has once again failed and is waving the white flag, hoping to save face.
Looks like Boss Limbloat and that hick lady from Alaska have cut him off at the knees again.
larry is correct. Just because Roe is recognized as Constitutional doesn't mean the taxpayers have to pay for abortions. That's an entirely separate issue.
I have the right to free speech, but the taxpayers aren't forced to pay me to write my blog.
Everyone can speak and write. Not every woman can perform an abortion on themselves….even though that's what radical conservatives would prefer.