Health care plan could be unhealthy for prolife movement

Concerned Women for America's President Wendy Wright is absolutely right with voicing serious concerns about the health care bill the House passed Saturday night. Single issue prolife groups raved about the Stupak-Pitts amendment's passage with the help of Blue Dog Democrats, but multi-issue groups like CWA were more somber:

"This monstrous bill will ration and deny health care, pay for coercive 'end of life planning.' create multiple bureaucracies that will control Americans' health care, penalize Americans for not buying a product, fine Americans if a government agent decides their health care plan is not 'government approved,' and may force Americans to buy government mandated insurance that funds objectionable procedures," Wright said. 

"Although an amendment passed to bar federal funding of abortion, Democrat leaders refused to guarantee that it will be in the final bill. The vote on the amendment may have been a ruse to gain pro-life Democrats vote for the bill.

In other words, the very amendment added to protect the unborn could end up being very unhealthy for the nation's prolife movement.

Blog Talk Radio's Teri O'Brien agrees with Wright.  She told listeners Sunday that prolife Congressmen "were had" and "fooled" by the Democratic leaders allowing a vote to restrict federal funding of abortion.  She too pointed to the Democrats' refusal to guarantee those restrictions in the final version of the health care bill.

Concerns were accentuated by the flood of press releases and comments coming from prolife groups congratulating themselves for the Stupak-Pitts amendment's passage.

It's clear that if the Blue Dog Democrats -- like Illinois' Dan Lipinski and Jerry Costello -- hold to their prolife moral bearings, there will be trouble in Pelosi/Obama health care plan's final passage if it includes federal funding for abortion.  The Democrats will be in a quandry.  Their abortion rights base demands no restrictions and federal funding, but at the same time, they need the Blue Dogs' votes to get it. 

There's more for prolifers to be concerned about in the health care bill, too.  End of life issues and health care rationing are two major unresolved life-linked problems in nationalized health care.  When you think about it, it's all about life -- who gets the best care, what determines who gets that care, and how it will be provided.  Pro-lifers should be concerned about it all.

Focusing on the beginning of life and ignoring the end of life issues in this health care debate will segment, weaken and could ultimately destroy America's strong prolife movement.  That's something that must be avoided at all costs.

Comments

[Paul, Just This Guy, You Know?]

I doubt that there are many pro-lifers outside the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who are taken in. We know that Stupak-Pitts will be stripped out of the compromise bill before it goes for a final vote. By then, we'll be back to a bill that finances abortion from the public treasury, on top of all the other evils it includes.

But one value for the right in that amendment is that the single-issue pro-choice side has realized how weak their hold on the Democrats in Congress really is. They are livid that 64 Democrats voted for the Stupak Amendment, and well over 200 voted for the bill that included the amendment. (http://www.feministing.com/archives/018779.html)

Pro-lifers understand that a healthcare "reform" that claims to bad abortion funding may yet fund abortion, as well as euthanasia, and host of other evils.

But pro-aborts were thrown under the bus on Saturday, and anything that so discomfits them can't be all bad.

[IR]

IR received seven different press releases from different prolife groups claiming victory with the passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.
With those announcements, it appears that more than the US Conference of Bishops were "taken in."

[Ghost of John Brown]

I think part of the problem is that there are certain groups, including Cardinal George, that may WANT the overall health care bill to pass and therefore they want to make sure that abortion is out of the bill when it "hopefully" passes. From other posts, it appears that Cardinal George called Congressman Boehner to ask that no games were played on the Stupak amendment. Here is the forest, here are the trees - please learn to distinguish between them.

[rightwinger]

I wished the Stupak amendment failed. Without that, there was a good chance the bill would've failed (they say). No bill also equals no abortion funding.