Obama Lied on Abortion: the Proof is in the Health Care Bill

As many readers, who have been following this issue over the past few months, know, the US House of Representatives have passed a health care reform bill that contains language that prevents federal subsidies from going to health care plans that subsidize abortion - thus continuing the precedent set by the Hyde Ammendment, which prevents Americans from being forced to pay for abortions that others choose to have. But the Senate bill, which is in the final stages of being approved, does not have that language. After passage of the House bill, the pro-abortion lobby called on the White House (President Obama) to intervene and he duly so and ensured that the Senate bill would be abortion funding friendly. The plan is to strip out the House anti-abortion funding language when the two bills are "reconciled" by House and Senate leaders after Christmas, thus paving the way for the biggest expansion in abortion funding ever and the biggest boost to higher abortion rates since 1973.

According to Catholic On-line the Roman Catholic bishops have issued a statement after Sen. Ben Nelson's capitulation and his vote for cloture:

"Despite last-minute efforts to improve the language on abortion and conscience rights in the Senate's proposed health care reform bill, the U.S. bishops oppose its passage.

This was affirmed in a statement released Saturday by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the conference's Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chair of the bishops' Committee on Migration; and Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, chair of the Domestic Policy Committee.

The prelates acknowledge the "good faith" efforts of several Senators in proposing changes to the bill, as well as several positive points of the Manager's Amendment that was proposed Saturday.

While praising adoption tax credits and assistance for pregnant women, the letter laments that the current legislation "does not seem to allow purchasers who exercise freedom of choice or of conscience to 'opt out' of abortion coverage in federally subsidized health plans that include such coverage."

"While we appreciate the good-faith efforts made," the letter continues, "our judgment is the same as it was yesterday: This legislation should not move forward in its current form.

"It should be opposed unless and until such serious concerns have been addressed."

In a separate letter issued Friday, Cardinal DiNardo reaffirmed the position of the episcopal conference that "the legislation will be morally unacceptable 'unless and until' it complies with longstanding current laws on abortion funding such as the Hyde amendment."

The Catholic bishops are in favor of the health care bill except for the abortion funding issue, so they are speaking out of a commendable sense of conscience and on a point of principle.

The scene is surveyed by the editors of The National Review online:

"Pregnancy is not a disease. Hence abortion, in the vast majority of cases, is not health care. Contemporary liberalism is ideologically committed to denying this truth. Fifty-one percent of Americans contacted in a recent poll said that private health insurance should not cover abortion. One hundred percent of Senate Democrats just voted for legislation that, in the process of remaking American health care, creates new subsidies for health policies that do cover it.

If this bill passes, abortion will become a cheaper option for millions of women. We know that the demand for it is sensitive to price. Abortion rates will increase. For almost two decades, many Democrats who favor legal abortion, including Presidents Clinton and Obama, have said that they want to see that rate drop. They have a funny way of showing it.

Obama has said for months that he wants a health-care bill that leaves the status quo on abortion law in place. This bill radically revises the status quo in a pro-abortion direction. Under current law, federal dollars very rarely pay for abortion: Federal employees’ health plans do not, for instance, cover it. The Senate bill overturns this principle. It also implicitly authorizes the secretary of health and human services to require that all private health plans cover elective abortions."

Obama campaigned on the platform of finding common ground on abortion and trying to reduce the need for abortion. But since he was elected he has expanded funding for abortion every chance he gets. The much discussed "Freedom of Choice Act," which he said he would make his first priority as President has been on the back burner since the election, without so much as a peep of protest from the pro-abort lobby. The reason why is that they know that the goals of FOCA are being advanced through the health care bill.

Obama campaigned as a moderate; he is governing from the far left on most fiscal and moral issues. He said he wanted to reduce abortion, but he is doing everything he can to increase abortion and nothing to reduce it. The only logical conclusion is that he deliberately deceived the American people by pretending to be a Clinton-style moderate long enough to get elected. Many in the pro-life movement never bought into his slick words and slippery rhetoric and kept their eyes firmly fixed on his record instead. But he managed to confuse just enough voters to nip McCain in a close election that should have been a landslide with all the trouble the incumbent party was in. So America elected its first European-style, liberal-but-leaning-socialist, leftist president.

But because America is still a center right country with a strongly traditional core of conservatives and a large number of moderates who lean conservative, he had to lie his way to power. My bet is that it won't work twice. You read it first here: Obama is going to be the first one-term president since Jimmy Carter. In 2010 he will lose his legislative majority, at least in the House; in 2012 he will lose his fancy address. And the cause of liberalism will suffer a stinging setback. "Yes we can!" is about to turn into "Oh no you don't!"