Does the Senate bill fund abortion?
At Politics Daily, our own David Gibson has a helpful article on abortion and health-care reform. Gibson goes into details that most stories on the subject skip or just summarize, and he talks to a few people who actually seem to know what they’re talking about. His conclusion: the Senate bill is not proabortion, no matter what some prolife organizations have been saying.
One of Gibson’s most important points has to do with the money the Senate bill authorizes for community health centers:
Perhaps the most eye-catching claim by anti-abortion forces is that upwards of $7 billion designated in the Senate bill ($11 billion in the president’s amended version) would be funneled directly to Community Health Centers (CHCs) which, as [Dr. Charmaine] Yoest wrote, “include Planned Parenthood clinics that provide abortions.” […]
This meme has become the unchallenged talking point for pro-life opponents of the health care reform bill. But it is mistaken on several points.
Most obviously, none of the 1,250 Federally Qualified Health Centers, or FQHCs, that would receive the billions in money through the reform bill offer abortion services. […]
As the National Association of Community Health Centers said in a statement this week, none of the health centers receiving money under the Senate bill “provide abortions to any of their patients, and we are not aware of any that have ever done so.” In addition, the statement said that “Health centers do not plan to, nor are they seeking to, become providers of abortion. On the contrary, last year health centers provided prenatal, perinatal, and post-natal/post-partum care to 1 of every 8 children born in the U.S.”
Do read the rest of the article (especially if you plan to criticize the part I’ve quoted).
Maybe David can comment on this, but when he writes about the Community Health Centers, he mentions that opponents of the bill argue that Planned Parenthood clinics may attempt to qualify as Community Health Centers, then debunks this notion, as PP would have to vastly expand its enterprise. As I understand it, the real concern is not that Planned Parenthood would try to become a CHC, but that random CHC’s would start offering abortion services. In fact, the Reproductive Health Access Project has that very goal in mind. http://www.reproductiveaccess.org/
Of course, they would be restricted from using federal funds specifically for abortions, but…well, we’ve been through this before.
Why not put in the Stupak Amendment just to be sure?
Adeodatus, you are clearly in the advocacy loop! That group is routinely cited by NRLC and others as evidence that federally-qualified community health centers would start offering abortion services. The group you cited is a small one and has not had any apparent success, which is understandable because if they started offering abortion in federally-qualified health centers they would no longer be federally-qualified health centers as they could no longer receive federal funds.
I think it would certainly be worthwhile to clarify language about the Community Health Centers and “reproductive services” so that there is no confusion, or somehow a center someplace that finds a way to offer abortions and brings the entire system into disrepute.
But the hypothetical situation you cite is nothing like the completely false claim that the bill if passed would represent the “largest taxpayer funded expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade” and would funnel $7 bilion to Planned Parenthood abortion clinics and others.
Moreover, these abortion mills, er Community Health Centers, you are worried about have been receiving $2 billion a year in federal funds and doubled under President Bush. Why the sudden concern now?
Nancy: I think in parliamentary terms it’s not easy or possible, given the Republican obstructionism, to paste in an amendment at this point since it would mean going back to square one. They could pass a separate bill just on abortion language which would garner Republican support, or they could find a way to tweak some elements that are eligible under econiciliation. In fact I think that could be a resolution, if there is a resolution.
PS: Adeodatus: The House bill allocates $12 billion to the CHCs, which makes me wonder why the $7 billion allocation in the Senate bill causes you greater concern.
“Moreover, these abortion mills, er Community Health Centers, you are worried about have been receiving $2 billion a year in federal funds and doubled under President Bush. Why the sudden concern now?”
I think the reason people are concerned is that the funds provided under Bush were provided through HHS and thus had Hyde attached. I know that at least with the senate bill, there is a concern that funds would run outside of HHS.
Because the House bill is DOA?
The House bill was not DOA until a few weeks ago.
In any case, I appreciate the query — I genuinely want any information that would challenge what I wrote. I want to have the clearest picture possible, and partisans on both sides are difficult to pin down when their claims are challenged.
Here is Tom McClusky from Family Research Center on how abortion is in the healthcare scheme.
——————
Eight Reasons Abortion Is in the Health Care Overhaul
By: Tom McClusky
1. The legislation specifically includes it. The President’s bill to amend the Senate bill leaves several abortion provisions in place. In Section 1303 it allows tax credit subsidies for plans that include abortion and leaves the abortion surcharge in place. It maintains the proposal to create a multi-state plan that includes abortion in Sec. 1334. Even worse, it would increase the Senate bill funding from $7 billion to $11 billion for community health centers in Sec. 10503 without any abortion funding restrictions. (H.R. 3590, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.)
2. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said it is. “And I would say that the Senate language, which was negotiated by Senators Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, who are very strong defenders of women’s health services and choices for women, take a big step forward from where the House left it with the Stupak amendment, and I think do a good job making sure there are choices for women. . .That would be an accounting procedure, but everybody in the exchange would do the same thing, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium that would go into a fund.” (Sebelius: Everyone will pay into abortion-coverage fund.)
3. Senate Democrats refused to ban it. Instead of allowing for an up or down vote on a Senate amendment similar to the Stupak Amendment in the House which bans federal funding of abortion, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) “tabled” the amendment, effectively killing it. This was the only amendment dealt with in this way. (Vote No. 369 S.Amdt. 2962 to S.Amdt. 2786 to H.R. 3590)
4. House Pro-life Democrats, who support a government takeover, say it is. “The Senate language is a significant departure from current law and is unacceptable.” (House Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), February 23, 2010, CBS News)… “I think abortion’s wrong. The problem is that I’ve lived too long. When they say they can keep this money separate, I just don’t believe it.” (House Representative Marion Berry (D-Ark.), March 6, 2010, Arkansas News.)
5. House Pro-abortion Democrats say it is. “The good news is that the Senate bill does allow [abortion coverage],” (Chairwoman of the House pro-abortion caucus, Dianne DeGette (D-Colo.), March 5, 2010, Washington Post.
6. The Abortion industry has sent out alerts in favor of it. The abortion giant Planned Parenthood sent out alerts on March 6, 2010: “President Obama’s health care reform proposal would make a real difference for the women and families who rely on Planned Parenthood. . . . and [the bill] significantly increase access to reproductive health care.” (Planned Parenthood alert, March 6, 2010.)
7. Candidate Obama said it would be included, and the Obama administration includes it in its definition of reproductive health care. Presidential candidate Barack Obama stated he “believes that reproductive health care is basic health care.” (Rhealitycheck.org questionnaire, 2008.) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed up on this in 2009: “Reproductive health care includes access to abortion.” (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, April 22, House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing)
8. House Democratic Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has indicated he wants to “fix” the abortion coverage problem in the Senate bill. “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that lawmakers could draft separate pieces of legislation with abortion language to earn the support of anti-abortion rights Democrats on healthcare reform legislation.” (March 4, 2010, The Hill)
Egloof, it would be better to actually read the provisions, instead of using “somebody said abortion is in there” as game, set, and match. David Gibson has it exactly right, and I talked about this on Vox Nova too – in fact, there is precious little difference between the Hosue and Senate bills on abortion.
Federal funds simply cannot be used to pay for abortion in the Senate bill. In the House bill, you can get abortion covered with a supplemental policy. In the Senate bill, you must may a seperate premium in the same policy, and that premium must fully cover the gross cost of abortion coverage (it cannot take into account savings from not paying for pregnancy). The real difference here is an extra piece of paper. I don’t see any real difference in terms of the moral proximity of taxpayers money to abortion.
I fully understand that there are objections to the obligatory nature of this separate premium. On these grounds, the House bill is superior. However, everybody in the exchanges will always have a pro-life option, which is more than I can say for those of us on employer-insurance, who have no say in the matter. In any event, I would bet that very few plans will offer aborion in these circumstances (nobody will want to pay the separate check).
There are also some distinct advantages of the Senate bill – even those without subsidies must pay separately for abortion, and states can ban all insurance plans that offer abortion from entering the exchange (the Stupak provisions in the House bill only relate to people receiving subsidies). In other words, the Senate bill starts regulating abortion coverage even for people not receiving federal subsidies.
On the Hyde amendment, I also think the Senate bill actually embodies the status quo. It defines abortion specifically as “based on the law [governing HHS appropriations] as in effect as of the date that is six months before the beginning of the plan year involved”. In other words, it is tied directly to the Hyde amendment. We forget that the Hyde amendment is not permanent law, but is re-enacted every year. The House (Stupak) version makes iit permanent. Of course this is better, but its not really the status quo. This is where I fear Stupak is being a little elusive.
One more thing – I fear that the pro-life movement is approaching this whole thing with a “hermeneutic of suspicion”. They read the worst intent into every language. First, it was a public option spending taxpayer funds on abortions. Subsidies to the private sector was a side issue. With the public option off the table, subsidies became the huge non-negotiable issue. And yet as the Senate bill created some bulwark, attention instead shifted to the fact that people will have no choice but to pay the abortion premium. Aside from the fact they they will always have a pro-life plan to choose from, isn’t that an entirely separate question from the federal funds issue? Doesn’t this issue affect everybody under employer-based inusrance?
The new focus on the community health centers is evidence of reading the worst intention into everything. These centers – which do not offer abortion and provide prenatal, perinatal, and post-natal/post-partum care to 1 in every 8 children born in the United States – should be supported by pro-lifers, not attacked.
Has the pro-life movement always had these high standards? Not at all. With Medicare Advantage, NRLC endorsed pro-life language that was laughably weak. It basically said that a plan could not be denied admission to the program because it refused to cover abortion – it had nothing against them covering abortion (remember, 14 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are not the elderly, but people on disability). And today, abortion is offered under Medicare Advantage, and the NRLC fights attempts to cut its funding.
Eggloff, nothing in that list is supported by the facts. Ditto what MM said above.
David – to support your excellent analysis – add in recent post by Michael Sean Winters about the Rachel Maddow show of two nites ago. She did an excellent job of highlighting much of the “motivation” behind Stupak and his obstructionist tendencies – basically, potitical gains by keeping his name in front of this debate.
I also wonder if the issue about Stupak’s residence over the past 7 years at the C House and allegations about subsidizing his rent which were never recorded in his prior 7 tax filings? BTW – the Democratic Party in Michigan has now fielded another candidate in his district for the Democratic primary.
Would love to say that folks like Stupak and Doerflinger at the USCCB are focused on the common good but it appears that facts indicate that their enthusiasm, passion, and single minded focus has obscured their ability to see the progress and the ultimate goal of the common good – rather, they would kill all attempts to save their pet project.
For a deeper dive into why the Stupak Amendment will not be in the final bill, check out this analysis by Jay Cost. The short answer is, that decision lies entirely with Senate Democrats, who have already rejected the Stupak language and have no incentive to incorporate it now.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2010/03/bart_stupak_has_problems.html
Jim, why should they incorporate it?
It appears Stupak isn’t going to vote for health care reform even if his abortion language is written into the bill. See Stupak: It’s Not Just Abortion. I wonder if he is to be trusted?
Interesting piece, David, thanks for flagging it. It certainly makes Stupak seem a bit less “heroic,” and raises questions as to whether the USCCB should hitch their judgment to his verdict. Was Stupak playing the Dem leadership all along like the moderate Republicans senators were last summer?
Abortion proponents disagree with you, DAvid, Minion et al….
5. House Pro-abortion Democrats say it is. “The good news is that the Senate bill does allow [abortion coverage],” (Chairwoman of the House pro-abortion caucus, Dianne DeGette (D-Colo.), March 5, 2010, Washington Post.
6. The Abortion industry has sent out alerts in favor of it. The abortion giant Planned Parenthood sent out alerts on March 6, 2010: “President Obama’s health care reform proposal would make a real difference for the women and families who rely on Planned Parenthood. . . . and [the bill] significantly increase access to reproductive health care.” (Planned Parenthood alert, March 6, 2010.)
David G, in compiling sources for your story, did you happen to see this backgrounder from the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities?
http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/030410facts.pdf
it seems to directly challenge several claims in your article. This section disputes your assertion that Hyde Amendment rules would govern tue funding for Community health Centers (CHCs):
“Federal funds in the Senate bill can be used for elective abortions. For example, the bill authorizes and appropriates $7 billion over five years for services at Community Health Centers. (This would rise to $11 billion under President Obama’s new proposal.) These funds are not covered by the Hyde amendment (as they are not appropriated through the Labor/HHS appropriations bill governed by the Hyde amendment), and not covered by the bill’s own abortion limitation in Sec. 1303 (as that provision relates only to tax credits or
cost-sharing reductions for qualified health plans, and does not govern all funds in the bill). So the funds can be used directly for elective abortions.”
The author(s) of the backgrounder also see the difference between the ways the two bills would finance abortion in insurance exhcanges as more than an “administrative technicality”:
“The Senate bill uses federal funds to subsidize health plans that cover abortions. Sec. 1303 limits only the direct use of a federal tax credit specifically to fund abortion coverage; it tries to segregate funds within health plans, to keep federal funds distinct from funds directly used for abortions. But the credits are still used to pay overall premiums for health plans covering elective abortions. This violates the policy of current federal laws on abortion funding, including the Hyde amendment, which forbid use of federal funds for any part of a health benefits package that covers elective abortions. By subsidizing plans that cover abortion, the federal government will expand abortion coverage and make abortions more accessible.”
The same backgrounder disputes your assertion regarding a compulsory “abortion tax”:
“The Senate bill uses federal power to force Americans to pay for other people’s abortions even if they are morally opposed. The bill mandates that insurance companies deciding to cover elective abortions in a health plan “shall… collect from each enrollee in the plan (without regard to the enrollee’s age, sex, or family status) a separate payment” for such abortions. While the bill states that one plan in each exchange will not cover elective abortions, every other plan may cover them — and everyone purchasing such a plan, because it best meets his or her family’s needs, will be required by federal law to fund abortions. No accommodation is permitted for people morally opposed to abortion. This creates a more overt threat to conscience than insurers engage in now, because in many plans receiving federal subsidies everyone will be forced to make separate payments solely and specifically for other people’s abortions. Saying that this payment is not a “tax dollar” is no help if it is required by the government.”
Lets not kid each other; Planned Parenthood is most likely licking its chops in anticipation of the sort of federal money that will quietly drift their way via the Senate legislation.
Why does Congress not want to stipulate two simple things?
1 – Any health care reform will not pay for elective abortions
2 – Any health care reform will cover all people living in this country i.e., it will cover the indocumentados.
These two things are very straightforward; they are not difficult to understand or explain.
It seems clear enough now, that President Obama came at this whole thing with good intentions, but in the wrong manner. He should have first set the table, by getting the faith-based community on-board so they would help disseminate the notion that in a country as wealthy as ours, it is part of our Christian, Jewish, or Muslim duty to make sure that anyone living here – whether they have the money or not – will have access to a doctor when they need one. I have heard or read the phrase “practical Christianity” and it seems that (along with practical Islam, and practical Judaism) would have been well received had it come from the pulpits. There are probably a hundred references in the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran regarding caring for one’s brothers and tending to matters of community.
Once President Obama had obtained a consensus that everyone has the right to a see doctor when they are sick, then the matter becomes how to do so in a cost effective way.
At that point the President should have assembled his own working team and developed a national health insurance plan. Then he should have trotted it around the country, road-show style, for public (remember us?) comment, and made revisions accordingly. Once he was comfortable with his plan, he should have had the proper legislation drawn up and given it to the Democrat leadership. They would then have – with appropriate fanfare – presented it to Congress for final amendment and approval, whereupon the President would have signed it into law.
Instead of that approach however, President Obama overly estimated the level of consensus on the part of the public, and he under-estimated how bad the Congress is at developing something this large and sweeping. OUr President (again with good intentions no doubt) nonetheless mistakenly allowed a band of smug and giddy but inept Congressmen and women, led by the giddy megalomaniac Pelosi and Reid the grim, write up a 2000+ page monstrosity and further, allowed them to try and ram that mess through Congress without the public understanding or approval. Now congressional Democrats are stuck in a huge mess and the midterm elections will soon be looming large. Congressional Democrats listened to no one but their own echo chambers and the President and they frittered away most of a entire year. Certainly they refused to listen to the actual public; in fact their contempt for public opinion regarding this matter has so far been breath taking.
I am sad to see what I think was a real opportunity for health care reform, be as botched as badly as this to have been.
I meant to mention also, that there is no sense getting into the minutia of one version of the Senate versus the House version, a public plan versus private plans, etc., until and unless we as a people, as a society, reach a consensus that in fact everyone – whether they have the money or not – has the right to see a doctor when they are sick.
Once we settle that matter, then we can get into discussing that various ways of doing it, and ultimately settle on what will work best for America.
Jim P, yes, I’d seen that USCCB backgrounder, and it seems clear that it is mistaken on those points, as I try to point out in my piece. One thing: I’m not sure why it argues that the federal government is “forcing” people who are morally opposed to abortion to pay for abortion coverage. People who buy insurance policies specifically because they include abortion coverage must pay that surcharge, but no one else. If you are buying a policy and want abortion coverage, how is the government forcing you to buy it? And if you don’t want abortion coverage for moral reasons or don’t want to pay for it (for economic reasons — as most will not, obviously) then you don’t have to. There is no compulsion I can see.
“Jim P, yes, I’d seen that USCCB backgrounder, and it seems clear that it is mistaken on those points, as I try to point out in my piece. ”
David, forgive me if this seems argumentative, but … in reading your piece, and then reading the bishops’ piece, what I took away from it is competing claims from different groups of experts. But who is right?
For example, on the question of the applicability of the Hyde Amendment to CHC funding, your expert states: “”The Senate bill…provides that this funding is to be transferred to HHS accounts to increase funding for community health centers and does not provide for segregating these funds,” said Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and a top health care expert who has done an extensive analysis of the abortion financing question. “Since all other HHS funding, including expenditures from trust funds, is subject to the Hyde Amendment, these funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.”
The Pro-Life secretariat has a different take on it: “These funds are not covered by the Hyde amendment (as they are not appropriated through the Labor/HHS appropriations bill governed by the Hyde amendment), and not covered by the bill’s own abortion limitation in Sec. 1303 (as that provision relates only to tax credits or cost-sharing reductions for qualified health plans, and does not govern all funds in the bill). So the funds can be used directly for elective abortions.”
So who’s right? And why? To me, it looks like competing claims: one legal expert says that any funds that flow through HHS are subject to Hyde Amendment rules; the other expert says that only funds that go through the Labor/HS appropriations bill are governed by Hyde. Which is true?
(I hope you don’t think I’m questioning the quality of your reporting – not my intent, and I’m still in awe of your work. But these claims are sharply divergent, and I’m trying to understand how that can be).
Eggloff, it is hard to tell if your source is accurate in the instances you cite. Planned Parenthood has interests beyond abortion, so it may simply be an innocent misreading of “reproductive health care” as if it means abortion, or it may be a willful distortion. As to the comment from Diana DeGette, your source not only gets her name wrong, he takes it out of context, leaving out the intended ambiguity. Even if these are innocent errors, they are distortions that make the arguments suspect.
6. The Abortion industry has sent out alerts in favor of it. The abortion giant Planned Parenthood sent out alerts on March 6, 2010: “President Obama’s health care reform proposal would make a real difference for the women and families who rely on Planned Parenthood. . . . and [the bill] significantly increase access to reproductive health care.” (Planned Parenthood alert, March 6, 2010.)
“Reproductive health care” is not the same as abortion. The Senate Bill includes support for women who wish to become pregnant, with pre and post natal care, beyond anything offered in the House version. This might be what Planned Parenthood is referring to.
5. House Pro-abortion Democrats say it is. “The good news is that the Senate bill does allow [abortion coverage],” (Chairwoman of the House pro-abortion caucus, Dianne DeGette (D-Colo.), March 5, 2010, Washington Post.
The context for Ms DeGette’s remark shows the ambiguity of it:
Short of that, the only way forward will be to convince the Stupak contingent that the Senate language is as restrictive as abortion rights supporters fear it is — and at the same time try to put those very fears to rest.
“The good news is that the Senate bill does allow” abortion coverage, said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chairman of the House’s Pro-Choice Caucus. “But the question is: Would [the coverage] really be there?” Washington Post 3/5/2010
Jim P: No, I don’t resent the questions at all, or feel you are questioning my reporting…I think such challenging is necessary, and I know it can feel that this is just one expert saying one thing and another saying another thing and, well, how is one to know? And the default mode is to suspect everything and so not pass something. I think that’s part of the strategy of the manipulators, though not the sincere activists.
In any case, I asked several people your very question, and the problem arises in the small wording change of the Senate bill in which it says the bill “appropriates” the funds for XYZ, which can make it sounds as though the money has been (or will have been, if the bill becomes law) funds set aside from general reveunes without going through HHS and Hyde.
The bishops conference staff is unfortunately, or perhaps understandably, trying to portray the worst possible scenario in each case. There is not a lot of trust here, on either side. But I believe the language of the bill clearly supports the path of the money through HHS. But the other question is, how would this money go to abortions anyway? It is not going to places that provide abortions. It’s as if the USCCB raised red flags about appropriations that went to 4H fairs WITHOUT being subject to Hyde strictures. OMG. It could pay for abortions. But…Well, again, I think a lot of parties have gotten stuck in old talking points and can’t find a way to back things up, and there is so little trust, as I said before, which is perhaps understandable.
One also realizes that at a certain point we are talking about such small possible scenarios that it puts the lie to the apocalyptic rhetoric that is being purveyed, and to the far greater good of reducing so many more abortions and supporting so many millions of women and children and families.
The executive director of the Catholic Health Association supports the bill:
http://www.chausa.org/The_time_is_now_for_health_reform.aspx
I don’t get it. Why, then, are abortion supporters in favor of the Senate bill?
“There is not a lot of trust here, on either side.”
I see that – particularly after also reading Matthew Boudway’s continuing exchange with Americans United for Life. A good part of the pro-life movemnt’s objections to the Senate language is based on what could happen, given that it seems to open doors that the Stupak Amendment kept shut.
I was reflecting this moring that, when the Senate rejected the Stupak language and crafted what is now in the bill, nobody expected that would be final word on abortion language in the bill. The expectation was that the Senate bill and the House bill would go into conference to hash out the differences, so at least one more vote was expected in both chambers. It’s not clear to me whether the Stupak language would have survived that conference process – presumably, if it didn’t, Speaker Pelosi would have the same problem rounding up votes that she does now.
But Scott Brown’s election forced Congress to change course, and now it’s Senate-language-or-bust. So if we must blame someone for this predicament, blame Martha Coakley.
“Why, then, are abortion supporters in favor of the Senate bill?”
This question is deserving of an answer.
Jim – It’s not specific enough to answer. Which “abortion supporters”‘ motives are we investigating? But very broadly: if those who favor legal abortion and those who oppose it agreed that health-care reform was a desirable goal, provided the status quo could be maintained (i.e., the availability of legal abortion is neither restricted nor directly financed by the government), and if this proposal achieves that precondition, why wouldn’t abortion supporters favor it?
So, in an effort to answer Patricia Lewis’ question, we learn that leading pro-choice organizations detest the Senate bill’s abortion provisions:
NARAL Pro-Choice America: “The House and Senate bills both include unacceptable provisions”. http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/news/press-releases/2010/pr03032010_hcrlegislationstmt.html
Planned Parenthood: ““Given the promise of health care reform to extend coverage to millions of Americans, it would be a travesty if the current health care reform effort resulted in the loss of reproductive health care coverage, including abortion, which most women currently have under private health insurance plans. If the current Senate language introduced by Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) is maintained, it would result in the most significant restriction in access to abortion coverage in the nearly 35 years since the U.S. Congress first adopted the Hyde Amendment. Under the burdensome Nelson provision in the Senate health care reform bill, it is anticipated that most private health insurers would no longer offer coverage for abortion. Since most women with private health insurance have coverage for abortion, the Nelson provision would take away coverage that women have now. For that reason, Planned Parenthood opposed the Nelson provision when it was proposed and continues to oppose it.” http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/statement-cecile-richards-president-planned-parenthood-federation-america-final-stages-health-c-31799.htm
National Organization of Women: “Rep. Bart Stupak and his radical anti-abortion rights coalition are threatening to vote against the Senate bill because its restrictions on abortion coverage are not as extreme as those contained in the House’s Stupak-Pitts amendment. Even if Stupak does not succeed, the Senate bill is already bad enough. It places burdensome requirements that would likely result in no coverage for abortion care for either the millions of women purchasing insurance in the new insurance exchanges or the millions of women now covered by large, employer-based group plans, the majority of which currently provide abortion coverage…. The National Organization for Women refuses to compromise on our most basic principles. We will not accept a health care bill that trades off the rights and needs of some women for the benefit of others. And we will never stop fighting for the right of every woman to have equal access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion.” http://www.now.org/press/03-10/03-04.html