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Under the proposed health care plan, virtually every American will eventually be forced into a plan that mandates abortion by requiring individuals to buy health insurance that meets minimum benefits standards determined by unelected government bureaucrats. If the law does not clearly state that abortion is excluded, abortion automatically becomes a minimum required benefit. Americans don’t support this and don’t support paying for abortions.
The proposed healthcare bill amounts to a bailout for the abortion industry, which is swimming in profits already. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize this controversial industry. The Gallop Poll shows that 71 percent of Americans are opposed to healthcare funded abortions. Since abortion is mandated in the health care bill, every insurance plan will have to cover it and provide means necessary to obtain an abortion.
Tell Congress to vote no on any health care bill that does not include language to explicitly exclude abortion. No one should be forced to pay for abortions.
ROXANNE MCCONNELL
Fruita
10 Responses to “Health care reform should not include funding abortions”
Posted August 3rd, 2009 at 5:12 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
“Tell Congress to vote no on any health care bill that does not include language to explicitly exclude abortion. No one should be forced to pay for abortions”.
It is not and can not be in the bill because it is against the law to pay for abortions with public funds. On another matter that touches on the involvement of members of all faiths in an issue I submit the following.
The following was signed by 48 denominations and organizations in New York. It seems that most have come together on the matter. Where does your church come down on this issue?
Support a Single Payer Medicare for All type Program
Statement of the Faith and Hunger Network of NYS
275 State St., Albany NY 12210 – 518 434-7371 xt 1#
July 31, 2009
As members of the faith community in New York State, we call upon our national and state elected officials to recognize health care as a human right by creating a universal health care system that guarantees all Americans the right to quality health care regardless of their employment status, age, gender, race, wealth, marital status or national origin.
The belief that health care is a human right is supported by many faiths. Health care is a right, not a privilege or a commodity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds that every human being has the right to health, including health care.
To date, the “universal” health care proposals being advanced by the White House and Congressional leaders fall far short of making health care a human right. Access to health insurance is far different than guaranteeing health care. These various proposals would leave millions of people without adequate insurance. Meanwhile, even though leaders such as President Obama, Senators Schumer and Kennedy, and Governor Paterson all recognize that single payer would be the “best solution,” they have so far refused to include it in the negotiations. This is wrong.
Protecting private insurance companies and their profits is incompatible with the effort to make health care a universal human right.
As Amnesty International recently pointed out in calling for a single payer health care system, “While the human right to health care does not mandate any particular type of health care system, of the reform proposals being discussed in the U.S. today, the single-payer plans are more universal, equitable and accountable – the three key principles of the human right to health care.”
The United Methodist Church, a proponent of single payer since 1992, notes that “from our earliest days United Methodists have believed that providing health care to others is an important duty of Christians. The United Methodist Church regards healthcare as a basic human right, as well as a responsibility both public and private. (It) advocates for health care as a human right that must be made available to all.”
The Presbyterian Church USA states “Good health—physical, mental, and spiritual—is both a God-given gift and a social good of special moral importance.” Its General Assembly in 2008 endorsed “the goal of obtaining legislation that enacts single-payer, universal national health insurance as the program that best responds to the moral imperative of the gospel.” Single payer is a “good vision of how to bring God’s shalom to the many, rather than the privileged few.”
Judaism advances two core values underlying an abiding commitment to provide health care to all of God’s children. The first is that an individual human life is of infinite value; the second is that we are endowed with wisdom and strength to be God’s partners in repairing the world. Just as the Talmud teaches that a physician is obligated to heal and that a patient is obligated to obtain health care, so too are we taught that the whole of society is responsible for ensuring that every individual has accaccess to health care.
Islamic teachings also state “we believe that health is a fundamental human right which has as its prerequisites social justice and equality and that it should be equally available and accessible to all.”
The US Catholic Bishops have recognized that “every person has the right to adequate health care. This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all persons.” The American Baptist Church “believe(s) that health care should be viewed as a right, not a privilege, and the basic goal for health care reform should be universal access to comprehensive benefits.” Similar statements have been adopted by the Unitarian Universalists, Church of the Brethren and the American Friends Committee.
A single payer system (e.g., HR 676, S. 703) does the best job in making health care a human right. It also does the best job of controlling costs while ensuring that patients and their medical care providers decide what care patients receive rather than having for-profit insurance companies make those decisions.
Much of the debate in Congress has focused on providing a public option rather than single payer. “The Medicare-like public option does not make sense for several reasons,” notes a recent article in the Jewish magazine Tikkun. “We have yet to show that the political process can yield a level playing field for competition between public and private programs. Another round of government subsidies would give the private insurance industry yet another opportunity to further divide the risk pool. We would likely march toward even more of a two-tier system than we have now, and Medicare would face an increased risk of becoming a welfare program for sick people with significant medical problems. It would perpetuate a role for private health insurance and accept the illusion that it provides a valuable adjunct to health care financing when it is already clear that it doesn’t.”
While the most comprehensive solution must be a national solution, it is also imperative that New York State government provide leadership for recognizing that health care is a human right.
The final proposal adopted by Congress must acknowledge that there is a human right to quality health care, guaranteeing health care services for all - everybody in, nobody out, without preconditions or qualifications. How provision is made for children in the dawn of life, the elderly in the twilight of life, and the sick, needy and those with disabling conditions in the shadow of life are clear indices of the moral character and commitment of a nation. Our call for health care for all is rooted in our faith traditions’ mutual call to heal the sick and to serve ‘the least of these,’ the priorities of justice and principle of common good.
Yours in peace and justice,
Posted August 3rd, 2009 at 6:11 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Proposed healthcare reform does NOT include funding for abortions.
Maybe we shouldn’t pay for birth control either. That offends many religious philosophies. Or maybe we should remember that America separates church and state and allows its citizens to make their own decisions.
Posted August 3rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Abortion is a legal medical procedure. I am not pro abortion, but I am pro choice. It just amazes me that conservatives are insistant on individual rights only when it suits them. Such matters should be left up to a woman and her doctor, not preachers and politicians. So, what other legal procedures would you exclude? Vasectomies?
Posted August 3rd, 2009 at 8:38 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
How about some funding to prevent teen pregnancies? We KNOW abstenance only programs don’t work. Just ask Briston Palin.
Come on. We’d be preventing child poverty, heart ache, and even money, if we just prevented teen pregnancy in the first place.
Posted August 3rd, 2009 at 10:56 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Pregnancy is a normal function of a woman’s body. In fact, full term pregnancy is a known factor that reduces the risk of breast cancer later in life. Prenatal care is HEALTH care. Abortion is not. (with rare exceptions)
Posted August 4th, 2009 at 1:50 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
obama- you are the poster child for birth control!
Posted August 4th, 2009 at 5:32 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Stay classy, golfdoc.
Posted August 4th, 2009 at 6:16 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
And once again, funding for abortions is NOT in the proposed program.
Posted August 4th, 2009 at 10:17 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curm says, “You don’t think facts matter to this crew, do you?”
Which facts? Are there facts to support the taxpayers funding elective abortions? I’m all ears.
Posted August 4th, 2009 at 10:35 am Login to Send PM Report this comment
Curm - How much do you know about Obama’s Mother and the Grandparents who raised him?
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