Bart Stupak
There are some individuals who honestly believe that the health care reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate would usurp years of federal policy and allow for taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. Those people — including Michigan anti-abortion Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak — are wrong.
Stupak, who is backed by the like-minded U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated this week that he and 11 other members of the U.S. House are willing to completely derail reform efforts if the language he was able to insert in the House bill is not included in the Senate package. As U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin explained to me and other reporters on a conference call this week, however, the language will not be inserted into the bill because it is a policy issue not a budgetary concern. (A requirement of reconciliation.)
Because such rumblings could effectively kill all health care reform, Slate has taken a look at why Stupak and others believe the Senate bill allows government coverage or subsidy of abortion. According to reporter Timothy Noah, despite all the grumbling about taxpayer-funded abortion, the argument isn’t really about that at all. Instead, the Bishops and lawmakers of the same ilk as Stupak are upset because of “market economics” and not being able to forever change the policies that have governed abortion in America.
… A common misconception is that the government’s ban on abortion funding through the Hyde Amendment (which covers spending by the Health and Human Services Department, chiefly through Medicaid; other laws ban abortion funding through other government agencies) has the force of permanent law. It does not. It is merely a rider routinely attached to annual appropriations bills. Should the appropriations committees in Congress decide one year not to attach it, then HHS will become free to fund abortions. Pro-lifers live in fear that this will happen, but they don’t want to draw too much attention to the possibility, lest they discourage the public from thinking the Hyde Amendment is writ in stone…
In fact, it is this fear that the Bishops forwardly state in a press release: “…this annual rider is far less secure than the House bill’s permanent provision.”
Stupak is a bit more coy about this. His amendment prohibits government subsidies to anyone purchasing health insurance through the exchanges if that insurance covers abortion. To Stupak, it doesn’t matter that the Senate bill already prohibits any federal dollars from paying for abortions. “Our amendment maintains current law,” he has written, “which says that there should be no federal financing for abortion.” This is wrong on two counts. Current law doesn’t care one way or the other whether private insurers cover abortion. And to the extent it cares about government funding for abortion, it doesn’t ban it forever. It bans it for this year.
In a better world, Stupak and the bishops believe, the federal ban on taxpayer-financed abortions would be permanent. It’s true that the Senate-passed bill is at odds with this Platonic ideal. But the bill is completely consistent with the earthbound status quo. Why can’t they accept that?
Don’t be confused by the verbal gymnastics on display by those who want to equate the abortion debate with the health care reform debate. The Senate bill, which will likely be the bulk of the eventual plan, maintains the status quo and does not allow for government funded or subsidized abortion services.
