Safe, legal, and plentiful
Nov 27th, 2009 by David Anderson
Senate Democrats have included a monstrous pro-abortion mandate in health deform legislation. According to the NY Times, the senate bill has a requirement that an insurance plan covering abortion be available in every market. The so-called funding ban is viewed as an accounting sham. It may use private money for the abortion part and subsidize the rest with public money, but if it mandates abortions then it is just subsidizing policies that provide abortions. Suppose we agree in advance that we would go out to eat and I would help you afford it. You said you had $5 so I said that I would kick in after that. If I want to help you control your sugar and we went out to dinner then I said I would help you with dinner, but not dessert, would I be serious if I demanded the dessert menu be presented. I then found out that you had $5.00 so I decided to pay for all of the dinner and tip before dessert. Would I be serious in helping you avoid sugar?
The Family Research Council estimates that this policy could drive abortions up by a third, back to Carter level rates and maybe beyond. We know that which is subsidized tends to increase. If private and government insurers are mandated to include abortion coverage, will we get fewer abortions? Senator Nelson D-NE will oppose the bill if the provision is not removed. Senator Bob Casey Jr of PA is working quietly to get a compromise, but he will not commit to opposing it if the provisions remain. Not doing so will make a lot of pro-life Democrats wish they stuck with Santorum and may end Casey’s free ride among independent and Democrat social conservatives who gave Santorum his 2 victories. Why should this be necessary when supposed pro-life Democrat Harry Reid (who almost never votes that way) put together this bill?
It appears that Democrats are not to be trusted with anything important like the lives of the innocent or keep their own word with few exceptions. If they can’t get this right, why should we trust them on the complicated provisions of the bill. Medicare cuts, the idea that premiums will be lowered by adding costs through taxing them, that the deficit not increasing is not an accounting gimmick, that their will be no rationing, and the bill will control costs by adding costs such as excise taxes on medical devises and some procedures are all areas that defy logic. My question is why would you trust them if they are lying to you about something simple like whether or not the bill subsidizes abortion?
This is just one more reason to kill the bill or as Hillary Clinton said about Russian relations, push the reset button.
But David, weren’t we supposed to be so happy after they took it out of the House version ? The only way to deal with these people is to not deal with these people. Especially when it comes to abortion. They will never abandon abortion. This health care bill must be defeated as a whole. We can not allow any part of this president’s agenda to be passed, it will only be the foot in the door.
The Family Research Council estimates that this policy could drive abortions up by a third, back to Clinton level numbers and maybe beyond.
No you got the quote wrong… the Family Research Council (i.e., Dobson people) said abortion would go up to Reagan levels.
Abortions peaked under Clinton and the Democrats in Congress. The number was 1.6 million. Under the post Casey ruling and backed by more conservative principles in law at both the state and federal levels, abortions started to decline. Under Bush, they reached levels not seen since Nixion. Which is even more remarkable since we have almost an 100 million more in population.
Abortions peaked under Clinton and the Democrats in Congress.
Well, since the abortion rate peaked in 1981 and has been declining ever since – you must be speaking of Governor Clinton. Not sure what Clinton had to do with it from Arkansas though.
Absolute numbers of abortions continued to rise throughout the Reagan and GHWB administrations and began to decline in 1991. All abortion-related numbers declined throughout the Clinton presidency and did not exhibit any kind of “peak.” Details on p. 11 of this document.
I will agree that the rate of abortion peaked around 1981. It soared under Ford and Carter then started a slow decline under Reagan. Unfortunately, it took a decade to remake the Courts which resulted in Casey. Casey removed barriers to the states giving women informed consent and children the right to parental involvement. This helped reduce the number of abortions in both rate and absolute terms. I don’t think that we have a real disagreement. I will amend the post to reflect both rate and absolute numbers so that it is correct.
Thank you for helping me to avoid confusion and keeping a high level of accuracy. That is important to me.