Health Care Reform, Ryan-DeLauro Abortion-Plus Bill, Sotomayor

The last couple of weeks have been spent setting up the battlefield for the next round of fights on Capitol Hill. We’ve had a number of skirmishes. Next week some of the biggest battles will be engaged. Here are three that conservatives must engage.

HEALTH CARE REFORM

Health care reform has taken up practically all the oxygen inside the beltway. And for good reason—we need health care reform. Unfortunately, the people in charge of that debate have a much different idea about what that reform ought to look like than most of the people in the country. The main points of contention are:

1. The determination of liberals to include abortion as a covered benefit.
2. Their insistence that all health insurance plans in America must provide a government-approved set of minimum benefits.
3. Their insistence on including a public health component for all Americans.

Liberals believe that abortion should naturally be covered in health plans. They think of it as an essential part of “women’s reproductive health.” Just think about these quotes:

“We [the Obama Administration] happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion …”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Testimony Before House Foreign Affairs Committee, May 20, 2009

“In my mind, reproductive care is essential care, basic care, so it is at the center, the heart of the plan that I propose… Insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care … that’s going to be absolutely vital.” President Obama’s statement to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Conservatives tried numerous times in the House and Senate to introduce language that would prohibit abortion except in the cases of danger to the life of the mother, rape and incest, but were defeated every time.

But the liberals aren’t content to simply provide abortion in some insurance plans. They intend to force every insurance plan to cover it. In the House bill, HR 3200, you run across this language:

LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT-
(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.

Some are saying this language means that no insurance company will be able to write new policies once the government system goes into effect. Investor’s Business Daily, http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854, first raised that concern. It’s possible to interpret it that way. What I am absolutely convinced the language means is that no insurance company will be able to write new policies that do not meet the government’s set of minimum benefits. And while you’re thinking about this, think about the fact that it probably won’t be only minimum benefits they must comply with but also maximum benefits. A mainstay of the liberal answer to run-away health care costs is to ration health care services. So, it is likely that all health insurance policies will also be required to follow the government’s review board policies on acceptable health care options.

The liberals are also insistent on including a public health care plan for all Americans. They will tax businesses, upper-income people, and anybody else they need to in order to fund this plan. In case you missed it in the President’s press conference on Wednesday, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/News-Conference-by-the-President-July-22-2009/, here is what he said about all the rest of us:

“The one commitment that I've been clear about is I don't want that final one-third of the cost of health care to be completely shouldered on the backs of middle-class families who are already struggling in a difficult economy. And so if I see a proposal that is primarily funded through taxing middle-class families, I'm going to be opposed to that because I think there are better ideas to do it.”

Now, contrary to the President’s campaign promise, taxing everyone to pay for his plan is acceptable, just so long as the middle-class isn’t the “primary” source of the funds.

So, what’s standing in their way? Conservative Democrats. We are witnessing the most unexpected display of Democrat pushback I have ever seen. Most of the Republicans are standing firm in their opposition, but the Democrats can pass anything they want without them. However the liberal Democrat leadership doesn’t even have the support of all the Democrats. In the Senate things have come to a complete standstill. They are wrestling with runaway costs, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25331.html.

In the House, things are more contentious. All attention is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is chaired by Henry Waxman. The hold-up? Blue Dog Democrats! They are insisting on changes in the health care plans government will offer. Here is a story on their stand, http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-healthcare-talks-break-down-in-anger-2009-07-24.html.

It’s important to note that they are holding out primarily over costs and various impacts of the health care proposals, not over the principle of government take-over of health care, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/10/house.health.care/index.html. I know this because one of the most conservative Blue Dog Democrats spent 40 minutes last week telling me that we needed a public health plan. You can read this letter they sent to Speaker Pelosi, http://thehill.com/images/stories/news/2009/july/polis%20health%20care%20reform%20surcharge%20letter.pdf .

How this turns out is in the hands of these Democrats. They are under tremendous pressure. If one of them is your representative, I encourage you to get in touch with his office and let him know where you stand.

If these Blue Dog Dems don’t get with the liberal program soon, Speaker Pelosi has a plan B. She will take the bill from the committee and bring it directly to the floor for a vote. She has the power to do this. Here is a story on where that stands http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/10/house.health.care/index.html. It should be a fight like nothing you’ve ever seen if she does that, but she’s up to it. The rest of us had better be up to it as well.

The Ryan-DeLauro False Compromise

The press is telling us that there is a new movement afoot on the abortion wars—a compromise position around which everyone can rally. They claim that Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) have fashioned a bill that represents true middle ground on the contentious abortion battlefield. Here’s what they are saying, http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090723/us_time/08599191228400.

The only problem is that most pro-life people haven’t joined this grand compromise. And for good reason. The Ryan-DeLauro bill is hardly a compromise. Granted, it has many good components that will encourage pregnant women to keep their babies and provide them the safety net services they need, but it also includes many provisions that are certain to result in more pregnancies and more abortions.

1. The bill provides more money for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider. They aborted 300,000 babies last year. Federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion, but that doesn't mean very much. Planned Parenthood simply uses the federal dollars for the rest of their operation, which frees up more of their other money to perform abortions.
2. The bill includes support for Plan B contraception, which is a misnomer. Plan B is an over-the-counter abortion drug. It is taken by women and girls after they have sex and are worried that they might be pregnant. The drug aborts the fertilized egg if one exists. It is not a pregancy prevention plan, but an early abortion plan.
3. The bill provides funding for sex education classes, which, I'm sure you are aware, are used to teach kids how to have "safe sex" and how to engage in many different forms of sex with so-called minimal harm. In other words, these sex education programs are more about harm reduction in sexual activity than anything else.
4. The bill will also increase the distribution of contraceptives, including condoms, to school age children.
5. The Ryan-DeLauro bill will result in more abortions.

If the grand compromise means we must accept more liberal intrusion in the lives of children, more teen pregnancy, and more abortions in order to get some help for pregnant women, that’s more than I’m ready to give. I can understand why NARAL and Planned Parenthood are enthusiastic about the bill. They don’t give up anything. On the other hand pro-life people must give up plenty. Think of it as an abortion-plus bill.

If you are looking for a positive, pro-life approach to the dilemma of unintended or challenging pregnancy, the Pregnant Women Support Act (S. 1032, H.R. 2035) is the right choice. The bill provides safety nets for women who find themselves pregnant and unsure if they can care for their babies. It provides everything from prenatal care, to assistance with continuing education, to childcare assistance. It is supported by most of the pro-life groups, and has bipartisan backing. Democrat Bob Casey is the lead Senate sponsor, and Democrat Lincoln Davis is the lead house sponsor.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR’S CONFIRMATION

I watched practically all of the hearings with Sonia Sotomayor. Some people have deathbed conversions. Judge Sotomayor had an armchair conversion. In a matter of hours, while seated in that armchair before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she renounced all her worldly ideals and kissed the Constitution. Gone was the wise Latina, the policy-making judge, the empathetic champion of the little person.

If words alone were all we had to guide us, we would have to say Judge Sotomayor passed the test. But we also have the pesky decisions she made, which just cannot be scrubbed or revised. Despite all that she has said, her decisions reveal that she does not possess the commitment to the Constitution that is required of a Supreme Court justice. Here are the most prominent decisions that should be cause to deny her confirmation:

On Religious Speech, Okwedy v. Molinari (2003)—She ruled against a man who rented a billboard to post a Bible verse against homosexuality because local leaders thought it was offensive and had it removed.

On Private Property, Didden v. Village of Port Chester (2006)—She ruled against a man who wanted to build a pharmacy on his property. The city had taken his property under eminent domain and gave the exact same piece of property to a developer who built his own pharmacy on the same piece of land.

On the Right to Bear Arms, Maloney v. Cuomo (2009)—She ruled that the 2nd amendment is not a fundamental right and that the state’s have the power to restrict the right to bear arms.

On Racial Discrimination, Ricci v. DeStefano (2008)—She ruled that New Haven had acted properly when it nullified the results of a promotion test a group of firefighters had passed because no African-Americans had passed it.

On Enviromentalism, Riverkeeper v. EPA (2004)—She ruled that the EPA should not consider cost in requiring businesses to adopt the most effective means of controlling environmental hazards.

When you add her 12 years with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she helped advocate for unrestricted abortion rights, and her numerous reversals by the U.S. Supreme Court, it is clear that Judge Sotomayor should not be confirmed as a Justice on the nation’s highest court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on her confirmation next week. The full Senate vote will follow shortly after.

The battles are engaged. May the Lord grant us wisdom and strength as we all seek to bring His values into public policy.

Blessings,

Barrett

The Healthcare Reform Mandate Madness

Healthcare reform remained the top issue in D.C. this week. Everyone was talking about it. The President and the liberal leadership in Congress are still determined to include a public health insurance option in the plan. I have noted before how dangerous this is. Developments this week revealed another feature about the dangerous nature of the liberals’ plan—Mandates. Two mandate regimens are especially disturbing.

The Money Mandate

Under this mandate, everyone pays. Individuals are fined $1,000 under the Senate plan if they don’t have coverage. Business pays to cover employees, and it pays if it doesn’t cover employees. Jacob Goldstein, http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/07/15/comparing-employer-health-mandates-from-the-house-and-senate/, did some quick math on the cost to business of the money mandate in the Senate and House healthcare bills:

“Both would also require that all but the smallest employers either offer health insurance to their workers, or pay a penalty. But there are some key differences between the penalties that would be imposed by the two bills. The mandate in the Senate bill, which applies to businesses with more than 25 employees, requires companies to pay a penalty of $750 per full-time employee. Under the House bill, employers with payrolls of more than $400,000 a year would have to provide health insurance or pay an 8% penalty. Companies with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 would pay lower penalties; smaller companies wouldn’t be subject to the mandate. So if we do a quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation, we can imagine a 50-person company paying each employee $50,000 for a total payroll of $2.5 million a year. That company’s penalty under the House bill for not offering insurance would be $200,000, or $4,000 per employee. The Senate bill’s $750-per-employee penalty, by contrast, would add up to $37,500.”

And in case you missed it, the universal healthcare plan in Massachusetts, which is being touted by some as the model for a national plan, is already about to collapse. An article in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/16hospital.html?_r=1&emc=eta1, describes the plight of a major hospital as it wrestles with the requirement to provide care for everyone while the state cuts back on its contribution due to lack of funds. Here is the last paragraph from the article:

“The magnitude of the loss here can’t be solved on the program-cutting or expense-cutting side,” Mr. Traylor said. Professor Parmet said the hospital’s dissatisfaction with the new law should be a warning to Congress that “insurance alone doesn’t solve the problems” of the health care system. In fact, she said, it might exacerbate the financial problems of safety-net hospitals in the short term.”

In other words, there isn’t enough “waste” or “inefficiency” in the system to pay for the additional costs of government-run universal healthcare.

The Abortion Mandate

Through its actions this week, it has become clear that the Senate intends to mandate that every healthcare plan offered through the government's healthcare gateway provide abortion coverage. Here’s how it will work. The government creates an insurance gateway that people can enter to choose a healthcare plan. The plans the government makes available are all vetted by the government. If a plan doesn’t offer the coverage the government says it should offer, the plan doesn’t make the cut and isn’t available for people to choose from.

Activity in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee reveals that the Senate leadership intends for every government-approved healthcare plan to provide abortion coverage. The Senate liberals beat back numerous attempts to prevent the inclusion of abortion coverage in government-approved health plans. There is only one reason to reject any attempt to prevent abortion as a covered item in health care—because they expect it to be required. Here are the results of just some of the amendments proposed by some Republicans in the HELP Committee to keep abortion out of the Senate healthcare plan:

Senator Hatch amendment: no federal funds could be used for abortion or for any health plans that include abortion, defeated with 11 yes, 12 no.

Senator Coburn amendment: to allow conscience protection for health care providers who do NOT want to do abortions, defeated with 11 yes, 12 no.

Senator Coburn amendment: to ensure that state abortion laws, like parental consent on abortion laws, are not overruled by the bill, defeated 11 yes, 12 no.

Senator Enzi amendment: to ensure that the bill cannot mandate abortion coverage, defeated with 11 yes, 12 no.

Then there’s Senator Dodd’s sham amendment: to protect those who cannot conscientiously perform abortion, “except in an emergency.” But “emergency” is left undefined and so can mean anything, including a woman who is feeling emotionally distraught, passed with voice vote.

The House bill, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” (H.R. 3200), is at least as dangerous as the Senate bill on many fronts, including abortion mandates. National Right to Life just released their statement, http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/HR3200NRLCfactsheet.pdf, about the abortion mandate it carries. Here is their summary statement:

“The health care restructuring bill pending in the U .S. House…contains provisions that will result in federally mandated coverage of abortion on demand in virtually all of America's health plans. Once abortion is established as a federal "essential benefit," the bill will also require "access" to elective abortion, which will require many issuers to establish and staff new abortion-providing sites. Moreover, state laws that impede "access" to elective abortion (such as waiting periods and parental notification requirements) may be nullified as conflicting with the purposes of the federal law .In addition, the bill will result in the massive subsidization of elective abortion with tax dollars.”

Upcoming Webcast on the Abortion Mandate

The healthcare overhaul is turning out to be more about the radical pro-abortion agenda than making sure everyone has healthcare coverage. This is an issue every pro-life person must engage. A great way to start is to plan to participate in an upcoming webcast on the abortion mandate. The webcast will start at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 23. Numerous family group and pro-life leaders will be on this webcast to talk about their concerns, including Richard Land. You can sign up here, http://www.stoptheabortionmandate.com/.

The healthcare battle is the most important battle we are facing today, and that’s saying a lot when you consider all that is going on. We need healthcare reform, but not the kind that liberals in Washington are trying to force on us.

Blessings,

Barrett

Sorting Out Sonia Sotomayor

The confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor start on Monday, July 13. She goes into the hearings with some of the worst polling results of any Supreme Court nominee in recent history. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll taken on Friday, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/10/cnn-poll-do-americans-want-sotomayor-confirmed/ reveals that 47% of the country wants her confirmed and 40% don’t. Obviously, she is a polarizing figure.

The public's obvious nervousness about Judge Sotomayor is justified by her record. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission just finished its analysis of her record and has reached the following conclusion:

“Sonia Sotomayor’s record reveals that she is perfectly willing to lift the blindfold of justice to achieve her desired result. She is a judge with a terribly flawed view of the judicial system at best or a judge who simply doesn’t care what the law says at worst. She has constantly shown her lack of deference to the Constitution. She is the type of justice who instead of applying the law neutrally will redefine the law to conform to her policy preferences. The bottom line is that Sonia Sotomayor is an unpredictable wildcard. Across the issues her record is either far too thin or hidden behind non-published orders and per curium opinions. Simply put, placing Sonia Sotomayor on the highest court in the land jeopardizes our nation’s commitment to equal treatment under the law.”

I have copied the Executive Summary below. You can download a PDF here, http://erlc.com/documents/pdf/sotomayor-exec-summary.pdf. You can read the full analysis of her various rulings and materials we analyzed to arrive at our conclusion here, http://erlc.com/documents/pdf/sotomayor-fact-sheet.pdf).

Sanctity of Human Life

While Sotomayor has come down on the right side on some of her peripheral cases dealing with pro-life issues, she has never dealt with a pro-life case directly. Thus her personal record is much weightier than her judicial record in determining where she stands on the issue. The assurances from those close to her and her many years working with the Puerto Rican Legal and Education Fund suggests that she is very pro-choice. This combined with the fact President Obama, who supports unfettered abortion, appointed her makes a strong case against Sotomayor’s pro-life potential. The core question is whether she thinks abortion is a Constitutional right. It is likely that Sotomayor would not favor a case that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Church-State Separation / Free Exercise of Religion

Sotomayor’s record suggests that she understands that it is vitally important for the government to not interfere. Her ruling in Hankins reveals a respect for the right of religious groups to govern themselves without federal interference. Her Flamer decision reveals that she can take an accommodationist position on church/state relations. These cases suggest that Sotomayor understands the church/state principles in the First Amendment. However, we should be cautioned by the fact that so much of Sotomayor’s other rulings are reasoned based upon her personal feelings rather than what the Constitution actually says. How she would rule on more complicated “establishment” cases is unclear. The Okwedy v. Molinari decision should deeply concern religious free speech advocates.

The Assault on Traditional Marriage and the Homosexual Agenda

It is very unsettling that there are no rulings or materials that give an indication as to how Sotomayor would rule on these important social issues. In addition to directly breaking God’s law, allowing same sex marriage would open the door to polygamy and other additions to the definition of marriage. If we tolerate this redefinition of marriage, what grounds would we have for not tolerating polygamy? Legalized same sex marriage would be the most destructive force in crushing the traditional family unit which is foundational to society. Statistics show that children who grow up in a traditional family unit (one man and one woman marriages) grow up to be more productive citizens and more positive participants in society. Watering down marriage by including all sorts of combinations devalues this most basic structure that God created.

Eminent Domain

The state of protection for constitutional property rights post Kelo is so bad that we cannot take anything for granted. Sotomayor has ruled in two impactful property rights cases and has come out on opposite sides. While she deserves some credit for the Krimstock opinion, her Didden ruling combined with the Brody case still suggests a troubling pattern. How Sotomayor would rule in a takings case involving church property is uncertain.

Second Amendment Rights

Sotomayor does not believe the 2nd amendment is a fundamental right. This is alarming simply because of the direct evidence in opposition to that view. The effects of taking away our right to bear arms could be devastating. If the government is the only institution allowed to legally possess guns, this will create a citizenry that is powerless to protect itself from crime, oppose tyranny, and create an even greater dependence on the government. This is a direct limitation of our individual rights. If Sotomayor does not acknowledge a right as fundamental as the right to bear arms then what other rights might she deem invalid?

Civil Rights Issues

In Ricci, all Sotomayor and her colleagues did was say we are going to take the District Court’s word here. Also unnerving is Sotomayor’s failure to recuse herself from the case to begin with. While Sotomayor was a board member for a Puerto Rican legal advocacy organization in the 1980’s that organization brought suit against the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) challenging NYPD police promotions exams as discriminatory. She then sat as a judge and heard the Ricci case on the exact same issue. She should have recused herself from this case. It is impossible to say that there will never be a case where a judge may have a conflict, however, when the cases are this closely related, the code of judicial conduct suggests you recuse yourself.

ABA Code of Judicial Conduct:
o CANON 2: A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s activities.
o CANON 3: A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially and diligently.
These cases combined with her numerous comments in speeches and law review articles (the wise Latina woman comments) show a clear pattern of her preferences in identity politics.

Judicial Activism

Sotomayor is on the record stating that Circuit Court judges make policy. She does not distinguish between sources of law and fails to see the proper distinction and roles of the legislative and judicial branches of government in creating and interpreting the law.

Creation Care and the Environment

Sotomayor’s limited environmental cases are all over the board and we have no clear way of telling how she will vote on any particular cases that come before her. Her decision in Riverkeeper reveals a willingness to allow environmental arguments to trump standard economic considerations. Had this decision not been overturned by the Supreme Court, businesses could be laboring under EPA requirements to implement the most effective environmental regimes despite their potential devastating effects on the viability of the company, even for little environmental gain.

Transnationalism

Placing Sotomayor on the court would be a major coup for the transnationalist movement. While Justice Ginsburg already represents the transnationalist view on the court, if President Obama could add a second Justice to the court with transnationalist views it would strike a blow against Constitutional sovereignty. Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Harold Koh, Cass Sunstein, and many other high ranking Obama administration officials favor application of United Nations protocols and international law over the Constitution. Sotomayor believes that use of foreign law can be “very important and a source of good ideas.”

We also raise the following concerns:

High Rate of Reversal: Judge Sotomayor has a very high reversal rate at the Supreme Court. Seven of the cases in which she joined or wrote the majority opinions have been appealed to the Supreme Court. The most recent and arguably most famous being a Title XII challenge by white and Hispanic fire fighters (Ricci v. City of New Haven). Of those seven cases, the Supreme Court has reversed five and seriously questioned her reasoning in a sixth which the Court ultimately upheld on other grounds. This demonstrates that Sotomayor’s jurisprudence, at least in the most important cases, has been outside the Supreme Court’s view. Additionally, her stance in the Second Amendment case of Maloney v. Cuomo (that the Second Amendment should not be incorporated and that the right to bear arms is not a fundamental right) is even outside the norms of the typically liberal-leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which recently held that the Second Amendment should be incorporated.

Temperament: Judge Sotomayor has elicited critiques that range from “she can be a terror on the bench” and “she is temperamental and excitable” to “she can be a bit of a bully” and “she can get harsh at oral argument.” All told, her temperament drew a dozen highly critical comments.

Lack of Detail: Sen. Sessions, the Ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, focused in part on Sotomayor’s pattern of burying her questionable decisions on the Second Amendment and other high-profile issues by brushing over the key questions: “[Sotomayor has] provided a breathtakingly short amount of analysis when confronted with novel and important constitutional questions. … Judge Sotomayor’s lack of attention and lack of analysis are troubling. These truncated opinions also suggest a troubling tendency to avoid or casually dismiss difficult Constitutional issues of exceptional importance. Other examples of this [in addition to Second Amendment cases] may include the New Haven Firefighters case, Ricci v. DeStefano, which is currently pending before the Supreme Court, and the Fifth Amendment case, Didden v. Village of Port Chester.”

o Since Sen. Sessions made this statement the Supreme Court did in fact overturn Ricci v. DeStefano.

The record reveals that Sonia Sotomayor should not be confirmed as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The Public Health Plan: A Pro-Life Non-Starter

Friends,

Healthcare reform is on everyone's front burner now. Here is my take on the bill unveiled recently by the Senate HELP Committee. I hope you are enjoying your 4th of July. We have much for which to be thankful. Please join me in praying for our military and their families.

Blessings,

Barrett

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The Public Health Plan: A Pro-Life Non-Starter

The Senate Health, Education. Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has posted on its website the health care reform bill they have been working on. It’s called the “Affordable Health Choices Act.” As promised, it contains a public healthcare option. The impact on other health insurance providers is reason enough to oppose a public health plan, but an even greater reason is the way it is going to undermine pro-life values.

The public plan’s immediate and long-term threat to pro-life values is what makes it a non-starter. The plan’s immediate threat to pro-life values is evident from its failure to provide any pro-life protections. There is no protection for health care providers who, due to their faith convictions, cannot provide abortion or abortion referrals. There is no protection for pharmacy owners or workers who cannot in good conscience dispense abortion drugs. There is no restriction on abortion, either. There is no language in the bill that would prevent the public plan from paying for any abortion under any circumstance. The bill does not even prevent the eventual inclusion of assisted suicide as a benefit.

Some will argue that the bill doesn’t have anything to say about these things one way or another, but that is precisely the point. The bill’s failure to explicitly protect these pro-life values will be interpreted as a requirement to ignore them. It is instructive to remember the struggle to stop abortion funding through Medicaid on this point. In Medicaid law what isn’t explicitly prohibited is therefore required. This is why Medicaid began paying for abortion as a covered benefit when abortion was legalized in 1973. It took the Hyde Amendment in 1976 to change that by explicitly restricting the use of taxpayer funds for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother.

The argument today is that the Hyde Amendment continues to protect taxpayers from paying for elective abortions. However, the Hyde Amendment is itself on a death watch these days. The amendment must be approved annually. It is clear that many in Congress would happily drop the Hyde Amendment language if they could. Many of us thought Congress would try to omit the amendment last year. Furthermore the Hyde Amendment doesn’t protect other pro-life values, like conscience protections and banning assisted suicide.

Of further concern is that the bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create the public health plan. The person currently sitting in that seat is Kathleen Sebelius, a longtime abortion rights protector. The fact that the benefits provided under the public plan will be decided by political appointees and entrenched bureaucrats out of public view should be enough reason to fear for pro-life values.

Given Congress’ history of excess, the long-term prospects for pro-life values are bleak as well. An insurmountable problem with the public option is that the government will be deciding what the plan will cover. Can you imagine what a health plan built by the government will look like after a few years? It will be loaded down with every imaginable benefit and coverage. In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “Public Option: Son of Medicaid,” Daniel Henninger, comments, “Medicaid is a morass. Since the program's inception, Congress has loaded it up every few years with more notions of what to cover, shifting about 43% of the ever-upward cost onto someone else's tab, mainly the states.” There is no reason to think that Congress will exercise any restraint with a new health plan.

As Congress loads more benefits onto the plan, the costs will skyrocket in the same way they have for Medicaid. While the government will certainly raise taxes and/or premiums to pay for the higher costs, it will eventually have to resort to the same rationing scheme under which people in England and Canada are suffering. In England, it is illegal for doctors to even tell patients about drugs that the country’s health care rationing body has determined to be too costly. It doesn’t even matter if the drug has proven helpful to some people. If it costs too much per person, it can be disallowed for coverage, and doctors cannot even tell their patients the drug exists. In Canada a person can literally die while waiting for rationed treatment.

While the American health care system has its flaws, especially when it comes to abortion, it still places a much higher value on life than either the English or Canadian plans. I suppose rationing is one way to keep health care “affordable,” but I’m sure it’s not what most Americans want. If England and Canada can’t figure out how to make a public plan work without rationing, there is no reason at all to think our government will do any better. We must continue to move pro-life values forward, not backward.

Making it possible for every person to get and keep health insurance is a pro-life value worthy of everyone’s support. But I do not believe it is necessary to throw our other pro-life values under the bus in order to achieve that worthy goal.