Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.
Federal funds for abortions are now restricted to cases involving rape, incest or danger to the health of the mother. Abortion opponents say those restrictions should carry over to any health insurance sold through a new marketplace envisioned under the legislation, an exchange where people would choose private coverage or the public plan.
Abortion rights supporters say that would have the effect of denying coverage for abortion to millions of women who now have it through workplace insurance and are expected to join the exchange.
Simple question: Regardless of your abortion views, will this issue determine your support of the health care bill?
To anyone who says yes, I say: You are arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
That said, the hypocrisy on this issue is enormous. For the pro-abortion rights side, they fight for the individual's rights on one issue, abortion, and then throw them away on another issue, health care. When government makes your health care decisions for you, where is your right to decide?
For the anti-abortion side, don't come crying about your religious rights being violated as you violate women's rights to decide what to do with their own bodies.
For those who are simply against public funding of abortions, but not against abortion rights, I ask: If you are going to be fiscally responsible on this one issue, why would you support general health care funding at all? Even in the best of economic times, there are plenty of good reasons not to do this. But in the face of our current national deficit, and our current recession, and our government's reduced tax revenues, this is a fiscal nightmare.
The abortion funding issue is just another request to the band, as our ship of state sinks deeper into insolvency.
