Pro-Aborts Clouding Issue of Healthcare Reform-- Abortion

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 8/6/2009 7:00:00 AM
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National Right to Life accuses the pro-abortion lobby of "creating smokescreens" intended to prevent Americans from finding out that their tax dollars will be used to fund abortion in the Democrats' government-run healthcare plan.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards claimed earlier this week in a piece for the Huffington Post that taxpayers would not be forced to fund abortions in the government health insurance plan advocated by President Obama. "The public health insurance plan...would operate like any private insurance plan would," she wrote. "Therefore, there is no reason to treat any coverage issue, including abortion coverage, differently in the public health insurance plan than in private plans...." Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, notes that this is the same Cecile Richards, who on National Public Radio just a few months ago, said that the healthcare legislation would be "a platform to extend access to abortion to all women in the United States." "Now she spoke the truth on that occasion," he states. "That is what they are trying to do -- what they're putting out now is a lot of double-talk and misleading rhetoric." According to Johnson, changes to the House version of healthcare reform legislation make it abortion-friendly. "...[T]he fact is the language that the House committee adopted over our objections, and which [Richards'] side supports, would explicitly authorize the new government plan -- which would be available to every American -- to cover abortion on demand," the pro-life leader explains. "It would also allow federal subsidies to flow to private health plans that could cover abortion on demand." Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has challenged Cecile Richards to a debate on "the question of taxpayer-funded abortion and whether or not citizens would be forced to fund abortion under the current healthcare reform bills." Richards specifically targets Perkins' pro-family group in her column.