Pro-life Americans give Obama a helping hand

Federal law has historically treated giving federal funds to insurance plans that cover abortions as equivalent to paying for abortions. However, under the PPACA, taxpayer dollars will be used by insurance plans that cover abortion when they participate in the state insurance exchanges that are set to begin in 2014. 

Even the accounting gimmick that abortion-covering insurance plans are required to employ is triggered to disappear if the Hyde Amendment, a yearly rider to an appropriations bill, is not renewed. The abortion lobby has been clear that removing the Hyde Amendment is a top priority. 

The National Organization of Women (NOW) vowed, “[T]he Board of NOW is hereby instructed to develop a long-term strategy with other allied organizations for the defeat of the Hyde Amendment and that the grassroots level of NOW be urged to take action in an aggressive campaign to repeal the Hyde Amendment…”

The Protect Life Act addresses these problems, writing into the law the same prohibition that applies to other federal health care programs, such as Medicaid and the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. Federal subsidies cannot go to insurance plans that cover abortions, regardless of whether the federal dollars are used to directly pay for abortions. Written into the law, the Protect Life Act ensures that prohibiting the use of the federal funds in the PPACA is not a yearly battle.

It is important to remember that other funding streams in the PPACA do allow direct funding of abortion. In July, the Obama administration approved plans by three states – Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Mexico — to use federal dollars directly for elective abortions in their “high-risk” pools. Only after pro-life groups cried foul, did the administration enact a rule against abortion funding through these pools. 

But pro-abortion groups, such as NARAL, have called the rule “unacceptable” and are lobbying for this limited policy to be rescinded. And as pro-life Americans are well-aware, the Obama administration is no stranger to rescinding regulations. (During his first week in office, President Obama revoked the Mexico City Policy and just last Friday the Obama administration rescinded regulations designed to protect health care providers’ conscience rights.) 

In addition, the Obama administration admitted its concession on high-risk pools is “not a precedent” for keeping abortion out of other areas of the health care reform law. 

The Protect Life Act takes the discretion to increase abortion funding under the PPACA away from the Obama administration and codifies a true common-ground issue; after all, more than 70 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer-funded abortion.

By closing abortion-funding loopholes in the PPACA, the Protect Life Act affords the same pro-life protections that were approved by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the House in 2009.

The Protect Life Act also safeguards the right of medical professionals to provide care without participating in abortion by codifying the Hyde-Weldon amendment and providing remedies for health care providers who have suffered coercion or discrimination.

The principle that nobody should be forced to participate in an abortion is common-sense, but attacks on conscience are all-too commonplace.

A recent case highlights the importance of this provision. A nurse at Mt. Sinai hospital in New York, Cathy DeCarlo, was forced to participate in an abortion. A federal court ruled that DeCarlo does not have a right to bring her case to court, but that the Department of Health and Human Services can (if they choose to) pursue her case. 

Another attack on conscience comes from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which has proposed an Ethics rule requiring referral for abortion.  Failure to comply with the ACOG committee rule could result in the loss of an obstetrician’s board certification. 

In addition, pro-abortion groups, such as the ACLU, have been lobbying the administration to reinterpret emergency-treatment laws to compel participation in abortions. 

The recent decision by the Obama administration to partially rescind a federal regulation protecting conscience reinforces the need to explicitly protect conscience and provide remedies for health care providers in the law. As AUL predicted during the health care debates, the rights of medical practitioners cannot be protected with words alone. Laws are needed.

President Obama is dealing with conflicting promises on life. His 2007 pledge at a Planned Parenthood event to put abortion “at the center, the heart” of any health care reform that he signed into law is in stark contrast to what he repeatedly said to Congress and to the American people about his plans.

But with the help of pro-life groups, President Obama will be able to keep his word to the American taxpayer. The Protect Life Act does what Americans want and what Americans were promised. It ensures that taxpayer dollars are not used for abortion and it protects health care providers’ conscience rights.

It’s time to make President Obama’s promises for pro-life protections the law of the land.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest is president and CEO of Americans United for Life Action.