However, the Obama Administration apparently is unwilling to allow the exclusion of organizations like Planned Parenthood, as Texas law requires, even though that organization represents less than 2 percent of enrolled providers. Texas has more than 2,500 qualified providers in 4,600 sites across the state, ready to deliver care.
If this debate were really about health care, the Obama Administration would allow the Texas Women's Health Program to continue.
Instead, the administration's stated intention to reject the Texas program reflects nothing more than its pro-abortion agenda, and is a blatant pander to the president's liberal base, which has made Planned Parenthood's abortion services a celebrated cause.
The Wall Street Journal on the tabling of the Blunt Amendment:
Nancy Pelosi called it "devastating legislation" and "the latest ploy in the Republican agenda of disrespecting the health of American women." Planned Parenthood claimed the "dangerous proposal" would have allowed "your boss"—yes, yours—to decide "which prescriptions you can get filled and which medical procedures you can have," including cancer screening, maternity care and AIDS medications.
It sounds medieval. But in fact, the provision that the Senate tabled yesterday would merely have restored the status quo ante of one month ago. Those were the dark ages before the Obama Administration overturned traditional conscience protections with its birth-control insurance mandate under the Affordable Care Act.
At least one state legislator in California (Sen. Christine Kehoe) thinks first trimester abortions should be a decision between a woman and her nurse practitioner, physician assistant and nurse midwife.
Lawmakers opposed to abortion, however, were furious.
"My immediate response when I heard about this bill was visceral — I felt like I was kicked in the gut," Assemblyman Brian Jones (R-Santee) said in a statement. "I shouldn't be shocked at the moral failure this represents, but I fear what it says about our society that we are actually looking for more ways to abort babies."
Sadly, no surprises here.
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