Life Links 12/22/09

Here’s a Washington Post article detailing why both sides of the abortion debate aren’t fans of the abortion language in the Senate version of health care reform.

But serious questions are already being raised about how the new language would work in practice and whether it would even be feasible to implement.

"This is why it's being attacked by both sides -- not because it's so moderate but because it's crazy," said Richard Doerflinger, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University professor of public health and law who criticizes the language as too restrictive, echoes that conclusion: "None of how this is supposed to work is even remotely in the bill, so I don't know what people are thinking about it."

National Review’s editors on health care and abortion.

If this bill passes, abortion will become a cheaper option for millions of women. We know that the demand for it is sensitive to price. Abortion rates will increase. For almost two decades, many Democrats who favor legal abortion, including Presidents Clinton and Obama, have said that they want to see that rate drop. They have a funny way of showing it…..

Pro-lifers long ago learned not to trust anything that Democratic leaders say about where they stand on abortion. This week has brought definitive proof that they cannot trust two men who had claimed to be pro-lifers themselves: Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Long after the Dick Durbins, Jesse Jacksons, and Dick Gephardts of the world had abandoned the unborn to get ahead in their party, Casey and Nelson ran for office telling anti-abortion voters that they could rely on them. One might have thought the promise would apply to this legislation, which may have a more direct effect on the abortion rate than anything else they have done. Perhaps Casey and Nelson believe that the legislation somehow keeps pro-lifers from having to subsidize abortion; it contains accounting devices to sustain that illusion. But there is no denying that the legislation makes abortion more accessible. It is hard to see how anyone seeking to stand in solidarity with the unborn would have supported it. That Nelson traded his vote for a modest increase in his state’s take from the federal government does not suggest that such solidarity was uppermost on his mind.

Last night on ABC’s World News, George Stephanopoulos told host Diane Sawyer that abortion would be the key issue with regards to whether health care reform passed or not.


Congressman Bart Stupak explains his opposition the Senate’s health care reform abortion language in an interview with the Detroit News.

Q . Why is the Senate compromise wording on abortion not acceptable to you?

A . Because it greatly deviates from current law. Current law says no public funding for abortions or insurance policies that provide abortion coverage.

And underneath the Senate language, number one, abortion is a recognized benefit paid for by the federal government; number two, in the exchange, at least one plan, could be 10 plans, but at least one plan must have abortion coverage; number three, you still have the $1 per month, per enrollee (that the Senate bill requires everybody to pay in plans offering abortion coverage) that goes to reproductive services, including abortion. ... Those are three good reasons to oppose this language.

There’s a new study out regarding how pregnant women in various occupations have a greater risk of giving birth to children with certain kinds birth defects.

The study published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine suggests that women working as biological and chemical scientists and pharmacists face an increased risk of giving birth to children with such defects as gastrointestinal, spinal and heart malformations compared to women in other occupations.

Janitors faced the highest risk while teachers had the lowest.