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Greetings!
March 24, 2010, We
have been constantly urging everyone to contact our representative in
Congress, Madeline Bordallo, and urge her to oppose the Health Bill
that is now law because of its blatant and aggressive funding of
abortion.
In every response from her office, we have received letters like the
following, where she adamantly insists that abortion funding is not in
the Health Care Bill and how she is consistently pro-life.
Because we do not want to accuse Ms. Bordallo of lying, we must assume that
she is simply ignorant of the provisions in the new law that will
provide for abortion funding. It's rather obvious that they are there
or President Obama would not have had to promise to sign an executive
order to eliminate abortion funding.
This should be extremely obvious to our representative. However, her
response is a sad example of what happens when you put party over
principle.
We are copying her letter below to one our Esperansa members and
beneath the letter we summarize a letter from the National Right to
Life Committee delivered to congress 2 days before the House vote
detailing 6 ways the Health Bill - that is now the law of the land - funds abortion.
It is tricky reading, but purposefully done that way because the
majority of Americans oppose not just abortion, but definitely
tax-payer funded abortions. Like everything else in this bill, the will
of the majority of the American people was thwarted and President Obama's war on the
unborn will now be paid for by you and me.
We hold Ms. Bordallo accountable for her lack of opposition or at least
her unwillingness to investigate the facts that the rest of America
seems to obviously know.
Make no mistake. The passage of this bill by 3 votes came down to abortion
and Obama's promise to eliminate the funding. For Ms. Bordallo to
publicly claim that there is and was no abortion funding in the bill,
given the glaring national debate over the issue, is cause for grave
concern for every one of her constituents who consider themselves to be
pro-life.
And just to restate what we said in the last letter, the promise of an executive order is absolutely meaningless as an executive order cannot trump federal law and can be just as easily rescinded as it is signed. No legislative action would be necessary.
Here is Rep. Bordallo's letter followed by the NRLC summary:
*****
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO
427 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-5301
Phone: (202) 225-1188
Fax: (202) 226-0341
March 22, 2010
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
Dear xxxxxxx,
I write in response to your e-mail
message concerning the Health Care Reform package passed by the House
late yesterday. H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act provides no federal financing for abortions. The House, Senate,
and President Obama have taken a number of steps to ensure that the
Hyde Amendment, a longstanding prohibition on
public funds from being used to finance abortion, will apply to H.R.
3590. If a consumer wishes to purchase an insurance policy that
includes abortion coverage, they will not be allowed to use federal tax
credits or subsidies to do so. Abortion may not be performed at
federally financed community health centers. States and territories
will have the right to exclude plans that offer abortion from being
offered on their exchanges. Finally, H.R. 3590 re-affirms existing
federal conscience protections; no doctor or other health care
practitioner will be required to perform abortions and no government
may discriminate against them for refusing to do so.
Furthermore, President Obama announced
yesterday that he will sign an Executive Order to accompany the passage
of H.R. 3590. The Executive Order will detail additional steps that
the U.S. Government will take in order to ensure that existing law is
upheld and the public's money is not used for abortions. A coalition
of pro-life Democrats, led by Bart Stupak of Michigan, announced that they would ultimately support passage of H.R. 3590 with this additional consideration from President Obama.
I have always been a staunch proponent of the right to life. Thank you for your correspondence regarding this important issue.
Sincerely,
/s/
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO
Member of Congress
*****
Here is the summary of the 6 points made by the NRLC. For a full version of the letter go here or here:
1.
The Senate-passed bill would create a new program under which the
federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would administer two or
more multi-state insurance plans," it says. "The bill provides that "at
least one" such plan would be subject to limitations on abortion
coverage, implying that other
federally administered plans could cover elective abortions, or perhaps
even be required to do so by the federal administrator."
2. Secondly, NRLC says abortion funding would come via the affordability credits. The
Senate bill would result in a situation in which private plans that
cover elective abortion would qualify for the federal subsidy,
but every enrollee in such a plan would find himself or herself subject
to a requirement that he or she make a separate monthly payment into a
fund used exclusively for elective abortions - an 'abortion surcharge'".
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius recently insisted that this separate-payment requirement would apply to every person who participates in the exchange," the letter says. "As we read the language, the
requirement would apply to anyone who enrolls in a subsidized plan that
covers elective abortions, which would surely include many people who
would learn of the 'abortion surcharge' only after enrolling, but who would have no choice other than to pay the abortion surcharge or see their entire health coverage lapse."
3. Many
of the so-called limits on abortion funding in the Senate bill are
temporary and could expire or be overturned at a later date.Many
of the 'restrictions' in the Senate bill, in addition to their other
deficiencies, are narrow, and also temporary - they are tied to
whatever abortion policy is enacted each year on the Health and Human
Services appropriations bill, to cover Medicaid.
4. There is the problem of the Senate bill paying for abortions under the Indian Health Service program.
A
permanent reauthorization of Indian health programs was added to the
Senate health bill by the Reid Manager's Amendment, but without the
permanent ban on funding of elective abortions.
5. The Senate bill contains the Mikulski amendment
that would allow the Obama administration to define abortion as
preventative care and force insurance plans to pay for abortions.
"Some
of these provisions could be employed in the future as authority for
pro-abortion mandates, requiring health plans to cover abortion and/or
provide expanded access to abortion, unless there is clear language to
prevent it," it says of vague language in the bill.
"Under
the Mikulski Amendment, adopted by the Senate on December 3, the
Department of Health and Human Services could force every private
health plan to cover elective abortions merely by placing abortion on a
list of 'preventive' services," the letter says.
6.The
Senate bill does not contain language needed to offer full conscience
protection for pro-life medical workers and facilities.
Ultimately,
the NRLC believes that enactment of the abortion-related provisions of
the Senate-passed health care bill would ultimately result in
substantial expansions of abortion, driven by federal administrative
decrees and federal subsidies.
This
is now the law of the land. It is too late to stop the law. But it is
not too late to educate Ms. Bordallo or to replace her with someone who
will put principle over party.Tim Rohr The Esperansa Project Subscribe to the Esperansa mailing list at www.esperansa.org
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