Reading an article from the Iowa Independent today (it’s for work!) where Lynda Waddington reports:
The 1,018-page health reform bill currently before the House makes no mention of abortion or any other specific medical services. This has prompted some anti-abortion advocates to claim that the bill contains a hidden “abortion mandate.”
And from there, it’s a very small jump to this kind of hyperbole:
“What you probably haven’t heard is that the health care bill being advanced by Democrats is the abortion industry’s dream come true. In fact it is the most disturbing piece of pro-abortion legislation in recent memory,” James Dobson of Focus on the Family told [anti-abortion] webcast participants.
Bottom line? Here are the marching orders:
Although the [health care reform] bill has been able to attract a wide variety of supporters from both the “pro-choice” and “pro-life” movements, socially conservative activists reject it in part because it provides funding for birth control and comprehensive sex education.
And let’s be clear, by “abortion,” these opponents of health care reform mean terminating a pregnancy AND birth control pills, and emergency contraception, and …
Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League and executive director of STOPP International, described why the current battle actually goes far beyond what the public identifies as abortion to encompass nearly all reproductive health services.
Sedlak and his supporters consider emergency contraception, birth control pills and some other contraceptives as equivalent to abortion, leaving little room for compromise. Any health care reform bill that pays for coverage of virtually any women’s reproductive health services, regardless of their legality and widespread acceptance, will be morally unacceptable to them.
Might just note here that a HUGE, but clearly wacky and possibly even – according to some – immoral, majority of Americans support birth control and comprehensive sex education. Really.
According to the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association: The overwhelming majority of Americans support family planning.
Ninety-one percent of those polled agree that couples should be able to have access to birth control options. It’s their decision whether to use birth control, but it should be safe and available.
According to MSNBC: Few Americans favor abstinence-only sex ed.
Most Americans, regardless of their political leanings, favor comprehensive sex education in schools over abstinence-only programs, researchers reported Monday. Of the nearly 1,110 U.S. adults they surveyed, 82 percent supported programs that discuss abstinence as well as other methods for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Half were in outright opposition to abstinence-only education.
Even among self-described conservatives, 70 percent supported comprehensive sex ed., while 40 percent opposed the abstinence-only strategy.
Look, I totally understand that people have strongly held feelings about abortion … and they range from completely opposed, to completely in favor of safe, legal abortion … with MOST Americans falling in the middle somewhere. While folks may call themselves “pro-life,” at the same time, they believe abortion should remain legal and safe and a private decision for a woman to make with her family and her doctor.
But is it any wonder people can’t stand elected officials when they can take a 1,000+ page document that doesn’t mention abortion, or any other medical procedure, even ONCE and claim its a “pro-abortion mandate”?