Solve abortion distraction
Published 11:22 am Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Activists on both sides are gearing up for a fight. They’ll be rallying, lobbying and cajoling senators returning to the nation’s capital after a Thanksgiving break to start debate on health-care reform legislation.
They won’t be arguing over the overall price of the bill, however, or whether it ought to contain a government insurance option. Regrettably, they’ll be duking it out over perhaps the most emotional and polarizing issue in America: abortion rights.
Reasonable people disagree deeply about abortion rights. It’s a visceral issue with more than enough weight to knock health-care reform completely off its tracks.
The fight is over whether health-care overhaul legislation will allow public money to be used, even indirectly, to pay for elective abortions. The bill that passed the House this month included an amendment that forbids anyone receiving a federal subsidy for insurance from buying a policy that covers abortion, even with mostly their own money.
That provision isn’t in the Senate bill that will be brought to the floor next week, and it isn’t likely to be added there. Assuming the Senate passes a health-care bill, the issue will have to be resolved by a House-Senate conference committee.
A path out of this debate must be found by then. Too many important details still need work — effective cost controls and strategies for keeping premiums affordable are at the top of that list — to allow a fight over abortion to take over.
The goal should be to retain the status quo on abortion — that is, the current ban on the use of federal funds for the procedure, except in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. The federal law that has worked for decades can continue to do so.
But the House amendment amounts to a de facto expansion of those restrictions, because it would bar low- and middle-income women buying coverage on a new exchange from obtaining coverage for a procedure they may not be able to afford on their own.
Abortion-rights supporters have offered a sensible compromise: Separate subsidies from premium dollars paid directly by those who want abortion coverage, and only apply the private dollars to pay for it. Abortion opponents have objected, saying money is fungible and can’t be segregated that way. A recent blog post from USA Today, however, pointed out that just such an arrangement currently works for religious schools that receive federal money for secular education.
It’s a compromise that offers both sides to claim victory, and allows the much more important details of health-care reform to get the attention they so critically need.
