Health care reform issues are clearly not off the table for conservatives, and abortion seems to be the new battleground. According to Americans United for Life (AUL), more than two dozen states are now working on legislation aimed at closing what state lawmakers believe is a loophole for abortion and federal tax dollars. \u201cThis was the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,\u201d says AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest, referring to the new health care reform measure. Missouri state Senator Scott Rupp is among those who believe it is necessary for state legislatures to act in response to the federal law. Rupp heads up the state senate committee that quickly passed proposed legislation which would ban any health insurance exchange, like the ones states will create under the new federal law, from offering policies that cover elective abortions. \u201cThere are multiple issues where taxpayer funds can and would be going to fund abortions,\u201d according to Rupp.<\/p>\n
Many in the pro-choice community say the push for state laws is a politically-motivated smokescreen. \u201cThese initiatives are really unnecessary,\u201d says Planned Parenthood\u2019s Laurie Rubiner, adding, \u201cThere are no federal funds being used to pay for abortions and that\u2019s made very clear in the bill.\u201d Rubiner also points to the Executive Order signed by President Obama, negotiated primarily to allay the fears of pro-life Democrats headed up by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI). The order served to reassure that group to the point of winning key \u201cyes\u201d votes on health care reform, but not everyone\u2019s convinced. \u201cThe truth is, everyone knew that the Executive Order was just a fig leaf that was meant to cover up the fact that they were going to pass this huge expansion of abortion funding,\u201d says Yoest.<\/p>\n
Planned Parenthood has pledged to work against state efforts to restrict abortion coverage options. Rubiner says it\u2019s also important \u201cthat people understand what\u2019s really behind these initiatives\u201d calling them \u201cvery political.\u201d It\u2019s certainly an issue that could work its way into state and national elections this fall. Political analysts like Michael Barone say, \u201cI think it\u2019s a fair question to ask a candidate, \u2018Are you for or against such provisions?\u2019\u201d Lawmakers want to be clear: this isn\u2019t a referendum on the legality of abortion. \u201cWe\u2019re just saying we don\u2019t want our tax dollars to go to fund these types of things,\u201d Rupp says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Health care reform issues are clearly not off the table for conservatives, and abortion seems to be the new battleground. According to Americans United for Life (AUL), more than two dozen states are now working on legislation aimed at closing what state lawmakers believe is a loophole for abortion and federal tax dollars. \u201cThis was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4741,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}