Fact Checking the Abortion Claim

For my readers who do doubt that abortion will be part of the Obama Care you may want to check out this article on FactCheck.org. It's very enlightening and since this is a non-partisan organization that calls both sides out on a regular basis you might believe them a bit more then you'd believe me. The final sentence sums it up pretty well:

As for the House bill as it stands now, it’s a matter of fact that it would allow both a "public plan" and newly subsidized private plans to cover all abortions.

Of course there is debate over how the language in the article should be interpreted, so you may want to check out their link to their mailbag. I'm not going to post Planned Parenthoods response because I try not to repeat blatant lies (and if you're using Planned Parenthood as your moral compass when checking on what's right and wrong, or even true, there may be some problems) but I will post the letter from Douglas Johnson the Legislative Director at the National Right to Life Committee:

We think that FactCheck.org is in error in the way it uses the term "public funds."
It is true that the Capps Amendment does contain, on page 6, a caption that reads, "(3) PROHIBITION ON USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS FOR ABORTION COVERAGE." But this is another red herring, artfully inserted by Chairman Waxman’s seasoned staff. If you read the OPERATIVE clause that immediately follows that caption, you see that the prohibition applies ONLY to the "affordability credit" – that is, it applies ONLY to one very specific type of "public funds."

There is nothing in the Capps Amendment that prohibits the use of any type of "public funds" (or "federal funds") for abortions by the new public option plan, EXCEPT the prohibition on using the "affordability credit." If the Capps Amendment ACTUALLY contained a clause "that prohibits the use of public funds to pay for abortions" (your phrase), then the public option would NOT be able to pay for abortions at all – because once the federal agency collects the premiums (including the abortion surcharge required on pages 4 and 5 of the Capps Amendment), those premiums ARE public funds. They are in a federal account and will be paid out by a federal agency in accord with federal statutes and regulations.

Many government agencies collect funds from various sources – appropriations from general revenues, certainly, but also specific fees required by statute or regulation, user fees, fines, assets of drug dealers, and many others – and, in this case, premiums. Once the government agency has control of the funds, they are all public funds. The drafters of the Capps Amendment understand this very well, and they carefully crafted language that applies only to a single sub-class of public funds.

Again, the Capps Amendment does NOT contain any general prohibition on the use of "public funds" (or "federal funds") for elective abortions. Rather, the Capps Amendment says that the cost of the elective abortions cannot be counted against the "affordability credits" (premium subsidies), but must be counted against the abortion-specific premium add-on (what we call the abortion surcharge). We assert that both sources are "public funds" and both sources are "federal funds."

Thank you for your consideration of these points.

Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee