New Democratic Health Bill Strips Federal Pro-Life Protections

Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership introduced a new version of the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" which provides federal funds for elective abortion, reauthorizes Indian Health Care without adding the Hyde Amendment, and mandates providing information about physician-assisted suicide in certain states.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement concerning the new proposal:

"Speaker Pelosi might as well rename her bill the 'Government Funded Abortions for America Act.' This almost 2,000 page bill, which will cost more than one trillion dollars, guts the Hyde Amendment abortion funding ban by explicitly authorizing federal funding for elective abortion funding in the government option. The bill also subsidizes health plans that cover all elective abortions.

"Speaker Pelosi's commitment to federally funded abortion is, apparently, absolute. She is ignoring the roughly 70 percent of the American people who, polls show, consistently oppose federal funding of elective abortion, which indisputably is what this new health bill does.

"In another gift to the abortion industry, she added the Indian Health provision to the bill without a permanent abortion funding ban. Such a provision passed in the Senate in the last Congress, but Speaker Pelosi is so desperate to avoid adding the Hyde Amendment to the overall health care bill that she avoided adding this provision to permanently exclude paying for abortion in this new section on Indian Health Care.

"Even more blatantly, Speaker Pelosi took out a key provision that would ensure that when patients are given information on end-of-life options it would not include physician-assisted suicide. Instead, she offered the new bill that includes end-of-life 'counseling' without ensuring that such 'counseling' will not encourage physician-assisted suicide as already occurs in Oregon and Washington.

"From womb to tomb, this legislation would use funds garnered from taxpayers to fund abortions and encourage seniors to end their lives early in states such as Oregon and Washington. Consequently, it is paramount that Members of both parties support amendments to prevent a massive new wave of federal funding for abortion, to permanently prevent abortion funding in Indian Health and to re-insert the language preventing physician assisted suicide 'counseling'."