U.S. News’ Erbe: Stupak-Pitts Amendment is ‘a Privacy Invasion of Massive Proportions’

Change font size:  A |  A

U.S. News and World Report's Bonnie Erbe claimed in her latest blog post that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which bans federal funding of elective abortion in the recently passed House health care reform bill, is "a privacy invasion of massive proportions" because it "would allow government policy to intervene in the most private of medical decisions made by women and their private insurance companies."

Apparently Erbe is not concerned that federal funding of elective abortions would also prove to be a "privacy invasion of massive proportions" for people who do not want to pay for the taking of innocent human life.

CNN released a poll yesterday that found 61 percent of Americans do not want their tax dollars used to pay for the abortions of women who otherwise could not afford to pay for them. Over half, 51 percent, believe women who have abortions should pay for the procedure out of their own pockets, even if they have private health insurance.

Erbe keyed her argument around a George Washington University School of Public Health study that stated in part:

In view of how the health benefit services industry operates and how insurance product design responds to broad regulatory intervention aimed at reshaping product content, we conclude that the treatment exclusions required under the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry wide-effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.

"Medically indicated," as used in the George Washington study, referred to "any type of abortion for which there is a medical indication of need, as distinguished from abortions that have no medical evidence to justify insurance coverage."

Erbe failed to point out that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment blocks federal funding of elective abortions, and just like the Hyde Amendment, which is the "status quo" President Obama supposedly is trying to maintain, contains an exception for rape, incest or the life of the mother.

Based on the definition used in the study, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment would not block coverage for abortions deemed "medically indicated."

Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, who introduced the amendment, explained its purpose and affirmed the exceptions in a Nov. 18 op-ed on Poltico.com.

Under our amendment, only the public health insurance option and private plans that receive federal subsidies are prohibited from covering abortion services. It does not prevent private plans within the newly created health insurance exchange from offering abortion services, and it does not prohibit individuals purchasing plans in the exchange with their own money from choosing a plan that offers abortion services. It specifically states that even those who choose the public option or receive federal subsidies can purchase a supplemental policy with private money to cover abortion services. 

Contrary to what some have said, this amendment explicitly provides exceptions that allow all policies to cover abortion services in cases of rape or incest or when the mother's life is in jeopardy.

But devotees of the sacrament of abortion like Erbe, who has advocated abortion as a reasonable budgetary measure to help make ends meet, would never let something like the truth stand in the way of sounding the alarm.  

"Who's going to be hit the hardest? Poor women, that's who," claimed Erbe. "These are the women who are least able to provide for the children they will have to bear and raise due to their lack of coverage for abortion."

Erbe's solution? Let the religious right pay for all the children they would force poor women to birth.

"If only the burden could be shifted to the people who limit access to abortion, the debate would be over," she proposed. "Let the uber-religious folks (who want to impose their view of ‘life' on the rest of us) pay for these children including all food, clothing, medical care, education, rent and so on from birth through the age of 18, and they'd stop being so-called pro-life in a skinny minute."

Somehow, "uber-religious folks" objecting to paying for something they find repellent are "imposing their view of ‘life'" on others. But the unlimited-abortion crowd making them foot that bill isn't.

Somebody's hypocritical roots are showing.