Pro-Lifers To CBS On ObamaCare Abortion Coverage: It's In There

Pro-Lifers To CBS On ObamaCare Abortion Coverage: It's In There

By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive)
August 7, 2009 - 21:33 ET

ObamaCareSymbol What follows is not meant in any way to make light of a literally life-and-death issue. It is instead meant to perhaps (we can always hope) drill a little truth into the thick heads of the establishment media's alleged "journalists" who continue to refuse to see what's right in front of them in ObamaCare (or in many cases to even read the legislation in the first place).

You see, abortion coverage in ObamaCare is analogous to the pasta afficionado's expected set of ingredients in Prego Spaghetti Sauce, as presented in this popular 1984 commercial -- that is, "It's in there."

On Sunday, in an alleged "Fact Check" piece on ObamaCare, the Associated Press tried to pretend abortion coverage isn't in there. Two days later, prodded by Steven Ertelt at LifeNews.com and others in the pro-life community, the wire service specifically backtracked and admitted that yes, it's in there ("Gov't insurance would allow coverage for abortion").

Now it's Stephanie Condon of CBS who is pretending that abortion coverage is not in there in ObamaCare. LifeNews.com and pro-lifers are once again out there pushing back, while deliciously reminding the network of a 2004 story that wasn't all there -- or was only there in the vivid, anchor-ending imagination of Dan Rather (link to CBS story within excerpt added by me; bold is mine):

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CBS News has become the latest mainstream media outlet to come under criticism from pro-life advocates for covering up the abortion funding tucked away in the government-run health care plan. The Associated Press had covered up the abortion funding but recently flip-flopped and admitted it exists.

In a Thursday news article posted on its web site titled "10 Health Care Reform Myths," CBS News lists number five as "Health Care Legislation Mandates Taxpayer Dollars Pay for Abortions."

"Nothing in the legislation, however, has 'mandated' that abortion services be included in the benefits package," CBS News claims.

CBS News contends the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved an amendment by pro-abortion Rep. Lois Capps, a California Democrat, "that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding abortions."

..... The "factcheck" concludes by saying that Congress "has yet to determine" how the abortion funding issues will be resolved.

Referring to the infamous Bush Air National Guard memos CBS published that later turned out to be fake, Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee says the new factsheet "demonstrates that their analytic and forensic skills have not improved much since that episode."

Johnson tells LifeNews.com that CBS News' analysis of the Capps amendment is off base.

..... "In reality, under the Capps Amendment, the federal government would run a nationwide insurance plan that would cover abortion on demand," he explained. "Abortionists would perform elective abortions on government-insured clients, send the bill to the government plan, and get checks from the government to pay for the abortions."

This surreal and contradictory sentence is in Ms. Condon's report:

It (ObamaCare) requires at least one plan from the federal health insurance exchange in each region of the country to cover abortion, and at least one of the plans to not cover abortion.

So according to CBS and Ms. Condon, if you stir in a abortion coverage ingredient in the left section of the pot, and put in an abortion-free ingredient in the right section of the same pot, and then mix it all up, voila! -- suddenly it's not in there. Give me a break.

Maybe the I-see-nothings at CBS should ask the Associated Press why eating crow wouldn't be such a bad thing (though even AP has never formally corrected its original "Fact Check" story). While not pleasant, chowing down on blackbird pie is still preferable to losing whatever shred of credibility one still might have. Because if the network doesn't pull back, its credibility on anything relating to ObamaCare is one thing that will definitely not be in there.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters

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Number one

August 7, 2009 - 21:46 ET by BKeyser

Once again, I think this Time Cover says it all about ObamaCare.

Tom... Excellent!! The

August 7, 2009 - 21:57 ET by bigtimer

Tom...

Excellent!!

The intentional spin on this important issue with the msm, arm in arm with their dem party has been more than infuriating...and still will be on down their never-ending agenda driven road.

Obama's a Community Agitator, a walking, talking destroyer. ~ Rush Limbaugh

If I don't want my taxes to pay for abortions

August 8, 2009 - 01:18 ET by KC Mulville

I don't want my taxes to pay for abortions. That means I don't want any government plan to pay for them. It applies to every plan, not just the one I pick for myself.

That's a simple-enough distinction. If they try to tiptoe past criticisms using this as "proof," they're either stupid or lying. My guess is both.

I am not the most religious

August 8, 2009 - 02:03 ET by mostlymoderate

I am not the most religious guy but this bugs the hell out of me. The Supreme Court has already stated that the government does not have to assist with abortion in any way. Why the hell are we now choosing to assist with abortion? I wonder if all those Latino voters, likely Catholics, know that this is what the Democratic party is pushing.

So according to CBS and Ms.

August 8, 2009 - 05:39 ET by motherbelt

So according to CBS and Ms. Condon, if you stir in a abortion coverage
ingredient in the left section of the pot, and put in an abortion-free
ingredient in the right section of the same pot, and then mix it all
up, voila! -- suddenly it's not in there.

Right. Didn't you know that?

It's like positives and negatives. Coverage here, no coverage there; they cancel each other out!!

It's liberal math!

And just you wait...

August 9, 2009 - 08:11 ET by Seabeach4348

If this abomination passes there will eventually be a provision to cover sex-change surgery and the therapy, counceling, and drugs that go with it.....paid for once again by taxpayers.

I had a little more to say about the CBS piece . . .

August 8, 2009 - 06:15 ET by DouglasJohnson

LifeNews.com did not have room to quote my entire comment on the CBS "10 Myths," which was as follows: Less than two months before the 2004 presidential election, CBS News reported on its exciting discovery of memos proving that George Bush had shirked his duties as a member of the Air National Guard. The memos were later revealed to be fakes. The new CBS report, "10 Health Care Myths," demonstrates that their analytic and forensic skills have not improved much since that episode. The Capps Amendment was offered by a lawmaker with a 100 percent decade-long pro-abortion voting record, and it was opposed by all authentic pro-life groups, yet CBS presents the amendment as incorporating an anti-abortion policy. In reality, under the Capps Amendment, the federal government would run a nationwide insurance plan that would cover abortion on demand. Abortionists would perform elective abortions on government-insured clients, send the bill to the government plan, and get checks from the government to pay for the abortions. The amendment contains a meaningless bookkeeping requirement, and that was enough to fool CBS, because they are suckers for misinformation when it comes from their friends.

Of course, CBS is hardly the only one falling down on the job here. Even some media outlets who try harder are doing a lazy job on this issue. One problem is that the veteran Democratic congressional staffers and professional pro-abortion activists who are writing the legislative proposals know how to write something that incorporates their pro-abortion policies but that looks like a restriction to a reader who is not technically sophisticated about these matters, particularly if the reader is not very skeptical -- and this includes most of the journalists who are writing about the question of how the Obama bills would affect abortion policy. The Capps Amendment was written in a fashion designed in part to exploit both media bias and the lack of technical depth on the part of some of the journalists covering the story.

For a more in-depth report on the fight over abortion mandates and abortion subsidies in the Obama health care bills, go to www.NRLactioncenter.com.

Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
http://www.nrlc.org

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, and

August 8, 2009 - 07:13 ET by motherbelt

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, and the NRLC, for your untiring work in this battle.

This, from the NRL Action Center was something that I didn't know, and I doubt many at all know (emphasis mine):

In the Senate,
the White House is backing a bill (as yet unnumbered) sponsored by
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Ma.), [big surprise there!] which was approved on July 15 by the
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on a
13-10 party line vote. The committee voted down all pro-life
amendments, including an amendment offered by pro-life Senator Tom
Coburn (R-Ok.) to prevent health care providers from being penalized
for refusing to participate in providing abortions.

But they're not pro-abortion, right? Not including protections is not the same as punishing, right?

It does my heart good to know that my contributions to the NRLC are being used well.

Re Thank You

August 8, 2009 - 11:50 ET by slickwillie2001

This is not unlike what the democratics are doing wrt illegal aliens in their Obamacare bills. They are being certain that the bills do not contain any clear declaration that illegal aliens are to be covered, but rather they are ensuring that a clear path for the illegals is there. It's a winding path that can't be pointed to or shown to the citizens in an easy sound-bite, but it's there and they admit it to their liberal base. The proof is that again and again they have voted down clear statements that settle the issue, whether on abortion or illegal aliens.