The Health Care Reform Bill and Abortion
The public option question of the health care reform bill seems to be waning as the determining factor for whether the bill passes. The issue du jour has become whether the bill will fund abortion. The passage of the House bill probably hinged on the last minute amendment to strike abortion payments from its provisions. Although a tentative victory for pro-life advocates, the added language found few supporters except the conservative representatives who were desperate for an excuse to vote for it. The pro-abortionists see it as a defeat that makes its reversal in the Senate bill difficult. The pro-lifers see it as a ploy to get the bill passed in the house and not likely to survive in the Senate.
I would find the abortion issue amusing if it weren’t so critically important to the moral fabric of our society. Americans are a fickle bunch when it comes to killing the unborn. In several recent national polls that I reviewed, over half of us believe that abortion is morally wrong. Yet, in the same polls, over half of us oppose any further restrictions on abortions. It’s like the majority is against it, but feels it should be tolerated. This is a prime example of how our culture has shifted from a black and white moral foundation to one that is at best a pale shade of gray. And we wonder why there is so much hate, crime, drug addiction, single parent child rearing, and decline in education effectiveness.
Of course, our government can’t legislate to make provisions for every moral inclination of our population. However, when the country is split almost down the middle on a major issue like abortion, it doesn’t make sense to force the half that is morally opposed to such a practice to pay their taxes toward funding it. I would strongly resent paying one penny of my taxes toward funding abortion.
Some way, some day, we will have government leaders who will get health care reform right. This bill circulation on the Hill is not it.