I think we have the right to object to an abortion ban. But we don’t have the right to insist dissenters pay for abortions they don’t believe in. If we’re "do-gooders," then we’d be better placed to do what Sara suggests and pony up for our beliefs in another way.
How far do you go with that? Should I not have to pay my [considerable] share of the cost of the Iraq war, which I don’t believe in? I think I’d also like to deduct my share of the TARP money that went to CEO’s bonuses, and all of the abstinence-only sex ed programs, and a lot more.
Ralph has good points as usual. The part about our paying for a war we don’t believe in reminded me of what that awful Senator Lieberman said yesterday on one of the talk shows about why he opposes the health bill and how he won’t let it come to a vote when the bill reaches the Senate because it’s too expensive and will cause too much debt.
I claim that we should take the following "high road" because of Ralph’s and Joy’s point. National Defense is a legitimate governmental function. Unprovoked War of Conquest isn’t. Government intervention in a economic collapse is a legitimate governmental function. Bonuses to Wall Street hot-shots isn’t. Government intervention in programs to voluntarily prevent unwanted pregnancies is a legitimate function. Ineffective programs driven by religious ideas is not. A government health program that is "too expensive and will cause too much debt" isn’t a legitimate governmental function. Obama’s health care reform doesn’t portend debt and is a legitimate governmental function. The Republicans abused the government’s programs. Now they don’t want to pass reasonable legislation because they claim it might be abused. The solutions to abuse are prevention and prosecution, not avoidance. They use "projection" much like paranoid people. To me, "I don’t want to pay for abortions" is legitimate. But "I want to ban abortions" is not. "You invaded another country with our National Guard" is abuse of a legitimate governmental function. Prosecute!
I think Obama has it right: this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill. He does not want to use this to change the status quo vis a vis federal dollars going for abortions — so it should not be used either to provide funding for abortions that does not currently exist; nor does he want it to remove coverage in private plans that people already have.
That seems to me the only sensible position. They should be able to work out a compromise based on those principles that everyone can live with.
The difficult point will be that the amended House bill seems to say that subsidies that will be provided for people who need help buying private health insurance plans cannot go to any plan that covers abortion. What about those who already have a plan that does cover it; does that mean that those can’t be subsidized?
Still, if that’s the worst hurdle they have to figure out, it should be pretty easy to do.