The National Right to Life Committee blasts the Senate health care bill for allowing people who receive federal premium assistance to purchase insurance that covers abortion.

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs," reads a statement from NRLC director Douglas Johnson. "Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements."

The key: "the bill creates new tax-supported subsidies to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand."

The Stupak amendment to the House bill would prevent anybody who receives such subsidies from buying insurance that covers abortion, except in rare instances.

You can read the entire statement below the fold.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs.

Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Ca.), who has a 100% pro-abortion voting record, said in a press release following release of the Reid language: "It appears that their approach closely mirrors my language which was originally included in the House bill." The Capps language referred to was opposed by NRLC and other pro-life organizations and was deleted by the House by a vote of 240-194 on November 7, as 64 Democrats (one fourth of all House Democrats), along with 176 Republicans, voted to replace it with the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment would prevent federal subsidies for abortion by applying the principles of longstanding federal laws such as the Hyde Amendment to the new programs created by the health care legislation. Those principles prohibit both direct funding of abortion procedures, and subsidies for plans that cover elective abortions, in existing federal programs such as Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and the military.

Regrettably but predictably, Reid rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts language. Instead, Reid has sought to please the militant minority that demands funding of abortion through federal programs, even though substantial majorities of Americans believe that abortion should be excluded from government-funded and government-sponsored health programs.

The Reid bill establishes a big new federal health insurance program, the public option (although now referred to in Reid's bill as the "community health insurance option"). The bill authorizes (on page 118) the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions throughout the public option program. This would be federal government funding of abortion, no matter how hard they try to disguise it.

In addition, the bill creates new tax-supported subsidies to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand.

National Right to Life will continue to fight for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, and to oppose the stubborn attempts of congressional Democratic leaders to establish new federal government programs that will fund coverage of elective abortions.