Pro-Life Kildee Will Vote Yes

I am convinced that the Senate language maintains the Hyde Amendment, which states that no federal money can be used for abortion

This is a specific message we have not heard enough of.

Where's Brad Ellsworth?

The last I heard, abortion was a legal medical procedure. Who allowed the Hyde Ammendment in the first place?

I don't hear anyone complaining that federal funds are spent to pay for lung transplants for people who have smoked for 50 years.

Many operate on the assumption that banning abortion is the best way to reduce abortion. That is unsupported. One factor proven to reduce the incidence of abortion is economic security, and universal health care would increase that.

Women who had abortions listed multiple reasons in a 2004 AGI Survey. 73% included inability to “afford a baby now” within their list of reasons, with 23% citing that as her most important reason. These numbers are corroborated by hard economic data. Abortion rates fell nearly 20% during the good economy of the 1990’s, with most of the decrease occurring at the end of the decade. Abortion rates rose again as Bush and the GOP waged class warfare against all but the richest Americans.

In America, a woman must decide whether she can afford medical care during pregnancy, for the first 18 years of the child’s life, and for the remaining childhood of other children. For women on the margins with no insurance, such concerns may border on absolute terror. Even those who have insurance today have no guarantee that they won’t lose it before all children are grown.

Many women decide that the financial cost is too great or uncertain, and that they cannot afford a new child. Women of civilized countries must consider economic factors, of course, but health care cost is not one of them. They have guaranteed coverage, for their lives and the lives of their children.

I don’t suggest that universal health insurance will prevent all financially motivated abortions, but for the uninsured it would totally eliminate a major cost factor for giving birth and raising the child. For some, perhaps many, lifetime health insurance would give them the assurance they need to continue their pregnancies.