Abortion Coverage--It's Not Not in There

In the last few weeks, when the Democrats in Congress are racing like cats on crack to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (a.k.a. O-Care, Faux-Care, or my favorite: N-O-Care), one of the more contentious issues about the bill is whether or not it funds elective abortion with taxpayer money. Well, since I don't just identify with contentious but also conscientious when it comes to the frivolities of life or death issues, I wanted an answer. Does it or doesn't it?

I read a smattering of articles by fellow pro-lifers against the bill and articles and responses by N-O-Care supporters who accuse said pro-lifers of making things up, and then I read the sections (AND proposed amendments) to the bill about abortion funding. My findings?

The bill does not not fund abortions with taxpayer money.

Get it? Even with amendments, federal funds can be used to pay for abortions unless states individually pass legislation prohibiting taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions...kinda. Someone receiving a federal subsidy to buy health insurance will probably have enough dollars in the check to cover an abortion, although that part will be done in a separate transaction outside of health care proper. Y'know, all straight up like that, yo.

The public should well understand something about the law by now: if the law doesn't explicitly prohibit something (i.e. abortion funding), then it is legal and totally exercisable by the beauracracies that be. Abortion coverage is not just a possibility, it's a plausibility. And that's enough for the family of Planned Parenthood, Obama, Reid, and Pelosi to declare that the dastardly deed is done.

Pro-lifers have been told repeatedly that if they do not like abortion, they should not get one. Cute. With this legislation in mind, let's shift the shoe to the other foot. If I didn't get a woman pregnant, I shouldn't have to pay for her abortion.