Senators who question the humanity of newborns lack respect for taxpayers as well. Abortion supporters see federal funding of abortion as "small potatoes" within the billions of tax money.
-- From "Separate But Equal? Insurance, Abortion, And Politics" by Al Lewis, Newsweek Web Exclusive 12/9/09
Though the Nelson amendment, which attempted to restrict federal insurance funds for abortion, failed in the Senate Tuesday, the issue of abortion's role in health care is far from settled. While the Senate version, if passed as now written, would allow federal funding, the House version, thanks to the Stupak amendment, does not even allow private purchase of a rider. Democrats are still divided on this issue, and without Democratic unity, health reform fails. Fortunately, the point of contention is not the thornier one of whether abortions should be legal, but rather how to accommodate both those who want to provide federal coverage and those who refuse to vote to earmark government funds to do so.
One of the many frustrating things about the debate over federal insurance funds going to abortion is that the funds in question are so small: abortion spending represents less than one 10th of 1 percent of total health-care spending. Among every 1,000 women and teenaged girls who do not qualify for Medicaid, and therefore would potentially be eligible for the new plan, there are 10 to 15 abortions. The cost of a first-trimester abortion averages $413, or roughly $6 per non-Medicaid-eligible female per year.
Mathematically speaking, abortion coverage offsets about the same dollar amount of avoided birth-event claims, so covering it costs taxpayers nothing, even in federally subsidized health care. But that doesn't by itself address the pro-life objection that the tax dollars spent on federally subsidized health plans should not go toward abortions, period.
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From "Inhofe: Some Senators Share Holdren’s View That Born Babies Are Not ‘Human Beings’" CNSNews.com 12/8/09
Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says he believes some of his Senate colleagues share the view expressed by White House science adviser John P. Holdren in a 1973 book that human fetuses do not become “human beings” until sometime after they are born.
Holdren co-authored Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich in 1973. The book calls for a “massive campaign” to “de-develop the United States” and concludes that redistribution of wealth “both within and among nations is absolutely essential.”
On page 235 of the book, in a chapter titled “Population Limitation,” Holdren and his co-authors wrote: “The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being. Where any of these essential elements is lacking, the resultant individual will be deficient in some respect.”
“There are members of the Senate who would probably agree with that,” said Inhofe. “I mean, those of us who believe—and, scripturally, we, obviously, we are on solid ground—that life begins at conception. Many members of the Senate don’t believe that. And that’s why you are getting into the big abortion argument.”
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