FAQ on Abortion and Healthcare
Check out this very helpful post from Matthew Lee Anderson over at First Thoughts. Anderson addresses such questions as:
- Does the Senate bill cover abortions?
- Is this bill covered by the Hyde Amendment?
- Did Bart Stupack get anything for supporting the bill?
- Does the Executive Order solve the problem of tax payer funded abortion?
And speaking of abortion, it’s fitting that in the final hours, the outcome of the vote hinged on the issue. While many saw abortion as tangentially related to the health care debate, in reality the dispute is central to it, and a harbinger of things to come.
The expansion of government’s role in health care will elevate the importance of social issues and trigger contentious battles in the future over the government’s role in personal decisions. Given that abortion is a legal procedure in a free market, government cannot restrict private policies from covering it. But once ostensibly private policies are regulated by the federal government and subsidized with tax dollars, Washington has a say in the matter.
While the year-long debate over whether this particular legislation should pass this particular Congress has just ended, the broader debate over the future of America’s health care system has only begun.
– Phillip Klein
