Sebelius Explains Abortion Accounting Tricks in Senate Bill

Verum Serum has an excellent post and video that shows Kathleen Sebelius explaining the accounting tricks in the Reid bill to fund abortion through the insurance exchanges proposed in the legislation.  Sebelius is lauding the maneuver as a positive step from the restrictions in the House bill introduced by Stupak. Here is the clip:



The compromise between the Stupak amendment and the much weaker language agreed to by Senator Ben Nelson in the Senate requires all participants in the insurance exchanges, regardless of age or sex or circumstance to contribute an additional fee that will be held strictly for the funding of abortions. As Morgen at Verum Serum writes this is extremely offensive:

As far as I’m concerned all they’ve done is cut out the middle man. In fact, I find this compromise arrangement even more offensive since whereas tax dollars are pooled to pay for innumerable government goods and services, without any specific accounting, under this new arrangement participants in the insurance exchange will know beyond a doubt that their financial contributions are being used to terminate the lives of unborn children.

Senator Nelson and I must define the term pro-life quite differently.   I can't imagine how anyone who considers themselves pro-life would agree to such a provision.  I suppose the saving grace in Nelson's mind is that state exchanges have the ability to opt out of the requirement.  But as Morgen astutely points out this opt out clause will merely set off an endless round of battles between pro-life and pro-abortion activists.

The politically correct crew on the left is notoriously conscious of the slightest offenses toward  the beliefs of nearly every group but the Christians and the right.  I would not expect there to be some exception for those who morally object to abortion as a Christian and as a matter of principle.  I wonder, however, if they stopped to consider that other religious groups consider abortion equally offensive as the Christians.  Muslim teaching falls strongly on the side of life with the single exception being when the life of the mother is threatened.  Those who morally object to abortion must either deny their religious objections and contribute to a fund devoted solely for the purpose of abortion or refrain from participating the exchanges.

In light of the mandate to purchase insurance included in the bill, those who object to abortion would be required to find insurance elsewhere though the exchanges are intended to obtain better prices for individuals. The Democrats refused to lift restrictions that prevent insurers from selling across state lines so in many cases those who find abortion morally objectionable would be left with few other choices other than  the exchange  to  purchase the insurance they are required under law to buy.  I would expect that none of this was discussed during the session negotiating the price for Senator Nelson's vote.

Though I strongly doubt that Nelson would change his mind and vote against the bill when the final vote in the Senate takes place, I hope that he becomes increasingly aware of how his little deal with Harry Reid will affect the life of the unborn he claimed to protect.  If he does not, he should never campaing again while claiming to be pro-life, his concession mocks the title.