Reps. McNerney, DeSaulnier vote against bill to ban taxpayer funded abortions
By Allen Payton
In spite of polls showing an overwhelming number of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, both Congressmen representing Antioch voted against a new ban on the practice on Thursday, January 22. The vote occurred on the 42nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Until the passage of Obamacare in 2009, the federal government had not allowed the funding of abortions using federal funds, with exceptions for rape, incest and life endangerment of the mother, since the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976. That is passed every year as part of a spending bill. But, this bill would make that law permanent. It also ensures that Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, faithfully conforms with the Hyde Amendment as promised by the President.
In one of his first votes as a new Member of Congress, Mark DeSaulnier (D, CA-11), along with Jerry McNerney (D, CA-9), serving in his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, voted with the other 176 of the 188 Democrats in the House, plus one Republican, to oppose the bill. It passed mainly along party lines with 239 Republicans and three Democrats voting in favor, and five Republicans and seven Democrats not voting. It’s the third time the House has passed a bill with the same language.
If passed by the Senate and signed by President Obama, who has threatened a veto, the bill, HR-7, entitled “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2015,” will end the four year practice using federal tax dollars for abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest or when the mother’s life is endangered.
The text of the bill reads in “Sec. 301. Prohibition on funding for abortions, “No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for any abortion. In Sec. 302, the bill includes a “Prohibition on funding for health benefits plans that cover abortion – None of the funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by Federal law, shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.”
However, Section 308 read “Treatment of abortions related to rape, incest, or preserving the life of the mother, The limitations established in sections 301, 302, and 303 shall not apply to an abortion– (1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or (2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.”
According to the bill’s author, Rep. Chris Smith (R, NJ-4) “On September 9, 2009 President Obama stood 6 feet from where I stand now and told lawmakers and the American public in a specially called joint session of Congress on healthcare reform that ‘under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.’
“Turns out that those ironclad promises made by the President himself are absolutely untrue,” Smith stated. “An extensive audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released in September of last year found that 1,036 Obamacare exchange plans covered elective abortion. GAO also found that separate billing of the abortion surcharge – required by the Act – is not being enforced by the administration and the abortion-funding premium is again being illegally rolled into the total plan cost.”
“Health care consumers are therefore buying health insurance with little or no knowledge that they are purchasing abortion subsidizing plans,” Smith added.
Based on numbers reported by the Guttmacher Institute from 1973-2011, with projections of 1,058,490 for 2012-14, almost 57.5 million abortions have been performed in the U.S. since the Roe vs. Wade decision. The Guttmacher Institute estimates a possible 3 percent under reporting rate, which is factored into the overall total.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the most recent year reported on their website, “Among the 28 areas that reported cross-classified race/ethnicity data for 2010…, non-Hispanic white women and non-Hispanic black women accounted for the largest percentages of abortions (36.8% and 35.7%, respectively), whereas Hispanic women and non-Hispanic women in the other races category accounted for smaller percentages (21.0% and 6.5%, respectively). Non-Hispanic white women had the lowest abortion rates (8.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratios (141 abortions per 1,000 live births), whereas non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rates (31.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratios (483 abortions per 1,000 live births).”
For more information and the complete text of the bill on the Clerk of the House’s website, click here.
