Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives vowed, first and foremost, to create jobs and get the deficit under control. They passed a repeal of health care reform because, they claimed, the new law would “kill jobs”; that was obvious nonsense, but we’ll give them a pass on it. Since then, however, the House GOPers have spent nearly all their time, when they weren’t busy reeling in lobbyist money, trying to limit abortion rights. First, they tried to limit taxpayer support for raped women’s abortions by “redefining” rape in ways that would leave out statutory rape, date rape, and other types of “non-forcible” rape. Public outcry over that boneheaded move was so strong, the House Republicans had to drop the idea.
Now they’ve topped themselves. First, they’re proposing legislation that would actually allow hospitals to refuse to perform an abortion on a dying woman. Second, in a move that’s raising eyebrows in D.C., the GOP plan to ban taxpayer money from funding abortions also includes large tax hikes for businesses. They do it by eliminating tax incentives for employer-provided health care benefits if those benefits cover abortion as a medical procedure. This would give employers the choice of taking away employees’ abortion coverage, or losing their tax incentives. Supporters of the GOP bill say the incentives are the same as federal spending on abortion — an assertion which Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) says makes as little sense as saying, “the tax exemption for the Catholic church is the [same as the] establishment of religion and thus ought to be forbidden by law.”
Recently re-elected Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is more blunt: “The Republicans in the House are proposing tax hikes because … what they want to do is essentially make abortion unavailable.” Her argument is supported by those who say the likely impact of the GOP bill would be the phasing out of abortion coverage in the private insurance market. It’s also interesting that, according to TalkingPointsMemo, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce declined a request for comment, even though the bill, if enacted, would impact most of its members.
This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2011.
I would like the GOP to quit messing around with social issues atleast until they get the most important things completed.
Abortions are not that expensive. If your decision to get an abortion is based on if you can get one for free or not then you have other issues that need to be addressed.
Would that be the “smaller, less intrusive government” Republicans? The ones who say that “President Obama is trying to put the government between you and your doctor”?
The option of abortion should definitely be the last posible solution to a desperate situation in which the life of the woman is threatened. But I think this provision that the Republicans are about to implement will do just the opposite.