Down the Hatch: Senate Committee
Torpedoes Pro-Life Healthcare Amendments
By Peter J. Smith of
LifeSiteNews.com
On September 30th the Senate Finance
Committee killed two key pro-life amendments designed to prevent
government-subsidies of abortion and guaranteeing conscience protections for
healthcare providers in the healthcare reform bill.
Senator Orrin Hatch (Rep.-Utah) proposed to
amend the America’s Health Future Act of 2009 under consideration by the Finance
Committee led by Chairman Max Baucus 
(Dem.-Montana).
Hatch’s amendments would have codified current conscience protections for
healthcare providers with moral objections to abortion and also made permanent
the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) from paying for abortions. Hatch did however propose
that women could purchase additional coverage for abortions through ‘riders’
that would not be subsidized by the government.
Both of Hatch’s amendments were rejected by
the Committee by votes of 13 to 10. In both amendments, Senator Kent Conrad (Dem.-North
Dakota) joined committee Republicans in support of the measures, while
pro-abortion Senator Olympia Snowe (Rep.-Maine) joined Baucus’ committee
Democrats to vote against the amendments.
Defeated Amendments
The following was the language of Hatch’s
Amendment #C14 dealing with funding of abortions:
“No funds authorized or appropriated under
this Mark may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs
of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except 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, or unless the
pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.
Nothing in this amendment would preclude an
insurance issuer from offering a separate, supplemental policy to cover
additional abortions. Such a supplemental policy would be funded solely by
supplemental premiums paid for by individuals choosing to purchase the policy.”
Respect for Right of Conscience
The following was the language of Hatch’s
Amendment #C13 that would have protected the right of healthcare workers to
decline to provide abortion services based upon their moral objections to
abortion:
Non-Discrimination
on abortion and respect for rights of conscience:
(a) NON
DISCRIMINATION.-A Federal agency or program, and any State or local government
that receives Federal financial assistance under this Act (or and amendment
made by this Act), may not 1) subject any individual or institutional health
care entity to discrimination, or 2) require any health plan created or
regulated under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act), to subject any
individual or institutional healthcare entity to discrimination, on the basis
that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or
refer for abortions.
(b) DEFINITON.-In
this section, the term “healthcare entity” includes an individual physician or
other healthcare professional, a hospital, a provider-sponsored organization, a
health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan, or any other kind of
healthcare facility, organization, or plan.
(c)
ADMINISTRATION.-The Office for Civil Right of the Department of Heath and Human
Services is designated to receive complaints of discrimination based on this
section, and coordinate the investigation of such complaints.
Who and How They Voted
The following is the list of both Republican
and Democrat Senators along with the States they represent and how they voted
on the Hatch Amendments. As mentioned earlier, both pro-life amendments were
defeated by a margin of 13 to 10. The recorded votes listed below were
identical for both amendments.
Republicans
CHUCK GRASSLEY (Iowa)
– Yes
ORRIN G. HATCH (Utah)
– Yes
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE
(Maine) – No
JON KYL (Arizona) –
Yes
JIM BUNNING (Kentucky)
– Yes
MIKE CRAPO (Idaho) –
Yes
PAT ROBERTS (Kansas) –
Yes
JOHN ENSIGN (Nevada) –
Yes
MIKE ENZI (Wyoming) –
Yes
JOHN CORNYN (Texas) –
Yes
Democrats
MAX BAUCUS (Montana) –
No
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
(West Virginia) – No
KENT CONRAD (North
Dakota) – Yes
JEFF BINGAMAN (New
Mexico) – No
JOHN F. KERRY
(Massachusetts) – No
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN
(Arkansas) – No
RON WYDEN (Oregon) –
No
CHARLES E. SCHUMER
(New York) – No
DEBBIE STABENOW
(Michigan) – No
MARIA CANTWELL
(Washington) – No
BILL NELSON (Florida)
– No
ROBERT MENENDEZ (New
Jersey) – No
THOMAS CARPER
(Delaware) – No
Abortion Expansion
As it stands, the Baucus legislation permits
the federal government to mandate the inclusion of abortions in the “minimum
benefits package” for health-insurers participating in the 
“Health
Insurance Exchange.”
As long as the Hyde Amendment is renewed the
federal government cannot directly subsidize health-care plans from taxpayer
funding of the federal Health and Human Services Department. But, if Congress
failed to renew the Hyde Amendment, then healthcare co-ops and private plans
could be required to cover elective abortions.
“While Senator Hatch’s abortion funding
amendment would have kept government federal funds from paying for abortion or
plans that cover abortion, it clearly stated that it would not prevent women
from obtaining their own separate abortion policies if they choose to do so,”
stated Tony Perkins of Family Research Council. “And instead of codifying
existing law protecting conscience rights for plans and providers, these same
Senators voted to undermine current law by rejecting Senator Hatch’s conscience
protection amendment on abortion,” continued Perkins. “This isn’t the status
quo, it’s a pro-abortion expansion.”
Current polling shows that the vast majority
of the American people want pro-life proposals like the Hatch Amendments in any
healthcare reform to ensure that federal funds do not subsidize abortion.
According to a poll commissioned by the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), sixty-eight percent of American voters
do not want their own policy, whether public or private, to include abortion
coverage. Sixty-three percent also favor preserving conscience protection laws.
The USCCB poll found
that among those favoring health-reforms that make coverage universally
available and affordable, sixty percent oppose government funding for plans
that include abortion.
The poll reflects the conclusions obtained
from earlier polling done by Public Opinion Strategies (August 30-September 1)
for the Susan B. Anthony List and Rasmussen Reports (September 14-15) on
healthcare policy and abortion.
At the moment, the Senate Finance Committee
has been voting on a draft of healthcare reform written in ‘plain English’
- which will change after the bill is translated into ‘legislative language.’
Baucus has balked at proposals from his committee to require the final draft
of the bill be posted on the Internet 72 hours in advance of the vote, claiming
that 
it
would take his staff two weeks to do that.
Senator Jim Bunning (Rep.-Kentucky) proposed
that the public have 72 hours to examine the final language of the $900 billion
healthcare reform bill along with a cost analysis from the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) on the committee’s website before the vote. However, the measure
was narrowly rejected 12-11.
With the Finance Committee’s work nearing completion,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated that voting on healthcare legislation
could begin right after Columbus Day, October 12.
As readers may recall, in July of this year,
during the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s consideration of H.R. 3200, a
similar amendment to Hatch’s Amendment #C14 dealing with funding of abortions
was offered by Congressmen Joe Pitts (Rep.-Pennsylvania), Bart Stupak
(Dem.-Michigan) and Roy Blunt (Rep.-of Missouri’s 7th Congressional District).
The amendment would have ensured that any government mandated health insurance
plan could not be used for abortions. The Pitts-Stupak-Blunt Amendment was
initially supported by the committee in a 31-27 vote, but the Democrats who
control the committee twisted arms and called a ‘do-over’ vote where the
amendment was rejected 30-29.
In speaking to Congressman Blunt he said: “Unless
specifically prohibited, the Democrats’ healthcare bill will use tax dollars
to fund abortions. I have already voted in committee for an amendment to prohibit
taxpayer dollars from going to abortions and will vote against any healthcare
bill that does any such thing. My expected Democrat opponent Robin Carnahan
does and will support the use of public money to pay for abortion on demand
and would support the initiatives I oppose in the healthcare debate because
she favors using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion.”
