OPINION:
Where have you gone, Bart Stupak? Even more importantly, where is your voice, Kathy Dahlkemper?
These Democrats - from Michigan and Pennsylvania respectively - were two of the final six supposedly pro-life House members who voted to pass Obamacare. They sold their anti-abortion principles for the fool’s gold of an executive order purportedly banning the use of federal funds for destroying unborn children. Now comes the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), in a finding released yesterday, to show proof positive just how tarnished that fool’s gold actually is.
In Rep. Dahlkemper’s own Keystone State, the federal government on June 28 approved rules governing $160 million in federal taxpayer money for a “high risk” insurance program that will - repeat: absolutely, positively will - cover just about any abortion before the 24th week of pregnancy. The Pennsylvania plan submitted to the feds provides coverage for “only” those abortions that satisfy certain state laws. But the key, applicable state law allows abortion if a single doctor decides it is necessary for reasons that include psychology, emotions or the woman’s age.
This isn’t merely a loophole you can drive a truck through; it’s a canyon you can fly through in O Force One. It’s as open an invitation to taxpayer-funded abortion as can be imagined.
What’s worse is that this high-risk insurance program evades laws that ordinarily would govern the use of both federal and Pennsylvania tax money. It skirts the executive order because the order applies only to new insurance “exchanges” and “community health programs,” not these purportedly high risk insurance programs. It also avoids state law 3215(c), which forbids state government funds from being used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threats to the mother’s life. Because this state program is to be run entirely with federal funds, not state funds, 3215(c) doesn’t apply. How clever.
When the Stupak-Dahlkemper gang sold their souls to support passage of Obamacare, both the NRLC and the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood organization dismissed the executive order. The presidential concession is so loophole-ridden and so legally unenforceable to make it only “a symbolic gesture,” in the words of Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.
“The Obamacare law is full of faucets that can be opened to provide abortion subsidies,” NRLC legislative director Douglas Johnson told The Washington Times yesterday. “Regrettably, this is just the first.” It also is the one that will most directly affect Mrs. Dahlkemper’s constituents - most notably her future constituents who won’t even be born because of this program, created directly as a result of her unconscionable vote. That’s a pretty dark legacy for a congressional freshman who campaigned as a pro-lifer.
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