Once the House of Representatives passed an abortion-neutral health-insurance reform bill Nov. 7, a backlash against life soon followed.

Abortion advocates in the House vowed to remove the Stupak-Pitts language in the final version because, they said, it represents a step back for women’s rights (it doesn’t). Other pro-abortion politicians tried to make us believe that the House bill represents a significant change in federal policy (it doesn’t). The truth is that Stupak-Pitts is sound, common-sense federal policy that respects life without impacting access to legal abortion; maybe that’s why Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates have resorted to a campaign of lies against it.

Our conviction is that the U.S. Senate should follow the House’s lead in this matter as it considers its version of health-insurance reform. Click here to ask your U.S. Senators to insist upon language like the House’s Stupak-Pitts amendment in the Senate version of health-insurance reform. Click here to remind President Obama of his promise to sign a health-reform bill only if it doesn’t provide federal funds for abortion.

The howls of protest from abortion advocates following the passage of health-insurance reform in the House were loud and shrill, possibly as a result of having been caught off guard by a staunchly pro-abortion House leadership. Leading abortion advocates Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling, in a Nov. 12 op-ed in The New York Times, were especially histrionic: “To secure passage of health care legislation in the House, the party chose a course that risks the well-being of millions of women for generations to come.” And: “Political calculations aside, the House Democrats reinforced the principle that a minority view on the morality of abortion can determine reproductive health policy for American women.” Apparently they’re serious – and seriously incorrect.

What the radical pro-abortion crowd can’t bring itself to address is that faced with the most important floor vote of her tenure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi surmised, correctly, that she didn’t have the votes to pass the bill unless it contained strong provisions that kept the federal government from endorsing abortion. Previous amendments that purported to address the issue either provided for federal funding of abortion or would have permitted it to be covered under government-sponsored health-benefit plans. The Stupak-Pitts amendment, passed just before the health-reform bill was narrowly approved, did both, and it would be politically smart for leaders in both Houses to keep its language intact in the final bill that reaches President Obama’s desk.

Values voters would do well to understand that we have won a battle against what perhaps was an overly confident opponent, but will have to win at least twice more in this session of Congress if the health bill is going to reach President Obama’s desk with acceptable protections for the unborn.

The U.S. Senate has begun deliberations on its version of the bill. The Senate bill and then the conference report, a negotiated compromise between the differing House and Senate versions of the bill, would need to contain the Stupak-Pitts language to protect life in the health reform bill.

It’s also important to remember that we are not talking about restricting access to abortion in any reasonable sense of the term, but rather insisting that it not be paid for or otherwise sponsored by the federal government. By some accounts more than 70 percent of Americans, including many who believe abortion should remain legal, agree with this position. But let’s keep our eye on the ball here – winning on this issue would still put us a long way from our ultimate goal, the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Perhaps the best evaluation of the situation we’ve seen on this issue recently comes from an abortion advocate, William Saletan of the online magazine Slate. Writing to a primarily pro-abortion audience on Nov. 9, he noted that the House and Senate health insurance reform bills “mandate, standardize and subsidize health insurance. They mix public with private. And when you do that, you invite public-sector problems into matters that used to be nobody’s business.

“One of those problems is that people don’t like their tax money being used for procedures that offend them. You may think that’s stupid. You may point out that your tax money is used for wars you don’t like. But you don’t have two or three dozen swing votes in the House. Pro-life Democrats do. They don’t have the clout to ban abortion, but they have the clout to keep tax money from paying for it. . .

“There’s something poignant about the last-minute outrage of the pro-choice groups. The complaints they’re leveling – that people had more choices in the private market, that the House bill radically upsets this market, and that it violates Obama’s promise not to deprive anyone of their existing coverage – are hardly novel. Republicans have issued such warnings all year. But liberals didn’t pay attention until the coverage in jeopardy was abortion. . .(L)et’s give up the two lies we tell ourselves about such legislation. One is that it won’t cost us much money. The other is that it won’t cost us much choice. When you throw in your lot with other people and agree to play by the same rules, you surrender some of your freedom and risk some of your options. Sometimes it’s coverage of an MRI or a hip replacement. Sometimes it’s coverage of abortion. If that’s the price of health care reform, are you willing to pay it?”

Saletan, without saying it in so many words, exposes the abortion industry’s motivation for removing Stupak-Pitts from the final bill: it makes clear that they desperately want the massive infusion of federal cash that will come to them if abortion is federally funded or covered in federally approved health-benefit plans. Their motive has always been to get you to foot more of the bill for their philosophy that a baby is merely an inconvenience, and it galls them that they now have to say so.

To get what they want the abortion industry will have to be plain with the American people and Congress and say, in effect, “Women who choose to abort their babies should not only have complete freedom to do so, but you should pay for their choices.” We’ll see how that goes over; we’re guessing it won’t.

Click here to ask your U.S. Senators to insist upon language like the House’s Stupak-Pitts amendment in the Senate version of health-insurance reform. Click here to remind President Obama of his promise to sign a health-reform bill only if it doesn’t provide federal funds for abortion.

Other ways you can support the fight to keep abortion out of health-care reform include:

• Pray for the success of the pro-life community in stopping an abortion industry bailout, and that elected representatives’ hearts would be turned to realize the moral correctness of our position.
   
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• Copy the Web address (URL) of this story and forward it to your Twitter followers and Facebook friends, urging them to send e-mails to their elected representatives and local media.

We can win this important battle – let’s keep the pressure up!