A letter to the editor by Bill Poehler, MCCL communications director, was published today in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
How can we believe Planned Parenthood's Sarah Stoesz ("Health care facts and misinformation," Sept. 28) when she argues that the very thing her organization wants — expanded abortion coverage — is not included in President Obama's health care plan?
She defends the president's reform plan, which she claims excludes abortion coverage, and then attacks the pro-life movement for supporting that very exclusion. The only problem is that the president's health care reform would, in fact, cover abortions, according to FactCheck.org, the Associated Press and Time.
Obama himself made this promise in a speech to Planned Parenthood: "(I)n my mind, reproductive care is essential care" and would be covered by his public insurance plan (July 17, 2007). Need more proof? Three U.S. House amendments to specifically prohibit abortion funding were either voted down or not allowed a vote last summer.
Polls confirm that the majority of Americans are opposed to abortion coverage in health care reform. Americans do not consider abortion — the destruction of unborn human beings — to be health care, and they do not want to be forced to pay for elective abortions.
The pro-life movement has never been opposed to health care reform, as Stoesz claims.
In fact, the National Right to Life Committee has developed a reform proposal that would truly benefit women and all other citizens. Pro-life citizens believe that all Americans, born and unborn, are guaranteed the right to life. That right must not be decimated by any efforts to reform health care.
