Health
care
bill’s definition of ‘preventive care’ could be backdoor for
mandatory abortion coverage
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
Washington D.C. - The passage of an amendment requiring “preventive
care” for women in the Senate’s proposed health care bill could provide
a backdoor to make abortion coverage mandatory, pro-life advocates
warn. The Mikulski Amendment, passed on Thursday by a vote of 61-39,
requires group health plans and health insurance issuers to provide
coverage for “preventive care” for women and bars them from imposing
cost sharing requirements on such care.
Under the amendment, “preventive care” would be defined by the
comprehensive guidelines of the Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA).
The National Right to Life Committee has reported that some
pro-abortion advocates consider abortion to be “preventive” health care.
It said the National Abortion Federation co-sponsored a 2009
publication titled “Providing Abortion Care” which explicitly stated
that advance practice clinicians are “especially well positioned within
the health care system to address women’s need for comprehensive
primary preventive health care that includes abortion care.”
The Mikulski Amendment’s vulnerability to pro-abortion redefinition has
concerned some pro-life leaders.
“While this amendment does not explicitly require abortion coverage, it
also fails to explicitly exclude it,” wrote Mary Harned of Americans
United for Life (AUL) at the AUL website.
If the HRSA categorizes abortion as preventive care, it would recommend
coverage for abortion by all private plans and force them to offer
abortion coverage.
Harned charged that this would further “the abortion lobby’s agenda of
mainstreaming abortion as health care.”
The NRLC said concerns that “preventive care” will include abortion
should not be dismissed. But it argued that those who do dismiss those
concerns should therefore have no objection to explicitly excluding
abortion from that definition.
The Mikulski Amendment was sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The Associated Press reports that it
was intended to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive
screening tests for women under a revamped health system.
Source:
CNA
Publish
Date:
December 3, 2009
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The IFRL is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in
Illinois. A non-profit organization, that serves as the state
coordinating body for local pro-life chapters representing thousands of
Illinois citizens working to restore respect for all human life in our
society. The IFRL is composed of people of different political
persuasions, various faiths and diverse economic, social and ethnic
backgrounds. Since 1973 the Illinois Federation for Right to Life has
been working to end abortion and restore legal protection to those members of the
human family who are threatened by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Diverse though we are, we hold one common belief - that
every human being has an inalienable right to life that is precious and must be protected. IFRL is
dedicated to restoring the right to life to the unborn, and protection
for the disabled and the elderly. Click here to learn more about the IFRL.