Bill doesn’t protect unborn

By By Rep. Robert Aderholt, Guest Columnist
After a year-long battle over the most far-reaching social legislation in nearly half a century. the President signed into law the Democrats' sweeping health care reform bill.
Since the summer of last year, my position on health care reform has been that our nation could benefit from reform, but not the type of big government takeover that President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid have pushed on us.
On March 21, 211 Congressmen joined me in voting against this massive big government bill, including all of the Republicans and 34 Democrats.
This bill will make unnecessarily drastic changes to our nation's health care policy during a time when our economy is in recession and unemployment is high. This massive legislation takes away freedom, threatens the existence of private health insurance plans and creates new federal bureaucracies, boards, and commissions in an industry that is responsible for one-sixth of our economy.
However, one of the biggest problems that I have with the bill is the fact that it doesn't protect the unborn. The issue of abortion and the sanctity of life is something that I feel very strongly about, and I am very disappointed that there wasn't strong enough language in the bill to prohibit taxpayer funded abortions.
Before this bill was enacted, the law prevented federal funding for abortions. However, this bill will have the exact opposite effect by offering tax subsidies to plans that cover elective abortion.
This health care bill was written to grant authority to federal officials to mandate abortion coverage. The bill prevents abortion from being mandated as an "essential benefit," but explicitly allows other federal agencies and appointees to mandate private insurance plans to cover abortion.
This bill also lacks language to protect health care providers from being penalized by state and local governments or by the federal government for refusing to participate in providing abortions.
You may be thinking, "what about the President's executive order negotiated by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., that is supposed to prevent federal funding of abortions?"
Well… the fact of the matter is that a Presidential Executive Order cannot override the dictates of legislative statute and this specific executive order from President Obama does not resolve the abortion issue because of the many legal obstacles in place due to precedents set by the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade.
In addition, executive orders can be undone or modified as quickly as they are created by the signature of the President at any time. For all we know, the President could issue a reversal of this executive order next year.
Even the House Democrats have gone on record saying that an executive order on abortion cannot and will not change law, and would simply provide "comfort" to Democrats with moral concerns about taxpayer funded abortion. Their words were, "Well it can't be changed by executive order, because an executive order can't change the law."
Even though this bill was signed by the President, the fight is not over. The health care bill is fundamentally flawed in so many ways, but you should know that I will work with Republicans to repeal this bill and pass laws that offer sensible pro-life solutions to lower health care costs for all Americans. Last week, I co-sponsored H.R. 4910, which is a bill to repeal the Obamacare bill and replace it with the Empowering Patients Act (H.R. 3400).
There have already been efforts across the nation to repeal this legislation. As you have probably heard, Alabama is one of more than a dozen states to file suit against the new law's individual mandates and taxes.
If Republicans take back control of the House in November and the White House in 2012, I feel sure that repealing this bill will be one of the first items on our "to do" list.