In an interview on Sunday, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, elaborated on President Obama’s statement before a Joint Session of Congress that under his plan “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” However, her “clarifications” simply raised more questions. Below are excerpts from the interview, followed by questions which Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of AUL Action, will ask during her meeting with the White House on Thursday.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Sebelius, what’s wrong with that, making it explicit in the bill that no public funding should go toward abortions?
SEBELIUS: Well, I think that’s what the president intends to do.
[AUL: How does the President intend to “make it explicit in the bill that no public funding should go toward abortions?” Does he have his own language, or is he going to stand behind his previous erroneous statements that abortion is not currently included in the bills before Congress? Will he add language such as: “No provision of this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall impose, or shall be construed to impose, any requirement for federal funding of abortion, coverage of abortion, or access to abortion, or to authorize or permit the recommendation for, or imposition of, any such requirement by or through the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Health Choices Commissioner, or any other government or quasi-government entity…”]
SEBELIUS: There’s no intent to change the language that’s in the current Medicaid statute, which has been there for years
[AUL: She is referencing the Hyde Amendment, which applies only to programs that fall under HHS appropriations and will not apply to the abortion-related provisions in the health care bills. Will he agree to language in the bill that applies the Hyde amendment to the health care bill? Furthermore, if the President has no intention of eliminating the Hyde Amendment, will he commit to only signing HHS Appropriations Bills that include it?]
SEBELIUS: . . . So I think that, you know, the legislative language will reflect what the president has just said.
[AUL: Again, when will we see this language?]
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re saying it will go beyond what we have seen so far in the House and explicitly rule out any public funding for abortion?
SEBELIUS: Well, that’s exactly what the president said and I think that’s what he intends. That the bill he signs will do.
AUL: This would mean that the final bill would eliminate the Capps Amendment – the so-called Compromise Amendment added to H.R. 3200 in the Energy and Commerce Committee – because the Capps Amendment mandates abortion coverage under the Public Plan and allows government subsidies for private insurance companies who cover abortion. President Obama would need to ensure that language explicitly prohibits abortion funding and coverage, thereby eliminating abortion from the public option and government subsidies to private plans that cover abortion.
Dr. Yoest will also seek clarification on other important points, including:
• Will he support the inclusion of broad, explicit language that codifies the right of conscience (like the Pitts/Stupak conscience amendment to H.R. 3200, rather than the insufficient Kennedy Amendment to the Senate HELP Bill)? If President Obama intends to allow federal conscience laws to remain in place, as he also stated in his speech, why is his Administration currently in the process of rescinding these regulations?
• Will President Obama commit to only signing legislation that does not include government-defined end-of-life counseling?
• Will he also commit to ensuring that any Comparative Effectiveness Research included in the bill and existing law will not be used to mandate or encourage the withdrawal or curtailment of effective life-sustaining treatment to the terminally ill, the chronically ill, or the permanently disabled?
The bottom line is this: Americans will not settle for empty promises that health care reform will respect life. We need to see the language in the health care reform bills.
