Recently, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur's spokesperson, Steve Fought, made highly controversial statements attacking pro-life groups for opposing Congresswoman Kaptur and the new health care law (see http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38519 ).
Kaptur's office contends that an executive order signed by President Obama eliminates any pro-life concerns with the new law. Mr. Fought said, "Their political agenda, anti-Obama, is stronger than their belief in consistency when it comes to pro-life issues."
"Some people you're never going to satisfy. Some people, it's never enough. And those folks fall into that category," Mr. Fought said. "If you're talking about the organizations themselves, they were opposed to it. But, if you talk about the individuals, it depends on the individual.... Sometimes organizations don't represent the interest of their membership necessarily, and I think that's the case here with the executive order."
There is so much wrong about these comments that it is difficult to know where to begin.
Congresswoman Kaptur's office conveniently forgets that that when the U.S. House passed a version of the Health Care bill in November of 2009 with specific language to prevent taxpayer funded abortions, Right to Life took a neutral position.
It was only after the U.S. Senate stripped out the House's pro-life amendment that Right to Life opposed it. Thus, as to Mr. Fought's contention that "you're never going to satisfy" pro-life groups and that "it's never enough", clearly the original House pro-life amendment was "enough" to satisfy Right to Life's concerns about the bill's effect on abortion.
As for Mr. Fought's statement that "there's nothing in the bill that promotes abortion", the Senate added provisions that specifically authorize insurance companies to cover elective abortions in plans supported by federal subsidies.
The Obama executive order does not (and could not) override this provision. Rather, it directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to comply with it.
As far as Mr. Fought's assertion that pro-life groups were not representing the views of it members, not only do members of pro-life groups oppose government promotion of abortion, but so do the great majority of Ohioans.
In a January 2010 poll conducted for Ohio Right to Life, 1001 registered Ohio voters were asked: "Do you think that health insurance that is paid for or subsidized by taxpayer money should include coverage for abortions, or should abortions be excluded from coverage in such situations?" 65% of Ohio voters said abortion should not be covered, while only 22.1% said that it should be covered.
Thus, when Congresswoman Kaptur turned a deaf ear to the requests of pro-life groups, she was ignoring not only those groups, but also the wishes of the majority of Ohioans.