Abortion and Health Care
Is pregnancy a disease in need of a medical remedy? One may think that is the case with the Democrats' tenacious insistence that abortions be covered by government subsidized medical insurance. In their view, pregnancy apparently comes upon someone like an unexpected viral disease.
Pregnancy is not a disease and abortion does not treat a disease. In fact, abortion is a social pathology, similar to alcoholism, divorce and drug addiction. For sociologists, the prevalence of abortion, divorce, drug addition and the like are measures of the ill-health of a nation or people group. It makes as much sense to buy insurance for abortion as it does to buy insurance for divorce. Perhaps some people may want to do that, and insurance companies may provide the service, but should government funded abortion be national policy? Such a policy would be national suicide.
Abortion is now the leading cause of death in Europe. A recent report documents the self-inflicted genocide being perpetrated by Europeans on themselves through abortion and declining fertility rates. The Democrats and President Obama would put our nation on an identical path by treating abortion as an elective "health care" procedure.
An interesting aspect of abortion is that in almost all cases it is not the doctor but the "patient" who decides that treatment is necessary. About 90% of all abortions are elective, that is, by the woman or, all too frequently, the husband, parent or boy friend who is coercing her. She decides that she wants an abortion, she goes to an abortion clinic and has it performed by a doctor she has likely never previously met and will never see again. If abortion is paid for by a government funded insurance plan, the prevalence of abortion in the US will dramatically increase. An example of what is to come when abortion is "free" can be found in Cuba, where abortion is the preferred birth control method. Is that what we want for our country?
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal recounts the arguments Democratic congressional leaders are now making for including abortion as part of health care. They are promoting it as a cost containment measure. By aborting more children now there will be fewer people that the government needs to support in the future. The article's author, John Taranto, carries this argument to its logical conclusion. Taranto writes, "A policy aimed at reducing the number of babies born would be economically ruinous, because within a few decades it would result in a shortage of workers and taxpayers. But as a matter of cold cost-benefit analysis, not all babies are equal. Some are costlier than others, and not all grow into productive adults."
Thus, there would eventually have to be a selection mechanism for identifying and protecting the preferred babies. That is what is called "eugenics", the terrible legacy of the 1920s and 1930s that came to fruition in Nazi Germany. It is no small coincidence that Planned Parenthood, whose revered founder Margaret Sanger enthusiastically embraced eugenics, is at the backs of the Democratic leaders. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the country.
To understand enthusiasm for abortion among Margaret Sanger's progeny, just consider the numbers. Women of color account for two out of three abortions in this country. Black women have an abortion rate that is three times that of white women. Just imagine what those numbers would be if the federal government provided free abortions to low income Americans.
Does it make sense to buy personal insurance for abortion? Does it make sense to buy divorce insurance? After all, fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. About 13% of abortions are paid for by insurance. Apparently some people think that sort of insurance is useful. But a national policy making abortion essentially free would be disastrous. So why do the Democrats insist that abortion be covered by insurance even though their determination puts at risk the passage of so-called health care reform? Because their bill is not about reforming health care but about nationalizing medicine and forcing abortion on America.
