Right to Opine

In his address to Congress Wednesday, President Obama asserted once again that his health care plan would not fund abortion. Let’s examine that claim using the most widely quoted current proposal.

HR3200 Subtitle B Section 2511 (p. 992) provides for “School-Based Health Clinics” (SBHC) to be funded with your tax dollars. This sounds great on the surface. Who doesn’t want to provide health care for our kids? The problem is that the language is, deliberately, overly broad and opens the door for groups such as Planned Parenthood, our top abortion provider, to open clinics in our schools.

(c) USE OF FUNDS.—Funds awarded under a grant under this section may be used for—

(1) providing training related to the provision of comprehensive primary health services and additional health services;

What, exactly, are the “additional health services” here? We don’t really know, as the bill does not specify. You can, however, connect the dots. Oversight of the clinics is left to the Secretary of Health & Human Services (SHSS), currently Kathleen Sebelius who is a radical pro-abortion advocate and supporter of late-term abortionists (e.g., the late George Tiller).

(d) CONSIDERATION OF NEED.—In determining the amount of a grant under this section, the Secretary shall take into consideration—

…

(3) other factors as determined appropriate by the Secretary.

This gives quite a bit of leeway to the SHSS. She could, for example, grant greater funding to SBHCs that provide “family planning” counseling of the sort she approves.

(l) DEFINITIONS.—In this section:

(1) COMPREHENSIVE PRIMARY HEALTH SERVICES.—The term ‘comprehensive primary health services’ means the core services offered by SBHCs, which shall include the following:

…

(C) OPTIONAL SERVICES.—Additional services, which may include oral health, social, and age-appropriate health education services, including nutritional counseling.

Sounds innocuous enough but what, exactly, are “age-appropriate health education services” under this definition? Would pro-abortion counseling qualify? Given the current SHSS you can count on it.

(3) SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CLINIC.—The term ‘school-based health clinic’ means a health clinic that—

(A) is located in, or is adjacent to, a school facility of a local educational agency;

…

(4) SPONSORING FACILITY.—The term ‘sponsoring facility’ is—

…

(D) a nonprofit health care agency;

Bingo! Planned Parenthood qualifies. In fact, they wouldn’t even have to operate on school grounds. Any Planned Parenthood clinic near a school would qualify under this plan.

Now back to Obama’s claim that our tax dollars would not fund abortions. First note that nothing in this bill excludes abortion and great leeway is given to the SHSS to determine how funds are meted out. There is no guarantee here that funds would not be used directly for abortion. Assume, for the sake of argument, that none are. Even in that case Planned Parenthood clinics on or near school grounds would qualify for these funds. In practice every dollar they receive for even legitimate purposes frees up another dollar to fund the rest of their practice…being America’s number one provider of abortions.

Republican Congressman Charles Wilson may have been out of line concerning the venue of his outburst, but he was correct. Mr. Obama, you lie.