Obama signs order on restricting funding for abortions

With little fanfare, President Barack Obama signed an executive order Wednesday designed to ensure that no federal money can be used for elective abortions under the nation's new health care legislation.



March 24, 2010

The order had been demanded by a key bloc of anti-abortion Democrats as the price for their support for the health overhaul legislation that narrowly passed the House Sunday night. Since then it's been criticized by anti-abortion groups who say it has no actual impact other than restating restrictions on abortion funding already in the law. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., leader of the anti-abortion Democrats, insists that's not the case, but lawmakers supporting abortion rights did not object to the order because they said it made no difference. Obama invited Stupak and other lawmakers to the Oval Office for the signing of the order but made no effort to draw attention to it, and no media were allowed in the room.

The president signed the order a day after putting his signature on sweeping health care legislation extending coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans over 10 years with a first-time requirement for nearly everyone to carry insurance and with a ban on insurance company practices such as denying coverage to sick people.

On the abortion issue, the new health care law tries to maintain a strict separation between taxpayer funds and private premiums that would pay for abortion coverage. No health plan will be required to offer coverage for the procedure. In plans that do cover abortion, beneficiaries will have to pay for it separately, and those funds would have to be kept in a separate account from taxpayer money.

Moreover, individual states would be able to prohibit abortion coverage in plans offered through a new purchasing exchange. Exceptions would be made for cases of rape, incest and danger to the life of the mother.

Abortion foes contend that the separation of funds is an accounting gimmick, and in reality taxpayers would be paying for abortion because health plans that cover abortion would be getting federal money.

Obama's executive order, the product of frenzied 11th-hour negotiations involving Stupak's group and members of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, orders federal officials to develop guidelines to carry out the segregation of private and public funds. The order also sets out a mechanism aiming to ensure that community health centers cannot use federal funds for abortions, another concern for the Stupak group.

The executive order did not win over anti-abortion activists or the powerful Catholic bishops, who said it would have no real effect, and it also drew criticism from abortion-rights groups.

Source: The Associated Press