Leftists have created their own abortion nightmare. They can whine all they want to about the eeeeevil pro-life movement and those aaaaawful conservatives, but the truth is that the Stupak amendment was only made possible by the liberal obsession with government-run health care. Consider this, Planned Parenthood and NARAL: Under any of the various Republican health care proposals, decisions about abortion coverage would have been left to the free market law of supply and demand.

Translation: You hate Republicans so much, but GOP health care proposals are the only ones that offer 100% protection of abortion choice.

This is not to suggest that the GOP has any great love affair with the pro-choice movement; as we all know, quite the opposite is true. What it does suggest is that pro-choicers have either been incredibly naive or outrageously hypocritical. Under government-run health care, with a government-run option and government subsidies for private insurance, there was always going to be greater governmental control over health care decisions. Either pro-choicers didn’t think this through in terms of abortion rights, or they thought the rules wouldn’t apply to them. Maybe they thought, for some reason, they would be exempt from government control over their health care choices.

Sorry gals, but in this brave new world that we call ObamaCare/PelosiCare, no one is exempt from government control over their health care choices. This week Bart Stupak is making decisions about your perceived right to an abortion. Next a panel of experts will be making a decision about whether breast cancer patients really need breast-conserving surgery. Mastectomy, after all, could be deemed more cost-effective. You see, when you want government-run health care, that kind of implies that you want the government to, well, run health care.

Now, if the Stupak amendment has made you think twice about having politicians accountable to public opinion managing your care versus a market driven by consumer demand, you do have options. You can join House Minority Leader John Boehner in calling on Congress to “scrap the whole bill and start over.” But I won’t hold my breath. We all know that this is about a radical leftist ideological agenda of which your movement is an integral part. It’s not really about women’s health, and I don’t doubt for a minute that you’ll prove us right again.

Cross-posted to my personal blog: Nate, Uncensored.

As at least a nominal Catholic, I was perplexed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) decision to endorse PelosiCare after the Stupak amendment prohibited federal funding for abortion. While abortion is the number one issue confronting those who are trying to build a culture of life, it isn’t the only one. There are at least five reasons why Catholics should still oppose PelosiCare, reasons that the American bishops should have been paying more attention to if they were going to insert themselves into health care policy decisions.

1. Deficit spending is anti-life, anti-family, and immoral in general. By supporting PelosiCare, Catholics would be passing the cost of health care reform primarily to their children and grandchildren. PelosiCare will create the fiscal and economic conditions that will encourage the next generation of Catholics to continue using contraception and discourage them from having large families — simply because large families will cost too much.

2. PelosiCare will fund abortifacient contraception — including the birth control pill and the morning after pill. Although the Stupak amendment prohibited federal funding for surgical abortion, chemical abortion will still be provided using federal dollars under both the public option and subsidized private insurance. It has been scientifically proven that the birth control pill can destroy a life after conception, and the express goal of the morning after pill is to do just that.

3. Procedures using embryonic stem cells would also be funded under PelosiCare. There is nothing in the House bill that would prohibit either public health insurance or subsidized private insurance from using federal dollars to fund procedures that use embryonic stem cells. While many Catholics remain opposed to embryonic stem cell research, under PelosiCare their tax dollars might be used to subsidize the destruction of embryos and the use of their stem cells in medical procedures.

4. Under PelosiCare, care rationing (AKA “death panels”) will become reality. Do you want the government deciding whether your parent or grandparent should live or die, or what kind of treatment is “too much”? Under PelosiCare, that will be inevitable. As Americans begin to realize the full cost of a reform plan that expands access but doesn’t cut costs, politicians will be looking for ways to reduce the pricetag. Rationing will become reality. It already is reality in other countries with government-run health care.

5. There is no guarantee that the final health care bill won’t provide federal funding for abortion. The bishops should have known better. Why would they trust a rabidly pro-choice House Speaker, a pro-choice Senate Majority Leader, and a pro-choice president — all beholden to Planned Parenthood and NARAL — to prevent federal funding for abortion? They’re already backtracking, and President Obama has gone on the record saying that language about abortion will need to be changed. The final bill on President Obama’s desk may well feature federal funding for abortion, if not under the public option then under subsidized private insurance.

In their zeal to provide health care for all Americans, Catholic bishops have overlooked these serious issues. They have also overlooked the good that Catholic ingenuity has accomplished within the boundaries of private health care, and have instead bought wholesale into government-run health care. The bishops are simply wrong, and it is well within the rights of lay Catholics to decide that this is the case and to continue opposing PelosiCare.

Cross-posted to my personal blog: Nate, Uncensored.

Many are interpreting the message of the new ABC show V as a thinly veiled attack on the Obama administration, intended to reach out to libertarian and conservative Tea Party activists. That’s probably the most obvious interpretation, as the Visitors bring “universal health care” (direct quote) to earth and encourage their human supporters to “spread hope,” all the while hiding a much more sinister agenda.

It would be a mistake to leave V‘s criticism solely at the political level, though. While on the political level the plot certainly appears to be a shot across the bow of the Obama administration, on a cultural level this storyline is also a critique of our gullible culture.

More beneath the fold…

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it quite clear that she has no interest in making health care reform a bipartisan effort. The problem is that the House health care bill has been pushed so far to the left that Pelosi is forced to pull out all the stops just to ensure that enough members of her own caucus vote for the bill.

One major point of contention has been on the issue of abortion funding. Blue Dog Democrats have expressed opposition to any bill that funds abortion. This problem seems to have been solved by the Stupak amendment, which would prevent any federal dollars from funding abortion either through the public option or the insurance exchange. If the Stupak amendment passes, it will likely make it easier for Pelosi to convince enough members of her caucus to vote for her reform bill.

But what if Republicans abstain from voting on the Stupak amendment?

If Republicans abstain, it is extremely unlikely that Blue Dog Democrats will be able to marshal enough Democratic support for the Stupak amendment for it to pass. Speaker Pelosi wants a partisan bill with a robust public option. Republicans will vote against the bill, but their best chance of actually seeing the bill killed might be to let Speaker Pelosi have her abortion funding. She wanted a Democratic bill. Maybe Republicans should let her have what she wants.