Health care bill’s definition of ‘preventive care’ could be backdoor for mandatory abortion coverage
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Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)

Washington D.C., Dec 3, 2009 / 11:04 pm (CNA).- The passage of an amendment requiring “preventive care” for women in the Senate’s proposed health care bill could provide a backdoor to make abortion coverage mandatory, pro-life advocates warn. The Mikulski Amendment, passed on Thursday by a vote of 61-39, requires group health plans and health insurance issuers to provide coverage for “preventive care” for women and bars them from imposing cost sharing requirements on such care.

Under the amendment, “preventive care” would be defined by the comprehensive guidelines of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

The National Right to Life Committee has reported that some pro-abortion advocates consider abortion to be “preventive” health care.

It said the National Abortion Federation co-sponsored a 2009 publication titled “Providing Abortion Care” which explicitly stated that advance practice clinicians are “especially well positioned within the health care system to address women’s need for comprehensive primary preventive health care that includes abortion care.”

The Mikulski Amendment’s vulnerability to pro-abortion redefinition has concerned some pro-life leaders.

“While this amendment does not explicitly require abortion coverage, it also fails to explicitly exclude it,” wrote Mary Harned of Americans United for Life (AUL) at the AUL website.

If the HRSA categorizes abortion as preventive care, it would recommend coverage for abortion by all private plans and force them to offer abortion coverage.

Harned charged that this would further “the abortion lobby’s agenda of mainstreaming abortion as health care.”

The NRLC said concerns that “preventive care” will include abortion should not be dismissed. But it argued that those who do dismiss those concerns should therefore have no objection to explicitly excluding abortion from that definition.

The Mikulski Amendment was sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The Associated Press reports that it was intended to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests for women under a revamped health system.

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Subscriber comments:
Published by: DLL
scituate Mass 12/06/2009 04:13 AM EST
Soon the baby boomers will become the victims of euthanasia. Health care will be changed and language will be vague in the health care bills. As abortion has made a fetus a thing to throw away because it is not wanted,this will also happen to old people as they lose their financial resources. When they lose health and wealth society will throw them away. The culture of death is a throw away society. This is what America wants to become as laws are being designed to accommodate this kind of a sinful attitude. Our society is afraid of the weak and the infirm. A society like this loses it's sense of compassion,reason and love. Abortion,assisted suicide and euthanasia will destroy America. The reason America became great was because of a universal attitude that was compassionate for the poor and the weak and infirm,with a genuine love for our country and the whole world. Peace was reaching out to others,all people,with a sense of love,dignity and a respect for establishing solidarity and peace. This is the "Spirit of America"based on a country that is one of faith. If faith to some is not a trust in God,for some, than we can agree that we are nothing if we can't trust each other.
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Published by: Francis
Wareham Ma 12/04/2009 06:02 PM EST
The modern Democratic party is an atheistic, communist, anti America party. They stand for everything that the Catholic Church and the U.S. Constitution prohibit(ie atheism, relativism, abortion, same sex "marriage", communism, socialism, globalism etc). These abominations will not end until we get politicians that actually uphold the Constitution and natural laws. Sadly I don't see that happening any time soon.
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Published by: John A. L. Moran
Cerritos, CA., USA 12/04/2009 05:27 PM EST
Abstinence is "preventive care" Condom use is "preventive care" Abortion is " I don't care" or as it's better know "murder"
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Published by: Radomysl Twardowski
Bismarck, ND, USA 12/04/2009 07:04 AM EST
Unfortunately, Democrats and their sympathizers (occasional nominal Republican senator from Maine) are advancing their totalitarian, hell-on-earth agenda in the U.S. Quite a throwback to some of the last century's regimes in Europe. The support of millions of Catholics for Obama and the Democrats last year, their prayers by name at the altars and on the cover pages of the newspapers is mindboggling. The same mentality as those of Stalin's victims which made them praise their tormentor and killer.
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