Why H.R.3 is not common ground
The Family Research Council has a pretty bad track record on sticking to the facts, especially when it comes to abortion in health care, so it should come as no surprise that their testimony on H.R.3, the misleadingly named “No-Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” contains glaring errors.
Perplexingly, FRC paints their support for H.R.3 as responding to President Obama’s call to seek common ground on abortion:
President Obama has urged Americans to find common ground on the controversial issue of abortion. Americans have come together, 67 percent of us, in what may be the only truly bi-partisan agreement possible: That whatever our differences on abortion, we can agree that the federal government should not subsidize it. This is the common ground on abortion in America. H.R. 3 would make that common ground statutory law.
This is preposterous for a number of reasons. First, by definition Common Ground consists of policies that address the root causes of abortion and enjoy broad support from pro-choice and pro-life people alike. Since H.R.3 opens up broad new restrictions on abortion access, including restricting abortion coverage in private plans, it does not have pro-choice support and therefore is not common ground.
Second, the “67 percent” statistic FRC cites does not pertain to H.R.3. Here is the Quinnipiac poll question FRC cites as backup:
Do you support or oppose allowing abortions to be paid for by public funds under a health care reform bill? (emphasis added).
Using public funds to pay for abortion is already banned by the Affordable Care Act and backed up by the executive order signed by President Obama. H.R.3 seeks to limit even private insurance premium dollars paying for abortions, which is not at all what the Quinnipiac question asked.
Finally, it’s more than a bit rich that FRC is now portraying itself as a champion of common ground given its track record of attacking key planks of the common ground platform, such as improved access to contraception, comprehensive sex education and more governmental support for pregnant women and families.
While FRC hypothesizes their position “may be the only truly bi-partisan agreement possible” they ignore polling like this:
Polling has shown that 80% of self identified “pro-lifers” agree women should have access to contraception. 77% of pro-lifers support the federal government’s Title X family planning program (the Ryan-DeLauro bill will increase funding to Title X).
In another poll*, voters were asked, “Should the federal government provide funding for birth control for low-income women” and 66% of evangelicals agreed. (42 percent strongly agreed compared to 30 percent who disagreed, 21 percent strongly disagreed.)
On the sex education side, Pew found that 66% of white evangelicals favor teaching students in public schools about birth control.
This is real common ground — commonsense policies supported by supermajorities of the American people that address the root causes of abortion and promote stronger and healthier families. And if FRC were as interested in helping the families they claim to represent as they are in stoking the flames of the culture wars, they would get behind it.
