“You could call Obamacare the ‘Abortionist Full-Employment Act’ as it provides multiple new income streams, and even new government jobs, for an industry whose primary product is harming women and ending unborn life,” said AUL’s Dr. Charmaine Yoest.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (09-17-13) – “The anti-life policies of Obamacare intertwined throughout healthcare at the personal, business, state and federal levels make it nearly impossible for an increasingly pro-life American public to avoid paying for life-ending events,” said Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest. She made her comments as AUL hosted an off-the-record event for pro-life leaders on the deadly impact of the healthcare law.
“Too little attention has been paid to Obamacare’s deliberate job-killing fines imposed on those who do not want to embrace the Obama Administration’s anti-life agenda,” said Dr. Yoest. “Right now, family-run businesses are fighting in the courts to protect their First Amendment Conscience Rights and protect their companies from punishing fines, all because they do not want to pay for life-ending drugs and devices.” AUL currently has filed 16 amicus curiae briefs aimed at protecting the First Amendment Conscience Rights of Americans who do not want to purchase life-ending drugs or devices.
“You could call the Affordable Care Act the ‘Abortionist Full-Employment Act’ given all the new income flowing to the abortion lobby, over the objection of an increasingly pro-life America,” said Dr. Yoest. “While defunding the law is a good place to begin, that won’t solve the layers of anti-life mandates impacting ordinary Americans. Repealing Obamacare is the only way to ensure that life is protected from its intrusive policies.”
The HHS Preventive Care guidelines (which adopt the FDA’s mislabeling of life-ending drugs and devices as contraception, and then require their coverage as preventive care) have been in place since August 2012 but its coercive reach continues to expand. Each month, more private insurance plans are required to comply with the anti-life mandate when they lose their “grandfathered” status.
Dr. Yoest observed that October 1 marks another significant anti-life impact of the healthcare law.
On October 1, many Americans will be railroaded into paying directly for abortions with their insurance premiums – sometimes without their knowledge and consent. And the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, earns even more money as “navigators,” signing people up for insurance.
A major change in the healthcare law is the fact that taxpayer funding will be used to help pay for insurance plans that cover abortions. In other government programs, plans are not permitted to include abortion coverage. Obamacare goes in an entirely different direction, creating a presumption that insurance plans in the new state Exchanges are permitted to cover abortion unless states prohibit it.
“Anyone with e-mail understands what it means when you are signed up – opted in – to a list without your consent. For the first time in U.S. History, Obamacare opts in almost every America to all kinds of abortion-related policies, intertwined at multiple levels. And if you try to opt-out, the answers for many has been NO, and the punishments severe,” said Dr. Yoest.
Abortion is woven into the healthcare law at multiple levels, making repeal of the law a pro-life necessity, including:
- Allowing the use of federal tax dollars for abortion, abortion coverage and abortion inducing drugs and devices.
- Including a “Covert Abortion Premium Mandate” within Exchange plans that include abortion coverage.
- Pretending that the Hyde Amendment protections were enough to prohibit direct payment for abortions.
- Permitting federally subsidized Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) to provide abortion coverage through the state insurance exchanges.
- Failing to prohibit all multi-state qualified health plans from providing coverage for abortion.
- Mandating coverage of drugs and devices known to end unborn life through the guise of “preventive care.”
- Failing to provide comprehensive First Amendment conscience protections for individuals, employers, and insurance companies that have religious or moral objections to abortion.
For a look at some of the legal issues surrounding the health care law, click here. To understand how abortion harms women, click here.
