A new article posted today on Time magazine’s website admits that Obama is wrong to call claims of abortion-coverage in health care reform bills “fabrications.”

The article says the health care overhaul proposed by House Democrats (H.R. 3200), if enacted, would “mark a significant change” in the federal government’s role in funding abortions. “It would be a dramatic shift,” remarked Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan). Stupak, along with dozens of other House Democrats, has pledge to vote against the final version of reform unless the language is changed to prohibit any kind of publicly funded abortions.

The federal government has a long-standing “hands off” policy for funding of abortion. Since 1976, a law called the Hyde Amendment has prohibited any federal funds from being used for abortion. Private health plans offered to government employees, including members of Congress, have also been barred from covering abortion. The same goes for the military.

The Time article notes that while H.R. 3200 technically does not override these restrictions, but finds a sort of loophole for publicly funded abortion. Under the bill, funds for abortion would be collected only from member dues (premiums) for the proposed “public option” government-run insurance plan. Anyone who signed up for the public plan would be forced to pay for abortion coverage (in an amount “not less than $1 per month), and that is where the problem lies.

“It does represent a policy shift in favor of the abortion-rights community that [would not have happened] under George W. Bush’s administration,” said Glen Halva-Neubauer, a political scientist at Furman University in South Carolina.

Radical abortion supporters claim that this is a compromise where “[American consumers] get to choose which plan they want. They get to choose a plan without abortion,” says Elizabeth Shipp, political director of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“But for opponents of abortion, including a number of House Democrats, the proposal represents a major reversal of a decades-old policy of keeping the Federal Government out of the abortion business. In a recent letter to members of Congress, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops called the House proposal a ‘radical change’ built around the ‘illusion’ that public funds could be segregated from private funds in a government-run plan or in private plans that accept federal subsidies. ‘Funds paid into these plans are fungible, and federal taxpayer funds will subsidize the operating budget and provider networks that expand access to abortion,’ writes Cardinal Justin Rigali in an Aug. 11 letter to members of Congress,” reads the article.

Stupak, one of the few pro-life Democrats in Congress, has vowed to keep abortion out of the health care bill, saying, “We are going to do everything we can to stop the rule, or the bill, from coming to the floor” for a vote. He added that as many as 39 House Democrats may join him in the effort. This would pose a serious problem because if all 39 did indeed vote against a bill with abortion included, and every House Republican did as well, there would be a tie of 217 yeas to 217 nays.

It is unclear how the Senate will handle abortion in health care, but this much is clear: Obama is using the same tactics he used during the campaign to coerce some pro-lifers into voting for him as he is now with abortion in health care. President Obama, stop misleading the American people, and tell the truth!

To read today's Washington Times editorial on abortion in health care, click here
To read the full Time article, click here