Health Care Reform, Is it Okay to Force Abortion?

(Posted 7/25/09 on http://www.ccfw.org/)

Healthcare Reform: Is it right to force taxpayers to fund abortions?

As the details of the current controvesial “health care reform” bill continues to unfold, we are learning that it contains the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade (read the story here and here. ) Apparently, taxpayers will be forced without exceptions to fund abortions. This is quite a stunner and not going to sit very well with most Americans (so far, polls are showing that half of all Americans disapprove of President Obama’s handling of this reform). It’s one thing to make abortion legal and accessible (as it is today) and quite another thing to mandate its support.

The bills currently offered are being pushed by President Obama and would result in federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans, abortifacient drugs, federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws. It is feared that once abortion is established as a federal “essential benefit”, it will require “access” to and massive subsidization of elective abortion, which will require many issuers to establish and staff new abortion-providing sites. It may also nullify state “access” laws (such as waiting periods and parental notification requirements) and undermines healthcare workers’ conscience rights.

We can debate the $1 trillion dollar price-tag and whether or not it would suffocate everyone from small business owners to upper-income taxpayers with its incalculable new taxes. We could also debate the inevitability of rationed care and the limits on end-of-life care. All these have their merits for debate and discussion, but forcing taxpayers to fund abortion is unconscionable.
God is the author of life from conception (Psalm 139:13-16) and each person is created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). This places a high value upon each individual life conceived and leaves the right to take that life away in the hands of the Creator and Designer. God has forbidden the taking of innocent life (Exodus 20:13) except in the cases of self-defense (Exodus 22:2-3), manslaughter (Exodus 20:12-13), a just war (Ecclesiastes 3:8) or in the government execution of criminals convicted of a capital crime (Romans 13:4).

Since life is precious in the eyes of God (we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”) and therefore sacred, we are forbidden by God to end life by homicide (Genesis 9:6) or suicide (I Corinthians 6:19-20) or feticide (abortion – Exodus 22:21-25) or euthanasia (2 Samuel 1:2-16). And though the government has unfortunately given the right to end a life inside the womb (from conception to full-term) and in some states outside the womb (for qualitative end of life decisions), it is unthinkable that anyone who opposes abortion would then be forced to fund such actions against their will.

Lord willing, these measures will be removed from any final form of healthcare reform for the sake of God’s special creation and the future of our country.