By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – According to a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey released Thursday, almost half of all Americans want President Obama's health care overhaul to explicitly exclude abortion-providing health care plans from using taxpayer dollars, while only about a third want no abortion requirements.
Forty-eight percent of the survey's respondents said that any government-subsidized health care plan should be prohibited from covering abortion procedures. Thirty-two percent said they favor no requirements regarding abortion, while only thirteen percent said they think such plans should be required to cover abortions.
President Obama has dismissed pro-life Americans' concerns about abortion in the bill by calling it a “fabrication” that taxpayer funds would directly fund abortion procedures.
However, Obama has not denied that taxpayer subsidies would go to abortion-providing health insurance plans. A provision known as the Capps amendment in the House version of the bill explicitly calls for taxpayer subsidies for abortion-providing plans. The amendment also opens the public plan to covering abortions.
The pollster notes that a survey of polls over many years shows that Americans are generally uncomfortable with abolishing abortion, but most are opposed to having taxpayer funds pay for the procedure.
“Today's Rasmussen poll should remind lawmakers that including government funds for abortion on-demand in health care reform is not a winning policy for large segments of the American people,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List on Thursday.
“If the Congressional leadership and the President fall on the sword of abortion coverage, pleasing their allies and weaving it into the fabric of our daily lives, they do so at the peril of the entire bill and their own political futures.”