News

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The court battle over the federal health care bill decried by national pro-life leaders as the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade will be taking a shortcut to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Politico reported this week that the Obama administration on Monday did not ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its three-judge panel ruling against the law as unconstitutional, signaling that federal attorneys will ask the Supreme Court to take up the case instead.

Judge Frank Hull, a Clinton appointee, joined Chief Judge Joel Dubina, a George H.W. Bush appointee, in the August 12 ruling that Congress has no power to mandate that U.S. citizens buy health insurance.

“This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives,” stated the opinion as quoted by Reuters.

However, of greatest concern to the pro-life community is the bill’s vast expansion of government control over the health care industry, without ensuring that taxpayer monies are barred from funding elective abortions.

Although the Obama administration denied the bill’s abortion-expanding potential, the abortion mandate has already begun in the form of new federal regulations due for implementation in August 2012.

Federal health officials last month announced that virtually all private insurers would be forced to cover birth control as part of an essential “preventive care” package without co-pay. Among FDA-approved “contraception” is Ella, a drug chemically similar to RU-486, which can induce early abortions and is indicated for use up to five days after intercourse.

The health law also awaits a ruling in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in a lawsuit brought by the state of Virginia.