Withthe election looming, I want to discuss something I read recently which frightens me. It has to do with the crossroads of health care and conscience. And I think it’s important.
 In 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, a piece of legislation that prohibits the use of federal funding to cover abortions. This includes federal insurance plans that cover the cost of the procedure. So for example, Medicaid, under the Hyde Amendment, cannot be used to pay for abortions.
The bill is technically a piece of rider legislation, meaning that is not comprehensive, and only applies as an add-on to other bills. In this case, the Hyde applies only to government appropriations within Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS).
The new health care system under the Affordable Care Act is financially separate from LHHS funding, and so it bypasses the Hyde Amendment altogether. What this means is we, the taxpayers, regardless of our view on the issue, could be paying for abortions.
Let me take a step back. This is in no way a moral critique of the abortion issue. I’m not saying a thing about abortion. This is a critique of ACA. And I’m only talking about a sliver of the initiative. What I am saying is this: abortion is a supremely contested moral issue. One side believes the woman deserves the right to her body, the other side believes abortion takes the life of a child. The sides have been drawn for a long time.
Because of the gravity of the debate, I don’t think anyone should be forced to finance abortions if it represents a breach in his or her morals and conscience. This is just too controversial to legislate.
While it is true there is a way for individual states to opt of this requirement, some states will not choose to do so, stranding thousands of citizens who oppose abortions to shell out for them.
While thinking about this, I kept asking myself this question: why did we pass the Hyde Amendment in the first place?
I could certainly be wrong, but I believe perhaps our government recognized something back then. I think the government recognized the danger in laying down a precedent in which people were forced to pay for items like this.
And precedent is the key here. If the government is allowed to tell you what to do in regard to this issue of life or non-life, what else can the government tell you to do? What’s to stop this? Is this right? I hardly think so. I think we need to aggressively think about the ideas here. Do we want a government which has the right to say, “We’re sorry you feel that way, but you have to pay for it anyway. We don’t care much for what your conscience says.”
Thomas Jefferson didn’t think that was right. He once said to the New London Methodists, “No provision in our constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of civil authority.”As the election gets nearer, I encourage you to think about this and other issues.
Ask yourself tough questions, and make sure that your vote reflects what you believe.