After reading two columns bashing the Stupak amendment ("A controversial concession," Nov. 19; "Health care hurdles," Nov. 16), I feel like I have to set the record straight. According to the non-partisan politifact.com, "the amendment says that people who buy subsidized insurance on the exchange cannot buy an insurance 'plan' that includes abortion coverage. But the amendment does allow subsidized people to purchase 'supplemental coverage' that covers abortion, as long as they do it with their own money." All the amendment is doing is removing all federal funding for abortion. The dispute is over whether subsidizing abortion is the same thing as funding it. Beyond semantics, the purpose of these government subsidies is to help poor people pay for private insurance which they couldn't otherwise afford. If these subsidies allow someone to get an abortion from one of these private plans, then that is the equivalent of funding abortion. You may protest that this doesn't constitute direct funding, but that sounds unconvincing to someone who considers abortion morally wrong. The bottom line is that their tax dollars will be helping people pay for abortions, whether they fund a public or private insurance plan. Women can still pay for abortions with their own money, as long as federal subsidies aren't allowing them to do that. Forcing women to pay for their own abortions without federal assistance doesn't "take away a woman's right to choose," and it isn't "an act of discrimination" or a "blatant intervention into the individual health care of Americans," as the two columns asserted.
George Pisano\nCLAS II
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