This is interesting ...
Romneycare has covered abortion since it's inception, and in the first two years of it's existence,
abortion rates lowered due to better health care access.
Cool. Less abortion = better, IMO
This is from PoliticsDaily, two years ago, when the ACA was first being discussed:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03...uce-abortions/
Quote:
study published in the latest New England Journal of Medicine shows that abortion rates declined during the first two years that Massachusetts implemented a near-universal health coverage program much like the nationwide plan currently before Congress.
The research, which was released Wednesday, comes as the question of abortion is emerging as a pivotal factor in the Capitol Hill debate on overhauling health care. A cadre of anti-abortion House Democrats who could be critical to the bill's passage say provisions on abortion financing in the Senate bill are too weak.
That argument has come under sharp criticism from health care experts and ethicists in recent days. A growing number of Catholic leaders and organizations have also split with those Democratic opponents and the Catholic hierarchy, saying they believe the Senate bill does not allow for taxpayer money to underwrite abortions and therefore is worthy of support.
The latest to break with the bishops and support the bill is a coalition of Catholic nuns who head 60 religious orders representing tens of thousands of sisters, many of whom are directly involved in providing health care. A letter from the organization, a social justice association called NETWORK, was sent to all members of Congress on Wednesday and urges House members "to cast a life-affirming 'yes' vote when the Senate health care bill...comes to the floor of the House for a vote."
The sisters are emphatic in rejecting "false claims" that the Senate bill would finance abortion, and they -- like many others -- argue that enacting health care reform would save lives and support families.
The study on abortion rates released Wednesday could bolster that argument. It shows that the number of abortions in Massachusetts declined by 1.5 percent during the first two years of the new health care program (2007-2009) and the decline was 7.4 percent among teenagers -- even though the percentage of non-elderly people receiving coverage went up nearly 6 percent.
The study also points out that the abortion decrease occurred "despite public and private funding of abortion that is substantially more liberal than the provisions of the federal legislation currently under consideration by Congress." Massachusetts is one of 17 states where the state government finances abortions under Medicaid that the federal government cannot pay for.
The research project originated with Catholic Democrats, a pro-life organization affiliated with the Democratic Party, and was conducted by its president, Dr. Patrick Whelan, who serves on the pediatric faculty at Harvard Medical School and is a pediatric specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston. Whelan also wrote the article for the New England Journal of Medicine, which reviewed it before publication.
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