Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is continuing to promote the counterfactual claim that the Senate health care bill will include federal funding for abortions. A March 11 article by Penny Starr is the latest to promote it, uncritically repeating a claim by Senate Republicans that the bill doesn't prohibit "federal (taxpayer) funds from being used to pay for abortions," going on to baselessly assert that the Senate bill "specifically allows for taxpayer-funding of certain health plans that cover abortion."
We've debunked this claim before when CNS has made it. The latest to debunk it is David Gibson of Politics Daily:
So the final verdict is that the Senate health care reform bill does not pay for or promote abortion, and it will arguably reduce abortions as well as providing good, affordable health care to millions of women and children who now go without -- and suffer for it.
"The bottom line is that health care reform is pro-life," [health care expert Timothy Stoltzfus] Jost said. "We're going to save an awful lot of lives with this bill ... I identify as a Christian, strongly, and I identify as someone who believes in the sacredness of life. I just think this is a pro-life bill. I'm really discouraged that people not only don't want it but also are spreading erroneous information about it. Because I don't think that's something that Christians should do."
Whether Jost's view, and the true story of the Senate bill's approach to abortion and health coverage, can shift the debate before the looming deadline for congressional action is one aspect of this argument that can't be decided by consulting a text. Those who have laid down a marker against the Senate bill have a lot invested in seeing it fail, or having it changed, if only to save face given all they have invested in portraying the bill as "pro-abortion."
Will CNS correct the record and tell its readers the Senate bill doesn't fund abortion? Don't count on it -- it has an agenda to push, and the truth does not supercede that.
