A glimpse of what is to come?

Reports are coming out that President Obama plans to repeal policies put in place by the Bush administration which helped safeguard and protect doctors whose personal ethics prohibited them from performing abortions. The purpose of the policy was to ensure that doctors and on a larger scale hospitals, would not be coerced of forced into performing or providing abortions.

Religious based medical institutions in particular are concerned with President Obama's campaign promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would mandate that they provide abortions or shut their doors. Several of the bishops who oversee Catholic Healthcare have already said that they will shut their doors before they would allow abortions to be performed. However, the official position of the board is that they will neither provide abortions or shut their doors but would act in "civil disobedience".

So what happens if the administration is able to push forward with Universal Health Care?

In a single payer system, much like Canada and the UK, the government is the only entity permitted to provide medical services. Would we see CH closing their doors?

As you hear more about universal health care, keep that in mind. It would seem however, that along with the budgeting that has already taken place and the vast expansion of current government medical coverage, this fight could come very quickly. The spin will look something like this current statement from the administration:

"This policy of potentially allowing providers to refuse to provide contraception or family planning runs counter to the [Obama] administration's goal of reducing abortions and unwanted pregnancies," the official said. "It also could lead into other areas of medical care."

The question that I've asked before, and ask again, if you pay for abortions, remove all restrictions to abortions, and now even force objecting doctors to provide abortions, how can you honestly say that you are trying to reduce the number of abortions?