SUPREME COURT DECISION UNDERSCORES NEED FOR
NO TAXPAYER FUNDING FOR ABORTION ACT

WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, today reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell.

"Federal taxpayer subsidies are helping pay for over 1,000 health plans that cover abortion on demand, and today's Supreme Court decision underscores that only Congress can put a stop to that," said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

“This decision again demonstrates the need for enactment of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would permanently prevent taxpayer subsidies for abortion-covering health plans, both in Obamacare and in other federal health benefits programs," Tobias said.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7) in January by a vote of 242-179, despite a veto threat from the Obama White House.

When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, an array of long-established laws, including the Hyde Amendment, had created a nearly uniform policy that federal programs did not pay for abortion or subsidize health plans that included coverage of abortion, with narrow exceptions. Regrettably, provisions of the 2010 Obamacare health law ruptured that longstanding policy. The Obamacare law authorized massive federal subsidies to assist many millions of Americans to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand. In addition, the law contains multiple provisions that will ration life-saving or life-preserving medical care.

In September 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigatory arm of Congress, issued a report containing information that confirmed predictions by National Right to Life that federally subsidized abortion-covering health plans would become a widespread feature of Obamacare. That report found that more than one thousand federally subsidized exchange plans currently cover elective abortion. Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia allow coverage of elective abortion in health plans that qualify for the federal subsidies (while 24 states have restricted or prohibited such coverage).

For further documentation, please see www.nrlc.org/uploads/ahc/ProtectLifeActDouglasJohnsonTestimony.pdf, and www.nrlc.org/uploads/DvSBA/GenericAffidavitOfDouglasJohnsonNRLC.pdf.

For information on how Obamacare rations life-preserving medical treatment, see www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/healthcarereport2014.pdf.
For a pro-life alternative to Obamacare that would provide health insurance to those unable fully to afford it without rationing or government deficits, see www.nrlc.org/uploads/medethics/ObamacareAlternativeNRLC252015.pdf.

Founded in 1968, National Right to Life, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

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