Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell wants you to pay for abortions

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell wants you all to pay for women’s abortions.

He wrote in The Stranger Monday, along with a couple co-authors, that they are proposing a resolution asking Obama and Congress to overturn all federal bans on public coverage of abortion.

They write…

“Over 41 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that every woman has a constitutionally protected right to make her own personal medical decisions about when and if to become a mother. For almost as long — nearly 38 years — the Hyde Amendment has undermined Roe v. Wade by barring public funds from covering abortion care, effectively cutting off access for most women enrolled in public government insurance. Many of those most affected are low-income women, women of color, and immigrant women, who already face significant challenges to accessing safe, respectful, timely health care. This isn’t just a matter of reproductive freedom — it’s an issue of racial and economic justice.”

This is apparently another social justice cause. Everything is about social justice, racial justice, economic justice. Not paying for a voluntary medical procedure when the vast majority of people who want the procedure are only getting it as a result of behavior they consensually engaged in, well, that’s another racial and economic justice cause.

Now, I want to frame this conversation in a way it’s almost never framed in, certainly not from people in the same ideological camp as Harrell.

Let’s talk about it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t support funds going to abortions. A lot of people don’t want to pay for abortions, myself included, because we think life starts at conception. Now, people have varying degrees of passion on this. Here’s my take: I’m not 100 percent positive life starts at conception. I’ve got no idea. I do believe in God, and I believe in science, and science can’t answer this question, only God can, and God isn’t giving us an answer. So until I have that answer, I have to err on the side of life, just to be safe.

I understand where the other side comes from, where they either don’t think life begins at conception or don’t care. I understand that position and I respectfully disagree. And since this is my money we’re talking about, I hope you’ll recognize my position.

The Stranger article continues:

“If we pass this resolution, Seattle will become the first jurisdiction in the Northwest — and the sixth nationally — to declare its support for overturning the Hyde Amendment and restoring access to reproductive health care for every woman, regardless of her income or what kind of insurance she has.”

But wait. No one’s reproductive health care is limited under the Hyde Amendment. Abortions aren’t banned. You just have to pay for them yourselves or go through a service that is subsidized via donations. You can still get your abortion. You just have to pay for it, just like if I want an elective procedure of some kind, I can get it, I just have to pay for it.

Harrell’s piece continues:

“As women’s reproductive rights are deliberately and strategically eroded in other states, passing the resolution shows that the Hyde Amendment and attacks on women’s health do not reflect Seattle’s values.”

Can we stop referring to this having to do with reproductive rights? This is not an attack on women’s health. You’re not unhealthy if you can’t get an abortion done. And the problem here, which is why I wanted to frame it with a clear understanding of why people are in favor of the Hyde Amendment, is because Harrell and other activists treat this like you just hate women if you don’t pay for services they want.

You often hear the slogan “my body, my choice!” Ok fine, your body your choice, but it’s not your choice when you’re using my money. It ceases to be your choice. If you want me to pay for it, I get a say in it.

What they really mean is “MY BODY, MY CHOICE, YOU PAY FOR IT!” It doesn’t work that way. If you want an abortion and you’re morally okay with it, go for it. I won’t stop you. I won’t try to close down a clinic and I won’t prevent you from getting one, but I’m not paying for it because I find it in the morally ambiguous zone to say the least. We shouldn’t have to violate our religious beliefs because you can’t pay for something that is an elective medical procedure.

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show.