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RI Right to Life admonishes Providence Journal for grossly inaccurate reporting
Monday, July 11th, 2011
For immediate release:
July 11, 2011
For more information:
Barth E. Bracy, Executive Director
Office: (401) 521-1860 / Mobile: (401) 225-8646
RI Right to Life admonishes Providence Journal for grossly inaccurate reporting
Providence, RI—The Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee (RIRTL) admonishes the Providence Journal for gross inaccuracies in a front-page article this past Sunday. Journal Medical Writer Ms. Felice J. Freyer seriously misrepresented the health benefits exchange legislation passed by the R.I. Senate on April 5, which failed to receive a floor vote in the House before recess. According to RI Right to Life Executive Director Barth E. Bracy, “One normally expects to see a piece like this on the op-ed page.”
Ms. Freyer reported that the Senate bill contains language “prohibiting health plans purchased through the exchange from covering abortion.” In fact, the text of the bill plainly states that the prohibitions apply only to insurance plans “purchased in whole or in part with any state or federal funds through the exchange.” Exceptions are made, moreover, “where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or where the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.” Too, insurance companies are explicitly permitted to offer abortion coverage as an “optional rider.”
Ms. Feyer uncritically printed the claim that the Senate bill “goes significantly beyond federal law.” In fact, the federal health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), expressly allows states to pass prohibitions much broader than the language passed by the Senate. Section 1303(c) of the PPACA expressly permits any state to pass laws prohibiting coverage or funding for abortion, or various procedural requirements and limitations on abortions. And Section 1303(a) of the PPACA explicitly authorizes any state legislature “to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange.”
Ms. Freyer gives the clear impression that the Senate should be blamed for the General Assembly’s failure to enact health benefits exchange legislation. In fact, it was the House that failed to bring any version of the health benefits exchange legislation to the floor for a vote, whereas the Senate passed health benefits exchange legislation nearly three months before the General Assembly recessed.
Moreover, it has been widely reported that Gov. Lincoln Chafee sits on the board of NARAL, a national abortion lobby committed to defeating the very kind of abortion-funding prohibitions contained in the Senate bill. And Chafee’s point man on the healthcare reform commission, Director of Administration Richard Licht, is the national chairman of NARAL. Ms. Freyer inexplicably fails to even note the role of NARAL in the failure of the health benefits exchange legislation.
“The effect of Ms. Freyer’s multiple inaccuracies,” concludes Bracy, “is to obscure the fact that this has nothing whatsoever to do with a woman’s right to choose an abortion and pay for it with her own private funds. Simply, this is about whether health care reform will require the good citizens of Rhode Island to subsidize other people’s elective abortions.”
About Rhode Island Right to Life: Rhode Island Right to Life was founded in 1970 with the mission to advocate for a state, nation and world in which the innocent lives of the unborn, the disabled, the elderly and the ill are valued by the citizenry and protected by civil law. RI Right to Life lobbies for legislation that advances the cause of the sanctity of human life at both the state and federal levels. RI Right to Life is the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.
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P.O. Box 28285, Providence, RI 02908 • (401) 521-1860 • Fax (401) 521-1876 • www.rirtl.org
Nonprofit • Nonpartisan • Nonsectarian
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