Myth Busters #1: The Abortion Mandate in Health Care?

A new NBC poll tells us that 50 percent of respondents believe the new health care plan will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions. MSNBC reports:

Majorities in the poll believe the plans would... use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions -- all claims that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue about the legislation that has emerged so far from Congress.

We've been saying that these facts are untrue for weeks, but it always helps reading it again from a third party source.

Still, it's frustrating that 50 percent believe it to be true. So we're turning the frustration into action and we need your help. We must rally to make sure that the pro-choice community gets the truth out.

That is why we're going to highlight a "Myth of the Day" for the rest of the week. We'll blog about it, tweet it, post it on our Facebook and MySpace pages... basically do whatever we can do to ensure that we're combating these health-care lies at every turn.

So, in light of this new NBC poll, we bring you Wednesday's myth: The new health-care system would mandate abortion.

FACT: No. Nothing in any of the current health-care-reform bills mandates abortion coverage - or any other type of health-care service. Two independent sources have debunked these recent anti-choice distortions.

• Politifact.org called House Minority Leader John Boehner's claim that the bill would "subsidize abortions" FALSE. (Source: Politifact.org, "Abortion and the health care reform bill," August 7, 2009, http://www.politifact.org/truth-o-meter/article/2009/aug/07/abortion-and-health-care-reform-bill/)
• Factcheck.org publicly refuted claims from anti-choice groups like the Family Research Council that the health-reform bills will secretly "mandate" abortion. When the FRC launched a TV ad in five states repeating this false claim about a mandate, even the anti-abortion group Catholics United condemned the TV ad and called on the FRC to end the "public misinformation effort against health care reform." (Sources: FactCheck.org, "Surgery for Seniors vs. Abortions?" http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/surgery-for-seniors-vs-abortions/, July 31, 2009; Statement from Catholics United, http://www.catholics-united.org/?q=node/265)

Make sure that we do our best to combat these health-care misconceptions so that we don' t end up with a new nationwide abortion ban in the private health-insurance market by prohibiting such coverage in the new health-care system-- taking away coverage from women who already have it.

Please help us spread the truth! Tell your friends, your grocer, your dad's sister and your third-grade teacher. Link to this blog post on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, or email the text below to your friends and family.

And be sure to check back tomorrow for health-care myth busters #2!