For the first time, the federal government will provide an “affordability tax credit” to millions of low-income and middle-income individuals and families to help subsidize the purchase of health plans on the exchanges. By allowing health insurers that sell plans on many state exchanges to cover abortion while remaining eligible for federal subsidies, Obamacare opens new avenues for federal funding of abortion coverage. 

Remember the “pro-life” legislators who promisedthat Obamacare wouldn’t fund abortions? Where are they now? Sarah Torre of the Heritage Foundation has a lengthy article explaining how Obamacare entangles taxpayers in the funding of abortion-on-demand. This is not an article about the contraception mandate that has been so much in the news lately. It’s about how the state exchanges subsidize insurance plans that cover elective abortions. She writes:

For the first time, the federal government will provide an “affordability tax credit” to millions of low-income and middle-income individuals and families to help subsidize the purchase of health plans on the exchanges. By allowing health insurers that sell plans on many state exchanges to cover abortion while remaining eligible for federal subsidies, Obamacare opens new avenues for federal funding of abortion coverage. These federal tax credits could facilitate the purchase of health plans that cover elective abortion for millions of Americans who did not have such coverage previously…

This raises a question: Can’t citizens simply buy a health plan that doesn’t fund abortions? In some cases, maybe so. But in many states that won’t be an option. Torre explains:

For those living in the 26 states and D.C without opt-out laws, individuals and families that wish to avoid health plans with abortion coverage could have few or no options in their state’s exchange until 2017…

This system could place many Americans in an unwanted and unnecessary dilemma, forced to choose between violating their values by directly subsidizing abortion or forfeiting the health care coverage that meets their family’s unique needs.

I can remember when “pro-choicers” used to say that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” How quickly that policy collapsed under the Obamacare regime in which abortion would be unsafe, federally funded, and prevalent.

Denny Burk is Associate Professor of New Testament and Dean of Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminar. He blogs on matters concerning politics, theology and culture. This article is used with his permission.