HEALTH WARS

Obama: Drop Abortion From Health Bill

Wants to maintain status quo on reproductive rights.

After some silence on the issue, President Obama is finally speaking up about the abortion clause attached to the House's version of the health-care reform bill. "I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health-care bill, not an abortion bill," Obama told Jake Tapper on ABC's World News Tonight. The president stressed that the health-care bill that eventually passes shouldn't change what "has been in place for a very long time," which is a ban on federal subsidies for abortions. The controversial compromise in the House bill opposes the public option's coverage of abortions. Obama said that he wants to ensure "that the provision that emerges meets that test—that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices."