Federal health budget, abortion language OK'd

The giant omnibus spending package heralds lean times ahead for the federal funding of medical research and health information technology efforts.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, AMNews staff. Dec. 27, 2004.

Washington -- President Bush recently signed into law a fiscal year 2005 appropriations package that leaves little room for funding new programs but includes a controversial measure that could limit payment for providing abortion services.

Language inserted into the $143 billion budget for the Labor and Health and Human Services departments is designed to allow health insurers, hospitals and other medical institutions to choose not to offer or pay for abortions or abortion counseling and referrals. State governments and federal agencies found to be discriminating against these institutions for not offering these services risk losing federal funding.

According to proponents, the measure simply expounds on a law that has been on the books for more than 25 years but that some jurisdictions have interpreted as referring only to individual physicians, nurses and others.

"My experience as a physician -- and I still see patients -- is that the majority of nurses, technicians and doctors who claim to be pro-choice, who claim to support Roe v. Wade, always say to me that they would never want to participate in an abortion, perform an abortion, or be affiliated with doing an abortion," the provision's author, Rep. Dave Weldon, MD (R, Fla.), said in a statement.

Reproductive rights groups have used loopholes in current law to coerce hospitals and health plans into offering abortion services and to require that physicians provide referrals, said Gene Rudd, MD, associate executive director of the Christian Medical & Dental Assns.