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Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from HowStuffWorks.
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Cristen
Hey there, and welcome to the podcast. This is Cristen.
Molly
And this is Molly.
Cristen
So Molly, there has been a lot in the news recently over this whole issue of health care reform. Essentially whether or not we are going to end up with some kind of publically funded health care in the United States, and in the past week or so, the debate over this has really focused on the issue of abortion, because the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an amendment recently that requires whatever healthcare reform bill ends up being passed to offer at least one plan that will cover abortion, and then one plan that does not.
Molly
Okay.
Cristen
So abortion opponents are up in arms about this idea of what they’re calling “taxpayer funded abortion” and whether or not in a couple years down the road when we actually have public healthcare whether or not our tax dollars are going to go to abortions, and if that means all these women are just going to start going out and having abortions willy nilly, and it’s going to be the moral downfall of the U.S. It’s been a pretty heated debate.
Molly
Man, that synopsis makes me glad that I’ve been vacation for most of this debate.
Cristen
Yeah, there’s been a lot of stuff. And one thing I’ve found interesting in this – and this was from Kathleen Sebelius, who’s the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, she pointed out that right now the federal health benefits, which are what federal employees get, such a congress men and women, that the health coverage they get covers abortion services only in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment to the mother’s life. And a lot of time private healthcare plans – private insurance plans, I should say, do not fully cover abortion services as well. And since there’s not a lot of private coverage for abortion services, that leaves places like Planned Parenthood and other public clinics as the main option for women who need reproductive health care.
Molly
And this is where I can chime in and help you Cristen, because I recently wrote an article about how Planned Parenthood works.
Cristen
Yeah, Planned Parenthood has come up a lot in this discussion about this taxpayer funded abortion, because people are saying that Planned Parenthood’s going to get all this money from all these taxpayer dollars. But, from your article, I learned that the government already funds a lot of Planned Parenthood, so I thought it would be a good time to really talk about what Planned Parenthood does, and whether or not it is just kind of your neighborhood abortion clinic, or if there are other services that they provide. So let’s dive in.