Why the Pro-Life Movement Should Support Health Care Reform

Why the Pro-Life Movement Should Support Health Care Reform

Much has been made of Congressman Cao's recent cross-party vote to support the health care reform bill that was passed by the House of Representatives this week, but Cao has been on the side of our health ever since his election. In fact, as a recipient of his e-mail newsletter (you can sign up on his website), I have personally received no less than 5 messages in the last 2 months from his office directly related to health care issues in our community, including information about local health fairs, instructions on where LA residents can get H1N1 flu vaccines, his work to re-open Charity Hospital, and more. Critics can say what they will, but no one can deny that health issues have been a priority for Cao's office ever since his election.

So why is Congressman Cao so willing to take on an issue that has most Republican (and not a few Democrat) officials quaking in their political boots? There could be many reasons, but for my money, I'll say it's because he is unusually far-sighted for a congressman, especially one from our neck of the woods. Cao's priorities are far from hidden. He wants Charity Hospital re-opened. He wants Louisiana residents to have access to affordable health care. And he wants the Right To Life platform to put its money where its mouth is and take charge of the issue. And ultimately, that may prove to be his most notable battle.

Our Declaration of Independence states that we are endowed by our Creator with certain "unalienable" rights, including the right to life. Lawyers may argue that the Declaration, being a separate document from the Constitution, does not itself endow any rights upon U.S. citizens, and that therefore the failure to save a life when we have the ability to do so does not necessarily violate the legal principles of our nation. I disagree. In a nation where we have both the money and the technology to save hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who would otherwise die simply due to lack of health insurance, I believe that we have a moral and ethical, if not historical, obligation to provide that life-saving insurance - whatever the cost.

Indeed, if any political movement of our generation should be backing the call to reform health care, it is the "Right To Life" movement. It doesn't take a genius to see the connection between fighting to maintain the life of a fetus and fighting to maintain the life of a fellow citizen. Or have we reached some sad social benchmark where we care more for the life of a potential person than an actual one?

What Congressman Cao has done with his vote is not only support the right of our citizens to have access to effective, affordable medical care; he has also united the good intentions of the Right to Life movement with the stark realities of a nation which has failed to provide the most basic necessities to maintain the lives of  the citizens it already has. What the Health Care Reform movement may not have taken into account when it began is what the liberal voting base may have to give up in order to see successful reform enacted. Congressman Cao has very likely struck the first blow in a battle that could ultimately determine the way we as a nation proceed with both issues. Ultimately, it is possible that neither the Right to Life movement nor the Health Care Reform movement can come to fruition without the other. The question now is, what is the liberal voting base prepared to give up in order to see real health care reform enacted? And what is the conservative voting base willing to lay on the line in order to to advance the pro-life agenda? If we follow both arguments to their logical conclusion, it seems to me that they unfailingly end up in a place where we must either place the ultimate value on all lives, or none of them.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, my inner feminist is actively screaming bloody murder at the very thought of losing ground on the battle for women's rights, especially in a nation that has not even been able to pass an Equal Rights Amendment. Yet I cannot deny that my perspective on the matter of health care changed when I lost my own health insurance due to a chronic illness - just as my perspective on the matter of right to choice might change if our nation could ensure that any unwanted child born would, at the very least, have access to the basic health and medical care needed to ensure her or his healthiest possible life - no matter what. So if the Right to Life movement wants to gain votes, here is its best chance. Let the Right to Life advocates fight as hard for the lives of our fellow citizens now as they have for the lives of the unborn in the past, and - for the first time in my life - they might in return see my vote and my check headed in their own direction.