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Interim Final Rule Will Affect Medically Vulnerable Women

August 2, 2010

Statement of Reverend Carlton W. Veazey, President and CEO, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

As people of faith, we are morally outraged that the Obama administration has issued an interim final rule to ban insurance coverage for abortion for some of the most medically vulnerable women in the United States.

On July 30, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released interim final regulations for the new high-risk pools, which are designed to provide health coverage to people who have been denied access to private health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Abortion coverage will be banned in these temporary health-insurance pools that will transition us into the new healthcare system. This is unacceptable! 

We fought against this kind of restriction in the Stupak Amendment and we cannot accept it now.

The President's decision will not allow women to have abortion coverage if they have pre-existing conditions such as ovarian cancer, diabetes, breast cancer and other illnesses except in the limited situations of rape, incest or danger to the woman's life, even if they pay for it themselves. We know that true comprehensive health care must provide the full range of reproductive health services, including abortion. 

High-risk pools will exist until 2014 when the state exchanges become operational, as provided for in the Affordable Care Act. The pools will allow people with pre-existing conditions who have been denied coverage on the individual market to purchase health insurance.