Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
In a move that could bolster the legal tactics of abortion opponents, the Bush administration said last week that it would add fetuses to a child care program operated by the federal government, classifying them as “unborn children,” and thereby guaranteeing low-income pregnant women prenatal and delivery care.

“Prenatal services can be a vital, lifelong determinant of health, and we should do everything we can to make this care available for all pregnant women,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said last week.

The new arrangement extends the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, giving states the option to provide unborn fetuses, and by extension, pregnant women, with health care.

Pro-choice groups welcomed the announcement’s end result — health care for pregnant women, regardless of income — but slammed the measure itself as part of a campaign by the Bush administration to criminalize abortion.

“If they’re interested in covering pregnant women, why don’t they talk about pregnant women” instead of fetuses, Laurie Rubiner of the National Partnership for Women and Families, asked the Associated Press.

Rubiner and others say measures already exist to cover prenatal services for poorer women, and that last week’s move is a calculated ploy to pave the way for extending “personhood” to a fetus, an important step in making abortion illegal.

President Bush has done little to hide his opposition to abortion, speaking by telephone at an antiabortion rally on the twenty-ninth anniversary of Roe-vs.-Wade less than two weeks ago.

“You’re working and marching on behalf of a noble cause and affirming a culture of life,” Bush said at the rally. “Our nation should set a great goal: that unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law.”