Anti-choice politics have become dangerously entangled with health care reform as evidenced by the troubling vote in the House of Representatives over the weekend for the Stupak-Pitts amendment. The legislation makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies participating in the proposed new health care system to cover abortion services.

In an effort to maintain the status quo and avoid the use of federal funds to cover abortion care, the House had fashioned a compromise that required all health insurance plans to separate public and private dollars, thereby insuring that no tax dollars would be used to cover abortion services. At the urging of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that approach was rejected as unworkable; what was adopted instead, in the Stupak-Pitts amendment, is a radical departure from current law.

And, in an interesting note, here’s a must read op-ed from NARAL Pro-Choice America and Catholics for Choice pointing out that the system for separating out public and private dollars rejected by the House as unworkable employs the same principle for segregation of funds that the Catholic bishops have routinely used for managing federal funds they receive to ensure that tax dollars don’t finance religious practice.

Please sign our petition to Senator Reid urging him to help keep the Stupak-Pitts amendment out of the Senate health insurance reform bill.