Abortion battle meets health care reform: Do you see red? Does someone want you to see red?

Just when talk of "death panels" was umm, dying down, now comes talk that funding for health care reform would pay for abortions. Not just abortions, but the fully loaded  'abortion on demand.'

Do you see red? Does someone want you to see red?

told the Denver Post

Not to miss a chance to hit the rhetorical red zone at the first opportunity.

Speaking of red, the National Right to Life Committee has gone "Condition Red" on its Web site.

Meanwhile, NARAL Pro-Choice America wants people to calm down and "Help us Stop the Lies!" Supporters note that none of the bills reference abortion, and accuse the opposition of "entangling" the issues to gain a nationwide abortion ban in the private health insurance market.

Abortion opponents say creation of a "public option," or government-run insurance plan, allows the plan's designers to cover all abortions, reports Michael Booth of the Post. Abortion-rights advocates say the bill , and especially an amendment added by Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., makes it clear that health reformers are not seeking to expand abortion funding. A report in Congressional Quarterly last week indicates that members of the Senate Finance Committee are focused on ensuring that abortions services will not be covered by federal funding.

President Obama has said the reproductive services will be covered by health care reform, just as they are by public and private health insurance plans now. Does seizing on this language now seem, oh, just  a tad manipulative? Like waiting until the "death panels" debate lost a couple of octaves, and then trotting out the next 'issue' surely designed to get the tried-and-true believers out en masse screaming and yelling, mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore?

How about health care on demand? How's that for fully loaded?

-- Rita Hibbard