Abortion rights groups state their case

A leading abortion rights group delivered petitions today to try to squash the funding ban when the Senate takes up its health care overhaul bill.

NARAL Pro-Choice America said it and its partners, including People for the American Way, collected 97,218 signatures in 72 hours calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resist pressure from anti-abortion groups to include the controversial provision in the House-passed bill. It would ban a new public insurance option from covering abortion and would also bar private insurance plans that accept patients receiving federal subsidies from offering that coverage.

“America’s pro-choice majority is speaking up loudly and clearly,” NARAL President Nancy Keenan said in a statement. “As the fight for health reform moves forward, we are making sure Sen. Reid and his colleagues understand that adding the anti-choice Stupak-Pitts language to the Senate bill is not an option.”

While supporters of the abortion funding provision say it would just keep in place the current ban on federal funding of abortions -- except in the cases of rape, incest, and danger to the mother's life -- abortion rights groups say it would go well beyond that, effectively denying women the right to use their own money to buy insurance with abortion coverage.

UPDATE: Another abortion rights group is up with a new ad airing on cable in Washington, D.C., and on the Internet.

In the spot from the Center for Reproductive Rights, a female stand-up comic is shown telling a joke: "A woman walks into her doctor’s office and says: ‘Doc, I’m 11 weeks pregnant. My baby has anencephaly, which means parts of her skull and brain are literally missing. It’s fatal. Does my insurance cover an abortion?’ The doctor says: ‘No it does not.' "

The joke is met with dead silence, then the announcer says, "Don’t let Congress ban abortion coverage millions already have.”