Genevieve Plaster, M.A.

By its very nature the crime of human trafficking strips each victim of his or her humanity.  Sex trafficking in particular, which is categorized by law as a “severe form” of human trafficking, rebrands the person as a product to be bought and sold for pleasure. In the United States alone, the Central Intelligence Agency estimates that around 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States and as many as 400,000 domestic minors are also involved in the trade each year. These alarming figures testify to the firm foothold that this hidden criminal activity has in the United States.

The non-partisan congressional watchdog agency, Government Accountability Office (GAO), released a new report late September 15 confirming that: 1,036 federally subsidized plans cover elective abortion; insurance consumers were frequently not informed of this coverage before enrolling; and plan issuers are not billing elective abortion coverage separately despite a legal requirement.

Now, four and a half years since the Affordable Care Act’s passage and nearing the end of its first year of implementation, concerns over elective abortion coverage in health insurance exchange plans continue to be dismissed by the current administration.

A federal judge on August 31 issued a “limited” temporary restraining order on a Louisiana abortion health and safety law that would have gone into effect September 1. The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act (HB 388), or Act 620, requires doctors at abortion facilities to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles in case a need for emergency care arises.

Last week, an assisted suicide organization in Switzerland named Exit made the news with a report of an anomalous growth in membership. According to its vice president, a record number of about 60 to 100 new applicants poured in daily this July and August, instead of the expected lag in applications due to summer travel.  All told, Exit’s members amount to about 75,000.

Last week, Thailand officials announced a reform of its surrogacy legislation by way of a newly drafted bill that would ban commercial surrogacy.

Jennifer Lahl, founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture and an award-winning film director, recently released her latest documentary entitled Breeders: A Subclass of Women? The new film examines the harmful consequences of surrogacy.  Breeders concludes her three-part film series on sexual reproductive technologies.

On December 11, 2013, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, in response to a question from Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), testified on Capitol Hill that abortion coverage information in insurance plans is “available for every customer,” and that “it is on the website.”  After the testimony the Charlotte Lozier Institute undertook to research a variety of plan documents for health insurance plans on the federal exchange to discern which ones do and do not cover abortion.  Here is a list of the Summary of Benefits and Coverage documents CLI has gathered from a survey of states whose marketplaces are operated by the federal government.  Most do not reveal any information on whether the plan covers abortion.

From the beginning of the rollout of the federal and state websites displaying health insurance plans eligible for premium subsidies, the ability to identify key elements of the plans, compare and contrast them, and understand the scope of coverage and other issues has been limited at best.  In most cases, it was necessary at the outset of healthcare.gov (the federal exchange web site) on October 1, 2013 for an individual to register for a plan before finding out what it contained and what it excluded.  That situation prevailed even for the most controversial of coverage topics – elective abortion – despite the prominence of the abortion issue in the final passage of the Affordable Care Act.

More than a week into the enrollment period for health insurance via the federal-state insurance exchanges, whether existing plan options include elective abortion remains anything but clear.  Under Obamacare, a cluster of Multi-State Plans (MSPs) are likely to include elective abortion coverage in 27 states.  In each of those states, at least one MSP is required under federal law to exclude elective abortion coverage so that individual subscribers can select an option that squares with this element of conscience.  But how to tell an elective-abortion plan from one that does not include it?