February 22, 2010 4:07PM # The Small Matter of Abortion By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE *Newsweek*’s Sarah Kliff nicely summarizes [why abortion could be THE issue that stops ObamaCare](http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/02/22/obama-presents-a-health-care-plan-but-abortion-issue-remains-unsettled.aspx). I’ve made a similar argument in a paper on [ObamaCare’s individual and employer mandates](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10576). Two factors seem most salient: 1. **One side must lose.** ObamaCare would so infuse federal money into private insurance markets that either (A) taxpayers will be forced to pay for elective abortions, which would be unacceptable to pro-life Democrats, or (B) the restrictions necessary to prevent taxpayer funding would curtail access to private abortion coverage — even for women who don’t receive federal subsidies — which would be unacceptable to pro-choice Democrats. Abortion is not one of those issues where opposing sides can meet in the middle. There’s no way to, ahem, split the baby. 2. **Abortion may be the one issue that Democrats care about more than health care.** Democrats may therefore prefer to let ObamaCare die than violate their principles on abortion. One can imagine pro-life Democrats saying, *Health reform, yes — but not at the expense of the unborn*, just as one can imagine pro-choice Democrats saying, *Health reform yes — but not at the expense of a woman’s right to choose*. No matter which way ObamaCare comes down on abortion, the legislation could lose enough House Democrats to fall short of the 218 votes needed to win. ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).