Pro-life advocates are taking action in response to the recent Obama Administration mandate that compels religious institutions to cover contraception in their insurance plans. Pro-life advocates are sounding the alarm that if the federal government can mandate contraception coverage now, it could also mandate abortion or physician-assisted suicide coverage in the future.

The National Right to Life Committee, of which the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation is a state affiliate, rightly warned in 2009, that the “preventive health services” provision in the Obamacare would give the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to mandate coverage of any medical service, including abortion, simply by adding the service to a fluid list.

After widespread public outcry, President Obama thought he could re-brand the mandate by offering a so-called “accommodation.” However, pro-life and religious organizations saw right through it. National Right to Life reported that under the “accommodation,” certain insurers will be directly required to offer coverage of birth control methods without copayments, while forbidden to charge anything extra for this option.

The White House argued that the expanded use of birth control will save any health plan money, and therefore, nobody is really paying for it. The same twisted logic could be employed to justify the future abortion mandate: By ordering health plans to cover elective abortion, health plans would save the much higher costs of prenatal care, childbirth, and care for the baby.