Ask your Congressional Member to support access to abortions in health care reform

Talking Points

- Voters overwhelmingly support the broad outlines of reform and requiring coverage of women's reproductive health services. If the reform were adopted, voters overwhelmingly support requiring health plans to cover women's reproductive health services (71% favor-21% oppose).

- Absent coverage for women's reproductive health services, majorities oppose reform. If reform eliminated current insurance coverage of reproductive health services such as birth control or abortion, nearly two-thirds (60%) would oppose the plan and nearly half (47%) would oppose it strongly.

- Supporting coverage of comprehensive reproductive health services would benefit Members of Congress. A plurality (45%) would feel more favorably toward their Representative if they voted to cover reproductive services, while 24% would feel less favorably, and 32% said it would make no difference.

- Voters would feel much less favorably about their Representative if they voted to cover services like Viagra for men, but excluded reproductive services for women. Voters overwhelmingly reported that they would feel less favorably toward their Member of Congress if they voted for reproductive services for men and not for women (71%), while only 9% would feel more favorably toward their Representative.

- Even in the face of opposition arguments, majorities support requiring coverage of abortions under reform. After hearing strong arguments both for and against covering abortion under reform, two-thirds (66%) support coverage, agreeing that health care, not politics, should drive coverage decisions. A majority of voters (72%) reported that they would feel angry if Congress mandated by law that abortion would not be covered under a national health care plan.

- Voters want rules to stop insurance companies from discriminating against policy holders. Even in the face of industry claims of too much government interference, 62% agree that reform should establish new rules to treat everyone fairly and stop discrimination, while far fewer (32%) side with opponents' claims.