Democrats Prepare for Abortion Bonanza

Today's Wall Street Journal looks a number of Bush-era abortion regulations that may be repealed under the Obama administration, for example:

On abortion and related matters, action is expected early on executive, regulatory, budgetary and legislative fronts.

Decisions that the new administration will weigh include: whether to cut funding for sexual abstinence programs; whether to increase funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include discussion of birth control; whether to allow federal health plans to pay for abortions; and whether to overturn regulations such as one that makes fetuses eligible for health-care coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program.

You see the last part about fetus eligibility for health coverage under CHIPs? If Obama reverses the "fetus eligibility," the policy direction would be to continue to remove governmental protection from the unborn, shifting the focus to women's "right" to terminate than the unborn's right to life.

Steve Benen has a generic post on the WSJ article, but the comment thread is reveals the nature of the coming ideological shift we'll see under Obama:

Change the word "fetuses" to "pregnant women", and what's the argument for reversing it? Or does the word substitution have a significant effect?

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Using "fetuses" endows a child in the womb with healthcare rights. Makes for a slippery slope that ends up criminalizing any damage done to a fetus in utero. Basically, not only does abortion become illegal, but it makes it illegal for a mother to smoke or drink while pregnant.

Is there a slippery slope regarding the right to life?

If we refer to "pregnant women" rather than "fetuses" does that mean we can check moral obligation at the door of the abortion clinic?

This seems more about sanitizing death than anything else. Yeah, word substitution does have a significant effect.