Abortion should not be covered by health care

TO THE EDITOR:

On Nov. 13, The Daily Tar Heel featured a column “Abortion funding should be covered.” In this column, the author provides a number of reasons why abortion funding should be included in the health care reform bill

The columnist, however, fails to recognize two things. One, abortion funding establishes a “tyranny of the majority” that so many political theorists have warned against. Two, a difference exists between having a right and having that right subsidized.

I should not be forced to fund something that I find morally repulsive. To force the minority to fund something that has no bearing on them and that the minority finds repugnant is tyranny.

My second point is best made by providing another example. I have the right to own a gun, but does the government subsidize this right?

Does the government provide money for those who wish to own a gun but don’t have the money for one? No. If they did, there would be a loud outcry from those who do not support gun rights.

How do these two issues differ? It is a matter of the number of deaths only.

The CDC reports that in 2005 there were more than 820,000 abortions in the United States, while there were fewer than 31,000 gun-related deaths. In other words, abortion killed more than 26 times the number of people guns did.



Kristian Doty
Sophomore
Political Science, Economics