Both extremes of the is-abortion-covered debate are wrong

Beliefnet’s Steve Waldman digs deep into the facts of this debate and returns agreeing with us:

To understand requires us to take a journey into the legislative weeds but here’s my bottom line: those who claim abortion clearly is covered and those who say it clearly isn’t are both wrong.

His conclusion, fully stated, is:

We often think of abortion as a black and white issue. But when it comes to the question of whether health care reform bills “cover” or provide “taxpayer support for” abortion, there are many shades of gray. As of now, neither side is entirely telling the truth about what the bills do; on some aspects, Obama and his allies have misled, on others pro-lifers have. More important, some of this does not involve matters of “fact” or “truth” or “lies” but rather subjective judgment calls, a land where ideologues don’t function well but legislators must.

The entire column deserves a careful reading here.