Abortion issue needs to be taken out of health reform debate

We have to wonder how many people who voted for Barack Obama's "change you can believe in" realized what he actually planned was "back to the future" with members of the old Clinton administration -- including the first lady.

One of those "changes" was the nomination of former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota as Health and Human Services Secretary.

Defeated by pro-life Sen. John Thune largely because of the abortion issue, Daschle is being put in charge of shepherding the president-elect's health care reform package into reality.

Daschle would replace pro-life advocate Mike Leavett at HHS, and pro-lifers fear he would rescind Bush administration protections for pro-life doctors and medical centers.

Abortion is one issue that has the potential to derail any attempt at creating a new health care system. As commited as pro-choice advocates may be to their cause, they rarely have the determination of their pro-life counterparts to focus all their attention on a single issue. Such narrow vision led to the election of Dave Hergert as University of Nebraska regent over the issue of embryonic stem cell research, despite shortcomings that later led to his removal from that position.

To have any kind of chance at reform, the new administration must find a way to remove the question of publicly funded abortion from the debate.