The effect of "universal health care" on abortion

As Bob Hockett and I have been discussing, any conscientious, faithful Catholic who hopes to arrive at a defensible position -- as a legislator, or as a citizen -- on the current health-care proposal needs to not only be sure that he "has his head right" -- i.e., that he does not intend to promote abortion -- but also that he has made an informed, not-clouded-by-partisan-loyalties prudential judgment about what the facts, on the ground in the real world, are, and also the likely real-world effects of the proposal.  Bob and I disagree about some of "the likely real-world effects" of the proposal (we also agree about many of those effects, but just think differently about whether those effects are desirable).

Now, I suppose that there are no MOJ readers who are "undecided" at this point.  Still, it has been suggested, in some pro-life and Catholic quarters, that one of the "facts" to be taken account of is the alleged abortion-reducing effect of universal health coverage in some other countries.  Robby has already linked to Bill Saunders' response to this suggestion.  I would only add, to Robby's post, the hope that, in the future, those pro-life Catholics who are at present satisfied that the proposed health-care proposal will *not* promote, and will actually reduce the number of abortions, will display an equal appreciation for the fact that regulations of abortion -- reasonable regulations that the vast majority of people in our diverse society support, but that abortion-rights activists and most Democrats in Congress and in the Administration oppose -- clearly reduce the number of abortions.