Palin: Healthcare law will hike abortions

DALLAS, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Republican commentator Sarah Palin called on the U.S. Congress to repeal the new healthcare law, contending it will increase abortions.

Speaking in Dallas Wednesday, Palin urged voters to hold elected officials accountable for their votes, saying the healthcare law's ramifications are "worse than what we had thought," the Dallas Morning News reported Thursday.

Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate and darling of the Tea Party movement, was in Dallas for an "Evening of Hope" event sponsored by Heroic Media, a faith-based organization that uses media to link women with unplanned pregnancies to resource centers.

Palin, the former Alaskan governor, contended that President Obama's executive order barring use of federal funds for abortion after the healthcare bill was passed was non-binding, adding that federal funds later were made available for high-risk insurance pools in some states that allow elective abortions.

"The biggest advance of the abortion industry in America has been the passage of Obamacare," she said.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan objected to Palin's assessment, the Morning News reported.

"Ms. Palin must be talking about some other healthcare bill, because the one that was signed into law did no such thing as ... independent fact-checking organizations have definitively concluded," Sevugan said. "There should be room for disagreement in our public debates, but there shouldn't be room for making things up."