Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) warned Tuesday that President Barack Obama's contraception mandate requiring most religiously-affiliated employers' health plans to cover birth control could lead to the government limiting how many babies are born per family.
Her comments came on Glenn Beck's network, GBTV, on the show "Real News From The Blaze."
Bachmann was asked whether conservatives had bungled the debate over women's health.
"I think that it is a mistake for us to get caught in a trap that the left would love to have us dance in," she said, adding that the "war on women" was an appeal to a "group."
She continued, "Women have a lot to lose under 'Obamacare,' and I’ll give you an example. If you want to go into specifics, what the government can give, the government can take away. It certainly isn’t beyond the pale to think, in light of Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary -- she said that it’s important that we have contraceptives because that prevents pregnancy, and pregnancy is more expensive to the federal government."
(Video above via GBTV.)
She then proceeded to argue that the government could ration births. "Going with that logic, according to our own Health and Human Services secretary, it isn’t far-fetched to think that the president of the United States could say 'We need to save health care expenses. The federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family, or two babies to be born per family.' That could happen. We think it couldn’t?"
Anchor Amy Holmes interjected and asked whether Bachmann was suggesting that the Obama administration or another administration could advocate a one-child policy like China.
"What I’m saying is that now that we know the president of the United States, unilaterally, can tell insurance companies, 'You must offer the morning-after abortion pill, you must offer sterilizations, you must offer contraceptives free to the recipients of those products, because we tell you to' (which means they’re effectively setting the price, as well), that says that whoever the health care dictator, could conceivably make that order, as well," she said.
She continued to say that the president wouldn't necessarily make the order but claimed there was nothing that limited him from doing it.
Bachmann ended her presidential bid after the Iowa caucuses, but the Minnesota congresswoman has announced that she will run for re-election.