Over the long decades of debate about legal abortion in the United States, there are only a few constants. One of them has been that the Congress will not compel the American people to finance abortions for the poor, federal employees, members of the military, beneficiaries of the Indian Health Service, and other public insurance programs. On a topic where agreement is extremely difficult to come by, the rejection of abortion funding has been the undisturbed rule for nearly half a century.