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Congress is back in session this week, and that means that the debate over health-care reform will only get uglier. From here on out, we'll be hearing a steady drumbeat from right-wing pundits and their mainstream media enablers: abortion abortion abortion.

Second only to lies about "death panels," abortion scare tactics are a favorite of universal-health-care opponents. But if you, like a majority of Americans, find abortion icky, then you should be an eager supporter of universal health care for two major reasons.

1. Taxpayers Won't Be Paying for Abortions
Despite what conservative activists claim, taxpayer money will not fund abortions. The Hyde Amendment specifically forbids the use of federal money to pay for elective abortion, and there's no reason to think health-care reform will change that.

Some conservatives argue that under health-care reform, insurance companies that already cover abortion will continue to do so, even though they're in a federal system. And under the proposed public option, it would be legal to cover abortion because the public option will be paid for -- like all insurance companies are -- by members.

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None of this means that abortion will be paid for with tax dollars. If you really don't want to pay for abortion with your insurance premiums, you can choose one of the insurance companies that don't cover it. But I'll bet that most people gnashing their teeth over this don't even know whether their own insurance company covers abortion.

Universal Health Coverage Will Lower the Abortion Rate
If you're anti-abortion, then you want fewer of them, right? Universal health coverage would most likely lower the abortion rate. Western European nations (and Canada) that conservatives claim have "socialized medicine" also have a much lower abortion rate than the U.S. America has 21.3 abortions per 1,000 people. Contrast that with England (15.6 per 1,000), Canada (16.4 per 1,000), Germany (7.6 per 1,000) and Holland (6.5 per 1,000). What do they have that we don't? Universal health care.

It makes sense if you think about it. The number one cause of abortion is unintended pregnancy. The best way to prevent unintended pregnancy is contraception. And the most reliable forms of contraception -- IUDs, sterilization and hormonal contraception -- require putting you in front of a doctor. Universal health care makes that much easier, which in turn reduces the unwanted pregnancy rate.

It isn't just contraception, of course. Many women who get pregnant by accident consider keeping the baby, but for those who don't have health insurance, that's a (dangerous) pipe dream. Universal health care could reduce the abortion rate coming and going.

Anti-Abortion but Pro-Sex?
Of course, if what you object to isn't abortion so much as sex, mostly likely the premarital kind, then I suppose these arguments mean nothing to you. And that's why the organized anti-choice movement opposes universal health care.

Most to all anti-abortion organizations object to contraception use, sex education and other methods to reduce the abortion rate, because they believe these things make it easier to have sex without consequences. Given a choice between punishing sex and reducing the number of abortions, the anti-choice movement will choose the former every time.

But you don't have to. If you genuinely have no problem with sex, but don't like abortion, then there's only one choice for you: Support universal health care. Because without it, we're stuck with a high abortion rate.

Amanda Marcotte is the author of "It's a Jungle Out There" and writes about politics daily at Pandagon.net.