News that a federal health-care reform bill could allow federal tax money to be used to pay for abortions has caused a firestorm of controversy.

President Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag, on "FOX News Sunday" refused to come out and say that "no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions."

"I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It’s obviously a controversial issue, and it’s one of the questions that is playing out in this debate … I’m not prepared to rule it out."

Republicans say they are unwilling to rush a bill through Congress, but Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, said abortion won’t be the issue to hold up the bill.

"No matter what your views are on abortion, you shouldn’t ask people to use their tax dollars if they think that abortion is taking a life — to use their tax dollars for those purpose — for that purpose," Gregg said.

The National Right to Life Committee has been fighting to strip such language out of the bills in the House and Senate. It says if enacted, the measures "represent the greatest expansion of abortion since the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in 1973." It says the language would "result in federally mandated insurance coverage of abortion on demand, massive federal subsidies for abortion, mandated creation of many new abortion clinics and nullification of at least some state limitations on abortion."

The recently passed Senate version could effectively mandate federal funding of abortion through various insurance coverage mechanisms. 

"We like the idea that people have choices and, indeed, the law of the land permits people to make those choices, and we respect that, and we are going to pursue that," Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-CT, told CNSNews.com. "Again, we do not want to discriminate when people have — they have convictions, moral convictions and religious convictions."

Pro-choice groups like Planned Parenthood have blasted Republicans for trying to strip out any similar language, and also took aim at The Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee for publishing "lies" about a women’s health preventative health amendment introduced by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-MD. Mikulski claims it doesn’t expand authority to perform abortions, but Republicans said they’re still worried about it.

"There is no longer any doubt that anti-choice forces have zeroed in on the effort to build health care reform majorities in the House and Senate as their chance to strike a devastating blow to women’s access to reproductive health care, including cancer screenings, contraception, and abortion," said Planned Parenthood. "They’ve already introduced at least 30 amendments attacking women’s health care — and you can bet they’re not done yet."

The FRC on Friday criticized a House committees rejection of "pro-life" amendments that would have prevented taxpayer money from being used to pay for abortion in the Democrats’ health-care reform bill.

"President Obama’s promise of ‘reducing abortion’ rings hollow as Congress finds ways to circumvent the historic federal ban on taxpayer-funded abortion with a wave of legislation that will flood the coffers of the abortion industry," said FRC President Tony Perkins.

What do you think? Should taxpayer money be used to pay for abortions?