If overhauling the health care system wasn’t already contentious, proposed changes to abortion coverage are stoking the fire.

The Energy and Commerce Committee voted 30 to 28 yesterday to allow health plans to choose whether or not to cover abortions as they see fit, on the condition that insurers use money from private sources to pay for the procedure.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that decisions on such specific benefits should be “left to experts in the medical field,” referring to an advisory board that would recommend minimum levels of coverage for private insurers.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) proposed the abortion policy, which was supported by most Democrats and opposed by Republicans.

The amendment said abortion couldn’t be included in the “essential benefits package” (government-defined provisions pending) and insurers would not be required nor forbidden from covering abortion.

But, in every part of the country, the government must guarantee at least one plan that covers abortion, and one that doesn’t.

Democrats considered the amendment a compromise. Republicans were reluctant, to say the least.

“We don’t compromise on the use of taxpayer funds for the destruction of human life,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA).

For President Barack Obama, who is already facing slipping public support and fractious Washington debate for his proposed care plan, the divide could further undermine his efforts.

Under the health care bill, plans would receive federal subsidies to help pay premiums for low-income customers, but those subsidies couldn’t be used to pay for abortion.

The clause was meant to appease opponents like Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, who said earlier this month that subsidizing abortion providers would “further encourage promiscuous sex.”

The procedure isn’t explicitly mentioned in the current health care bills floating around Congress, but opponents fear the legislation would make abortions more widely available.

In reality, most women are already paying for abortion surgeries, putting low-income women at a further disadvantage.

For more than 30 years, Congress has annually approved the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or if the woman’s life is imminently threatened. That means a woman who receives health care coverage through Medicaid in one of 32 states or Washington D.C. is out of luck. Unless her life is in danger or she was raped and filed a police report.

Of the 17 states that use state funds to provide all or most medically necessary abortions, 13 of them do so pursuant to court orders (California, for example).

Some states use state funds to pay for procedures in cases for low-income women, whereas women seeking abortion care in D.C. need up to $6,000 to cover costs.

But earlier this month the House of Representatives passed a spending bill (the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act) that would lift the ban on Washington’s use of local funds to pay for abortions for the low-income demographic.

Another proposal that awaits the Senate vote.