"We do not move forward by curtailing people’s liberty because we are afraid of what they may do or say. "
Eleanor Roosevelt
"The line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive."
Aristotle
"And by the way, my belief is that if men were the ones getting pregnant, abortions would be easier to get than food poisoning in Moscow."
Dennis Miller
Selecting singularly vivid iconography - the coat hanger - as in coat hanger abortion, CredoAction launched a campaign to persuade the 20 formerly pro-choice Democratic Congressmen who voted Yes on the Stupak Pitts Amendment to change their minds, by sending coat hangers to those Democratic House members who voted to restrict access to abortion in the healthcare bill along with their petition.
The Stupak Amendment, if it remains a part of the Health Care Reform Bill, would enact greater restrictions on pro-choice than any change we have seen since the 1976 Hyde Amendment.
The Hyde Amendment of 1976, named for Republican Congressman Henry
Hyde, banned Federal funding of abortions through the Department of Health and Human Services appropriations, and led to other Federal legislation banning abortion coverage, including for those in the military and their families, but did allow payment for other health care for those individuals, so long as they paid for an abortion 'out of pocket' / with private funds.
The recently passed Stupak Pitts Amendment would make health care under those provisions unavailable for women who were willing to pay 'out of pocket' or to purchase health care with such reproductive coverage with private funds, a serious erosion of the status quo. This Amendment is anticipated to be particularly punitive to those women in low income demographics.
For every signature to their petition, CredoAction will send a coat hanger to these Congressmen, reminding them of the bad old days before safe, legal abortions were available, the days of coat hanger abortions and back alley butchers that were fatal to so many women. Their aim is to have 100,000 signatures by the end of the week before Thanksgiving, which would extrapolate to sending 2,000,000 coat hangers - 100,000 coat hangers per Congressman. As of their email update on Monday, they were already at 78,280 signatures.
The petition says, simply:
"We know what happens when women are denied access to reproductive health care including abortion. And we can't go back to an era of coat hangers and back alley abortions. Reconsider your vote on the Stupak Amendment. Tell House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that the final health care bill that emerges from the conference committee can't turn the clock back on women's rights."
The Congressmen destined to receive the coat hangers are:
Representative Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania - (District 4);
Representative Joe Baca, California - (District 41);
Representative Sanford Bishop, Georgia - (District 2);
Representative Dennis Cardoza, California - (District 18);
Representative Christopher Carney, Pennsylvania - (District 10);
Representative Albert Chandler, Kentucky - (District 6);
Representative Jim Cooper, Tennessee - (District 5);
Representative Jim Costa, California - (District 20);
Representative Artur Davis, Alabama - (District 7);
Representative Bob Etheridge, North Carolina - (District 2);
Representative Baron Hill, Indiana - (District 9);
Representative Michael Michaud, Maine - (District 2);
Representative Richard Neal, Massachusetts - (District 2);
Representative David Ross Obey, Wisconsin - (District 7);
Representative Earl Pomeroy, North Dakota - ( All );
Representative Silvestre Reyes, Texas - (District 16);
Representative Ciro Rodgriguez, Texas - (District 23);
Representative Victor Snyder, Arkansas - (District 2);
Representative Zachary Space, Ohio - (District 18);
Representative John Spratt, South Carolina - (District 5);
If you wish to sign this petition and send a coat hanger, symbolic of coat hanger abortions, go to http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/send_a_coathanger/?rc=homepage.
If one of these is YOUR representative, I urge you to contact them directly, and express your views on the subject as a constituent, both on provisions denying women the right to use their own PRIVATE FUNDS NOT FEDERAL FUNDS to purchase insurance which includes full coverage for legal reproductive procedures, and on the larger Health Care Reform legislation.
We can only hope that this timely reminder of how making abortion more difficult if not impossible affects women, and that it will be as persuasive as it is intended. There were 64 Democrats who voted with the Republicans for the Stupak Pitts Amendment, this despite the pro-choice plank in the 2008 Democratic Platform.
Personally, I wish the Credo Action group would send coat hangers to Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak of Michicagn, and co-sponsoring Republican Congressman Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, along with their co-sponsoring Congressmen: Republican Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, Democrat Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania, Democrat Dan Lipinski of Illinois, and Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey. Both Stupak and Pitts have ties to / membership in the 'Family', the secretive C-Street Christian cult that gained notoriety over the hypocritical extra-marital misconduct of Governor Sanford of South Carolina, and Senators Coburn and Ensign, and former Congressman Chip Pickering, an organization which espouses 'headship' where men in marriages are in control, and women must obey them.
After reading the Stupak amendment, I don't see how it is fundamentally different that what already exists under existing US law. The Hyde Amendment already forbids federal funds being used for abortions. The Stupak amendment makes sure that the plans which are subsidized (heavily in many instances I'm certain) will not cover abortions unless the women choose to purchase elective, supplemental insurance which covers abortion services.
ReplyDeleteI think the leap to assuming that this amendment will create back alley abortions is quite a stretch, and I don't see any such causation in the amendment as it stands.
I think this is an instance where there has been too much hype and to little analysis of the effect of the amendment. I think that sending a coat hanger to any congressperson in this cause is in appropriate, and I won't be joining any such protest.
Dear ToE, allow me to redirect you to the wording, because of course I do read these and not just take the words of the talking heads as gospel, specifically Section 265, lines 1 - 6, "(a)In General -No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act (or an Amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion ".
ReplyDeleteThis language does differ from other language relating to where funds are segregated, including in the past state and federal funds, and is so far as I have been able to discern expanding on what funding is denied.
This is the way that both sides - those who have put this language in place, and those who oppose this language - have described this amendment.
As we often speak off-blog, I'd be happy to direct you to some further sources for this when next we chat. It may seem a subtle distinction, but my reading suggests I have correctly understood this issue.
ToE let me also direct you to page 2 of the Amendment, lines 13 - 25
ReplyDelete(sorry - hit 'publish' too soon)
" (1) such coverage or plan is paid for entirely using only funds not authorized or appropriated by this Act; and
(2) such coverage or plan is not purchased using -
(A) individual premium payments required for a [sic] Exchange-participating health benefits plan towards which an affordability credit is applied; or
(B) other non-federal funds required to receive a federal payment, including a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching funds."
Nothing in that language prevents you from purchasing insurance that covers abortions with your own money, it only says that insurance purchased with government funds, even if you supplement with your own, cannot cover abortions. You can still choose not to participate in the government plan if you want to purchase a plan that covers abortions. Seperating the funds is nothing but a shell game to pretend you are not using federal money for abortions and everyone knows it. All the money for all covered procedures will, in reality, come from the same pool of money.
ReplyDeletett, ToE, I would refer you to more study of the original Hyde Amendment, as well as the pattern of OTHER legislation relating to federal funds and abortions and other non-covered procedures, generally referred to under the heading of segregated funds.
ReplyDeleteThis is an area where there is a lot of misinformation, inaccurate assumptions, and general misunderstanding.
And NO, TT, with respect, your assumption that all covered procedures are paid out of the same pool of money is NOT correct.
For example, this applies to those participating in the 'exchange' who are using entirely their own funds, with no federal subsidies, among other instances.
My esteemed colleagues, gentle readers, be assured that I try to be conscientious when I do my 'homework' before writing here. May I most ernestly encourage you to do the same? It is not an accident that those who endorse and those who oppose this Amendment do so for the reasons expressed by the authors and sponsors as their intent with this Amendment.
Quite accomplished legal scholars cite this as expanding the abortion limitations fairly dramatically of the status quo.
I would remind you that this is still a LEGAL medical procedure, and for the conservatives who are objecting to the perceived notion that government is intruding between patients and doctors, this is the height of hypocracy.
As I indicated when I first commented, I have read the Stupak amendment in its entirety. The Stupak amendment states that if one is purchasing an insurance plan through an exchange, (with one's own money and not a subsidized plan), then the exchange must offer a plan that covers abortions and one that does not. I have no idea what the difference in the cost between the two plans would be, but I would think they would be de minimus. If one is on a subsidized plan, then the plan that a person purchases must not include abortion services as part of its coverage. This does not forbid the woman from purchasing separate coverage, using her own funds, to pay for additional coverage which covers abortion.
ReplyDeleteWith the exception of rape and incest, pregnancy is a choice. The decision to have or not have an abortion is a choice as well. To have an abortion is a choice that I consider morally repugnant unless the mother is in immediate danger of death, or unless there are other extreme medical circumstances. In other cases, however, I think that an abortion as a means of birth control is utterly repugnant and can and should be discouraged to the greatest extent possible. The Stupak amendment does just this. It allows a physician to certify that the mother "suffers from a physical disorder, physical illness that will place place her in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-threatening condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itsself...". Stupak Amend, Page 1 L 6-7 and Stupak Amend, Page 2 L 1 to 5.
This is the only moral and justifiable reason for an abortion, and a physician's certificate of such a life threatening circumstance would allow a plan to pay for an abortion under the Stupak amendment. Excuses such as "I can't afford a baby" or "I am no longer in a relationship with the father", etc, are a cop-out to accepting personal responsibility. Adoption is always an option. There are thousands of couples (and individuals) who would dearly love to adopt and the "waiting list" for infants is often extremely long.
While I agree that the bad old days of women being treated like chattel property are long gone, fortunately, this does not mean that anyone, male or female, can go out and bring new life, or potential new life into the world and then just abandon that life like medical waste. There are ways of preventing pregnancy which are nearly 100% effective. (Nothing is 100% effective except for abstinence and I'm not advocating that nor the mandatory teaching of that) However, as I see it, when a woman makes a choice to engage in sexual relations, she bears equal responsibility for making sure that she does not become pregnant, and if she does, then she became pregnant because she chose to become pregnant or chose to not take suitable precautions against it. If that woman then chooses to end that pregnancy through abortion, the taxpayer's money should not in any way, (including by subsidy) assist her in that.
I just finally got to watching a recorded interview by Chris Matthews with Stupak.
ReplyDeleteThis may end up a tempest in a teapot.
Stupak indicated he was not interested in changing the status quo and would be agreeable to accepting the usual federal language about segregated funds which is the crux of the disagreement.
It also appears that those Republicans who pushed for the Amendment have at no time actually intended to vote for the Health Care Reform Bill, while those Democrats who supported the Amendment may very well vote for the Bill, with OR without the Stupak Amendment, with the exception not of the previously touted 40 in the House refusing that then dwindled to 20, but appear now to be more like 5 to 8.
Additionally, there may be language added which would require those insurance companies offering insurance through the exchange to continue offering plans with the same coverage for abortions available to those using not federal funds, in response to the expressed concerns that insurance companies would no longer offer plans through the proposed exchange with full reproductive services provisions.
This is of critical importance to women because there are procedures like D&C (Dilation and curettage) which are important therapeutically for a variety of circumstances, but which because it can be used as a abortion procedure as well, are not always covered by insurance for ANY use or reason unless that coverage is in place.