Boxer: Senate Has Votes To Block Stupak Amendment

With Reporting By Ryan Grim

One of Congress's foremost champions of abortion rights said on Monday that the Senate did not have the votes to add a more restrictive anti-abortion amendment to health care reform legislation.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that 60 votes would be needed to strip the current health care bill of its abortion-related language and replace it with a version resembling that passed by the House of Representatives on Saturday. And, in an interview with the Huffington Post, the California Democrat predicted that pro-choice forces in the Senate would keep that from happening.

"If someone wants to offer this very radical amendment, which would really tear apart [a decades-long] compromise, then I think at that point they would need to have 60 votes to do it," Boxer said. "And I believe in our Senate we can hold it."

"It is a much more pro-choice Senate than it has been in a long time," she added. "And it is much more pro-choice than the House."

Boxer's reading of the political landscape might seem like the hopeful spin of an abortion-rights defender. But it was seconded by a another lawmaker, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)

"It would have to be added," sad the Montana Democrat of an amendment that mirrored that offered Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) in the House. "I doubt it could pass."

Speaking days after House Democrats helped pass the Stupak provision -- which would greatly restrict private insurers from covering abortion -- Boxer and Baucus's proclamations are undoubtedly music to the ears of pro-choice activists. President Obama, likewise, stressed during an interview with ABC News Monday night that he would like to see the Stupak amendment changed before a final version of health care legislation is produced.

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In making her argument, Boxer described the provision as inherently prejudiced, as well as bad policy and unfair politics. The Stupak amendment, she said, would deny women access to "a legal medical procedure" even if she agrees to pay for it with private funds (a supplemental policy would have to be purchased to cover abortion).

"It's bad enough on the first count, but on the second count it seems to me very unfair and very discriminatory," she said. "I don't see them picking out anything that a man relies on, any kind of procedure that a man relies on. This is very discriminatory towards women."

She noted that it was predominantly men who were making these policy decisions.

"In all my years in politics, this is what it's been like," Boxer said. "This is the way it is. It always amazes me. The leading voices always, since I've been in Congress, have always been males. And that is one of the reasons why I think it is so important to have more women. Not that every woman is pro-choice. It is not true. But most of the women are."

"And so when I see man after man come down there I just feel, in my heart our of hearts: Why don't you trust women to make this decision? We are deserving of your trust," the senator added.

Currently, the Senate bill's language would allow for insurers participating in a health care exchange to cover abortions so long as they ensured that federal funds are not used to pay for the procedure. An amendment similar to Stupaks' effort -- which was offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) -- had already been voted down in the Senate Finance Committee.

To re-introduce such a provision, Boxer said, 60 senators would be required to cut off debate on the floor. And the votes for that, she said, likely won't materialize.

"If they try to add the language we would try to stop them," she said. "If somebody wants to take it out they are going to need 60 votes to take it out... And my view is that we do have the numbers."

Boxer is slated to meet on Tuesday with Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) as well as other Democratic women in the Senate to discuss the topic of abortion vis-à-vis health care reform.

"When we sat down to do health care, I thought there was an understanding that we would be abortion-neutral," she said. "In other words we wouldn't change anything on abortion; that federal funds couldn't be used but of course private funds could as long as this was legal. And Roe v. Wade is the law of the land."

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Comments

[thinkingabovemypaygrade]

Noone wants to teach girls, women to Choose Wisely...i.e. to think of the MANY risks they run if they have multiple sexual partners....

An unplanned pregnancy is only one risk factor...

tHE TIME BOMB THAT CAN HIT WOMEN YEARS LATER....
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_2x_what_are_the_risk_factors_for_cervical_cancer_8.asp
Having sex with just one partner can possibly VASTLY lower your risk for cervical cancer ---later on

"... Your risk for getting this virus increases if you have sex at an early age, if you have more than one sexual partner during your lifetime, if your partner has had multiple sex partners, or if you have sex with uncircumcised males...."

My college age daughter is being told the WHOLE TRUTH about casual sex.

[chariotdrvr14]

I was at first inclined to think that maybe this was something we could come back to and undo.
That passing a comprehensive healthcare overhaul including a public option was the priority.
Then the teabagger/insurance bund got clever... they switched from trumped up hokey claims of death panels to something tangible, something they knew would create dissension even within democratic ranks. Gotta hand it to them. And gotta wonder was this really the brainchild of an anti choice dem and repub? or were there unseen hands guiding them?
But this amendment poses huge problems... it exceeds the reach of the Hyde Amendment by limiting the ability of millions of women access to reproductive planning. Even severely limiting those that pay through private sector premiums.
It HAS to be stripped from the bill.
Boxer has said that it can be... but can we count on the majority of dems stand together on this and not play to perceived conservative trends.
Having a 60 vote majority isn't so simple with the prospect of Joe Lieberman planning on staging an extended hissyfit on behalf of his industry and repub friends.
I am emailing whoever I can to try to get assurances that they'll stand against the Stupak and any similar provision.

[PartyPartyParty]

1. The Stupak Amendment will prevent women who receive tax subsidies from using their OWN money to pay for abortion services.

2. How many of you realize that removing a dead, miscarried foetus from the mother's womb is classified as an abortion? In other words, under the Stupak amendment, women would be forced to carry a dead foetus until they either spontaneously aborted or died from an infection.

[NewDem08]

Your second point - No, I didn't know that.

What a tragic possibility. So much for the ill-named "pro-life" movement.

[NewDem08]

According to 2009 statistics, "92 percent of women who are told that their unborn child carries the high risk of Down syndrome choose to abort the baby."

So, I suppose this means that some (gasp) conservative women are going to have to pay for their own abortion, if they can even get one when/if this amendment passes?

And don't try to tell me that all 92% of these women are "libs." Statistically impossible.

[tempting]

Everyone please call the faith based groups who are scaring off votes for health care in God's name. today I was checking channels and heard the CTN channel constantly harping on how bad the HR bill is and asking folks to call [phone] to sign a petition to stop the bill. Well I called and told them that they should be ashamed of using their faith to lie to the public. These people are with out guile.
The playing field is not level and there are hardly any outlets for those of us who are progressive in MSM.

www.ctnonline.com
They need to hear from those of us who think they are dispicable

[LemonMeringue]

You need the http:// for a link to work on HuffPo. Thank you. I sent a comment on the form that is at the bottom left of the home page: http://www.ctnonline.com/

[liberalOrgonian]

Woman do not want to go back to dark alley coat hanger botched abortions.
We do not want to live in the dark ages. Or have a MAN tell us we can't control our own bodies.
Thank your Barbara Boxer for your support of woman's rights.

If this bill fails:
Consider going for single payer, medicare for all. It is the BEST and will save Americans millions.
Or a mandate on Insurance Co to become non profits with government regulate prices.
After all the repub are excited 122 Americans die each day without Insurance.
And are obstructing any change which will help Americans stay alive.
They don't believe in any "stinking healthy society."

They love the idea of big wealthy business and poor surfs living on the streets.
Way to go repuks.

[MiguelFromTheBoondocks]

With all these different views around this issue I doubt that meaningful healthcare reform is even possible. Not enough votes for a watered down public "option" that is not even an option for the vast majority of Americans, not enough votes for maintaining the status quo on abortion rights, not enough votes for any form of public "option", not enough votes for a trigger option, not enough votes for opt-it or opt-out versions, not enough votes for a co-op, not enough votes for state-managed public options, disagreement on how it will be paid for,taxes, medicare cuts, reimbursement rates, and more issues are expected to come up during the senate debates on this legislation. The forecast seems like if we get to see any changes to the current system at all, it will be made under a republican majority in congress, and it will be Tort reform, interstate policy purchase reform, probably pre-existing conditions reform and maybe an expansion of Medicaid, but what is really likely to happen is that when republicans become the majority they will do nothing about healthcare reform and wait for the big GOP comeback in 2012.

[mbsq]

I think liberals are mischaracterizing the Stupak amendment. Under the amendment, all women would still have the same abortion rights they have today. Uninsured women have to pay out of pocket in the status quo. Employer based plans would not be affected. Exchange plans can even offer abortion coverage; you just can't apply federal subsidies to them if they do. Without the Stupak amendment, the bill would make abortion significantly cheaper for a lot of people. With it, the status quo with regard to abortion is maintained.

[meko]

Exchange plans will require all participating insurers to take all comers. If even one woman with a subsidy selects a plan, then it cannot cover abortions, thus insurers that want to offer plans on the exchange will not be able to offer abortion coverage. Insurers that want to pool employer plans with exchange plans to reduce costs will have to end coverage for those employer plans.

Furthermore, the Stupak amendment is written as broadly as possible and has no provision to protect the health of the mother. A Catholic HMO in my area will not provide post-miscarriage D&Cs to women because it is characterized as an abortion - even when the fetus has no heartbeat. If you want women who have had a miscarriage to live with a dead fetus inside them or have to pay over $1000 out-of-pocket, by all means, support Stupak.

[RTIII]

To those who think they are Pro-Life....

You of course realize that you're actually only "anti-choice", right?

You see, pro-life implies you care about those already born.

Setting other "pro-life" distinctions aside, every person inherently has legal control of their own bodies and can and must be trusted to do the right things with it. If a woman feels the need to alter course for whatever her reproductive system is doing, that's her choice because she is already born, she has a life, and her life must be respected.

Trying to force women to do otherwise leads to:

1) back-alley abort.ions (often leading to dea.th), and;

2) intentional injury in attempts to cause miscarriage, and;

3) suicide, and sometimes even;

4) homicide.

Only a person who is anti-life is in support of those things. To deny they are a / the reality faced by women who are denied abort.ions is to at best be profoundly ignorant, and at worst outright dishonesty.

...Therefore one can easily conclude that everyone who is truly pro-life is also pro-choice and those who claim to be pro-life but are anti-choice really aren't pro-life at all but are outright hypocrites.
.

[Mike169]

The Princes of the Catholic Church
Sit smug in their red in their perch
They'll protect a zygote
And make women their scapegoat
While the meaning of religion they besmirch.

[Mike169]

I hope so - is there a more craven group in this country than the dirty old white men who run the Catholic Church?

[bigmacha]

You go girl

[Budokan]

Good!

[KKojei]

Link to petition is here: http://act.ly/153

[KKojei]

HRC 3962 has a very dangerous clause that could effect you immediately. Please read and sign the petition at this link which reads in part:

k_kojei with 2 followers started this.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/15141066/You-Will-Go-To-Jail-Under-the-Pelosi-Health-Care-Bill-If-You-Dont-Buy-The-Government-Option????//////
This clause in HRC 3962 completely undermines a citizens right to choose not to participate in any health insurance plan, including the public option by criminalizing any refusal to purchase at least the government run public option. Many of us prefer to manage our healthcare in ways that do not involve drugs, doctors, hospitals or clinics except in life or death emergencies, preferring instead to follow organic, holistic solutions to health care, that preclude drugs and other mainstream methodologies.

This clause is a thinly disguised attempt to tax Americans, especially the middle and not-so middle class worker, tie the healthcare plan to IRS reporting requirements and subject Americans who choose not to participate in it and become victims to a known to be criminal healthcare empire and to make it a criminal offense not to comply, including $25,000 fine and/or one year in jail. This is by far the most sinister intrusion on our privacy, our freedom to choose and our civil rights. It cannot be allowed to become law.