During President Obama's 2010 health care summit at the Blair House, a table of mostly white, middle-aged and older men barked about potential changes to the health care system. Lining the walls behind them sat dozens of well-dressed women who quietly scribbled notes for these men who would decide the future of women's health care. This is nothing new: for decades, male presidents, legislators, and judges have dictated health care priorities that directly affect the lives of women.
That is why it is as surprising as it is upsetting that a female senator in the Indiana state legislature, Patricia Miller, has co-sponsored HB1210, the most devastating assault on women's health care in decades.
Miller's bill already passed the Republican controlled Senate and has been forwarded to the House after which it will likely be signed into law by Governor Daniels. Among other pro-life proscriptions, HB1210 disallows all Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood or other organizations that "perform abortions or maintain or operate a facility where abortions are performed." In other words, Medicaid will no longer pay for any services -- mammograms, tests for sexually transmitted diseases, routine physicals, etc. -- provided at a facility even tangentially associated with abortion services.
Other provisions of the bill are largely aimed at making the heartbreakingly difficult decision to have an abortion even more traumatic. For instance, it mandates that the pregnant woman must "view the fetal ultrasound imaging and hear the auscultation of the fetal heart tone if the fetal heart tone is audible" unless she certifies in writing prior to the abortion that she does not wish to do this. It also stipulates that physicians underscore a series of potential side effects related to abortion procedures: danger of infection and hemorrhaging, danger to future pregnancies, danger of infertility, and other miscellaneous dangers.
Ironically, this overtly "pro-life" legislation actually endangers the lives of tens of thousands of Indiana women who rely on Planned Parenthood and similar clinics for their basic health care.
I suspect that Miller has never set foot in a Planned Parenthood location. Had she, Miller would be aware that unlike traditional medical clinics and hospitals which can feel sterile, judgmental, and impersonal, Planned Parenthood offers a warm, friendly, and inviting environment to discuss deeply personal issues regarding sexual health. This environment welcomes those who might otherwise abstain from seeking care -- the poor, the young, and the marginalized.
A vote for Miller's legislation is assuredly a vote to increase the prevalence of sexually transmitted disease, cervical cancer, and breast cancer in Indiana. For example, between 2008 and 2009 reported cases of HIV and Chlamydia rose in spite of the massive educational initiatives led by clinics such as Planned Parenthood. If Miller's legislation bars the state's most vulnerable population from using these expertly staffed facilities, more individuals are destined to become ill.
This legislation also reduces choice by dictating from whom low-income women and men must receive their medical care. The hypocrisy of Republicans who railed against "Obamacare" for its potential to limit consumer choice then dictating from whom those on Medicaid must receive their coverage is painfully obvious.
Miller's legislation is also costly to Indiana taxpayers. HB 1210 requires low-income women and men to seek care from hospitals, private physicians, and other health care institutions that charge much higher fees for their services than institutions such as Planned Parenthood.
Yes, it's true, Planned Parenthood and similar clinics do perform abortions. But this is a strikingly small percentage of the total array of health services they provide (around three percent). Federal law already stipulates that public funds cannot be used to pay for abortions, and Medicaid in Indiana abides strictly by this law.
Conservatives' tendency to seemingly care only for people in the abstract is maddening. In a traditionally red state such as Indiana, it is politically profitable to champion the rights of the nameless unborn. At the same time, it is political suicide to advocate for the downtrodden and dispossessed who already walk among us.
This unnecessary, discriminatory law does nothing to create jobs or restore fiscal discipline. Instead, it increases health care costs to taxpayers and interferes with the lives and liberty of thousands of Hoosiers. Welcome to Republican health care reform.
Follow Mark Cassello on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markcassello
of life by forcing the rest of America to accept it's religious view of when life begins! They are trying to impose their religious dogma on all America! Unfortunately the Republican Party has forgotten why the Pilgrims came to America and is giving them loop holes!! The Pilgrims risked their lives to escape being told by the Church of England what to believe! They wanted freedom to practice their own religion and that is what the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights guarantees! It is illegal for a religion to impose it's will on the rest of us! And the Supreme Court has so stated! Those that refuse to enforce this law are guilty of mal feasance in office Roland C. Woodaka
Tell me, please (!) in which decade, which generation was that actually SUCCESSFUL?
Contraception...... aka "the pill".
Any of you MEN and anti-choicers "abstinence only solution" types familiar with Endometriosis? Severe endometriosis - it's a blast, let me tell you from first-hand experience. Periods that last for 8-12 days, bleeding like a stuck pig, pain so unbearable from a swollen uterus that you cannot even sit! There is one thing that provides a semblance of relief and a semblance of regularity: the Pill. If YOU have YOUR WAY, absolutely no underprivileged woman would be able to access the remedy. You like that? make you feel powerful? SPLAT with your thumb, keep those wimmin down!
I was abstinent all through my teens until I was in a committed relationship (yay me!) but I was on the pill from age 15-on.
There is nothing surprising here. They were and are very clear about what they have in mind for America. A Fundamentalist Christian Theocracy.
That is what is in your near future unless you stop them now. Otherwise you are going to wake up one day and wonder how you ended up with such a government.
No use even trying to carry on a discussion anymore when y'all insist on viewing women as mere vessels, undeserving of respect and incapable making their own decisions (decisions that affect the WOMAN for a lifetime). For some reason you think you have the right to interfere in me and my business....? Go subjugate your own women.
So, the new definition of 'troll' is someone who presents a clear, rational, question that challenges your point of view. Good. Well. We should contact the folks at Webster's Dictionary and let them know :)
Don't worry. I can certainly handle all the illogical, hysterical, off topic rants that seem to serve for defense of an un defensible act all on my own. The only thing that I need is the viewpoint (contained in our founding documents and the basis of all our system of governance) that LIFE is the most basic and fundamental RIGHT. And that HUMAN LIFE is worthy of protection at every stage of development.
Nobody, I can assure you, cares one hoot about "your business" As long as it is "your" (the singular being important here) business. When anyone’s actions involve another human life, then you can not rationally categorize it as singular. When another human life is the object of the discussion, then your "rights" must be balanced with the other's "rights." The right to stay alive, living where you are supposed to be, trumps every other right. If you don't agree, then please provide rational support. And attempting to characterize my rational defense of life as disrespect for women is the biggest non sequitur ever.
You are right. Pro-abortion apologists for Planned Parenthood squawk all day long about the "percentage of services" that PP provides that are not abortion related. So what?
The rate of adoption referrals has plummeted to less than 2,200 a year. The percentage of PP clients who were provided pre-natal care is less than .09%. Yet they perform, or refer to nearby abortion clinics over 100,000plus women in the same year. Kind of gives us a different perspective of the "services" that PP provides.
Why would we want to support or approve of the killing of innocent human life simply because it is in the way??
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Planned Parenthood health centers focus on prevention: 83 percent of our clients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood services help prevent more than 612,000 unintended pregnancies each year.
Planned Parenthood provides nearly one million Pap tests and more than 830,000 breast exams each year, critical services in detecting cancer.
Planned Parenthood provides nearly four million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
Three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services.
Planned Parenthood affiliates provide educational programs to nearly 1.2 million young people and adults each year.
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I guess the 97% of other services they provide mean absolutely nothing.
I can't say how appalling it is that politicians that know ZERO about medicine are legislating what doctor should tell patients. The medical community should decide upon standards of practice, not Teabagger wingnuts. Hemorrhage and infection are risks with any type of surgery, and if the doctor didn't tell the woman this before she signed the informed consent then there's a real problem. Danger to future pregnancies and infertility are not really risks unless you get your abortion in a back alley somewhere.