The Logical Flaw Behind the Stupak Amendment
A high number of pro-life Democrats in the House were holding healthcare hostage until the eleventh hour of the healthcare bill's passage last weekend before the Speaker added the Stupak Amendment to the bill. Although the Hyde Amendment of 1976 already banned the use of federal funds for abortion, the Stupak Amendment takes the measure even further, preventing citizens from even qualifying for the private insurance plans at the so-called exchange from companies that cover abortions as part of their plans.
Analysts have already pointed out the disastrous consequences that such a measure can have on women. As insurance companies realize that they are disqualified from competing at the soon-to-be established health insurance exchange, they will drop abortion coverage just to get access to a large and new segment of the market. This can lead virtually all major insurance companies to drop abortion coverage in their plans. Others have also referred to the hypocrisy of Republicans who have shown the most outrage about the possibility of using federal funds for abortion, although they wouldn't vote for the healthcare bill anyway; Politico reported on Thursday that the government-funded insurance plan of the Republican members of Congress covers abortion.
But there is another major problematic issue at the heart of this amendment, and that is what its passage implies. The fact is the Supreme Court clearly established in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade that abortion within the first two trimesters of pregnancy was legal and solely the woman's decision to make. Ever since the court handed down the ruling, anti-choice activists have been fighting to reverse the decision and done what they could to elect candidates who share their views to public office.
The issue with the Stupak Amendment is that the same legislators who signed on with this Amendment do not apply the same standards to other laws of this country. Their reasoning for the amendment is that while everyone has the right to abortion, we cannot use citizens' tax money--some of which undoubtedly come from anti-choice tax-payers -- to fund a practice that they believe to be immoral. But do these legislators believe that citizens should generally have the right to decide what government policies their tax money goes to? What if someone has a moral objection to a war the U.S. is fighting abroad? Do these legislators think it would be ok for citizens to stop paying their taxes, or take out the portion that they believe will be spent on a war they do not agree with?
And what are these legislators' feelings about the shooting rampage at Fort Hood? All of these legislators believed that once one signs up with the military, they cannot pick and choose which wars and operations one is to engage in. But based on the reasoning from the Stupak Amendment, do these legislators believe Maj. Hassan should have had the right to leave the military because he had a moral objection to being forced to kill actual humans?
The problem is that anti-choice activists and politicians have been able to treat abortion -- a medical procedure that is not kind of legal, but absolutely legal and as legitimate as any other legal medical operation -- as if it belongs to a different class of laws. This is the same faulty reasoning that they also use in support of the so-called "Right of Conscience" view, allowing medical practitioners to refuse to participate in any procedure that they deem immoral.
But the fact is these anti-choice activists will really be successful as long as they are even able to drag the rest of us into debates about when a fetus becomes a human. The reality is as long as the law is concerned, this debate has been over for thirty-six years. If they wish to try to overturn Roe v. Wade, it is their prerogative. But in the meantime, politicians' personal beliefs on abortion are absolutely irrelevant. It is time to treat the legality of abortion with the same strength that we treat all of our other laws.
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Lapham's Quarterly: 1784: When Universal Health Care Was as Simple as Donating Your Body to Science
The poor who came to its halls could be assured that they were receiving the finest medical treatment Europe had to offer. The price for this service was simple: if things didn't turn out well and you didn't make it, the hospital kept your body.
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For 17 years GoP healthplan covered abortion. They dropped it last week, when they were called out on their hypocrisy, but stayed with same insurance company that still has plans that cover abortion. As far as the stupak amendment is concerned, the GoP continues to support abortion, since they still feed money into a company that covers abortions.
When the GoP realized that for 17 years their healthcare plan covered abortions, they dropped their plan and switched to one that doesn't cover abortions... from the SAME company. They're still indirectly giving their money to a company that covers abortions.
If they believe in the Stupak bill, why are they still indirectly supporting abortion?
I believe that execution is morally wrong and my tax dollars are used for that.
This amendment is merely designed to punish poor women for being women.
No, actually it's designed to make women everywhere realize that it's illogical to have abortion insurance because abortions are unplanned.
you want abortion insurance, buy a supplemental... section 265C of amendment makes that absolutely possible...
Most people don't plan to have an abortion. If you want to have a war, use supplemental money that doesn't come out of my pockets.
" But do these legislators believe that citizens should generally have the right to decide what government policies their tax money goes to? What if someone has a moral objection to a war the U.S. is fighting abroad? Do these legislators think it would be ok for citizens to stop paying their taxes, or take out the portion that they believe will be spent on a war they do not agree with?"
The difference here is that the CONGRESSMEN PASSING THE LAW thought funding abortion with federal dollars (either directly or indirectly through subsidized exchanges) was so immoral that a bar on funding ought to be implemented. This is dissimilar from your hypotheticals where a citizen's individual belief has a direct bearing on taxes or federal funding. Rather than someone withholding taxes in individual protest of the Iraq War, Stupak is akin to Congress itself deciding the war is immoral and then cutting off funding. This is something Congress obviously has the power to do, and makes such judgments constantly as a matter of course.
I'm a lifelong liberal and I've never seen such dishonest and illogical arguments as the ones offered in opposition to Stupak.
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A) Supreme Court's rulings have authority over Congress, unless Congress wishes to overrule the Supreme Court with a constitutional amendment, which the Stupak Amendment was not.
B) The Amendment was written because Stupak believed citizens' tax money should not go toward a policy that some citizens oppose. Why do legislators not apply this to other federal policies? If they did, we would be funding no major government programs, because every major government program has opponents as serious in numbers and intensity as those who are against abortion. I hope this makes the point clearer.
HA! You got owned. Tetrisd got you to assert your "A)", which only exposes your confusion.
Your "B)" is constructed to ask why legislators don't decide not to fund things other than the Stupak Amendment because some taxpayers oppose them, because then no government programs would be funded, as everything has opponents. The answer, of course, is that legislators introduce proposed legislation that does or does not fund things (which have opponents) all the time; thus they also vote on that legislation all the time, which is tetrisd's point. The only thing extraordinary about the Stupak Amendment is that it is particularly mean-spirited, backdoor, and nasty, which is what gets your attention and leads you to forget basic civics and processes of legislation.
All legislation has a moral basis, regardless of how prominent that basis is or appears to be.
agreed on every point
No law has been passed yet.
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