13% versus 96% -- that is what is at stake over the Stupak Amendment. The current health care legislation that was passed in the House, H.R. 3962, extends affordable health care to 96% of Americans and yet once again in this country it comes down to abortion. A fire destroyed Rome. A wedge issue will destroy the United States. Only 13% of last year's abortions were covered by private insurance, and only a fraction of those women would be affected by the Stupak Amendment. Yet somehow the amendment has become a health care controversy.
The Stupak Amendment requires women to purchase a separate rider to their federally subsidized insurance to cover an abortion that is not due to rape, incest or medical risk. Like the Hyde Amendment that has been in effect since 1976, the Stupak Amendment would prohibit federal dollars, tax payer money, from paying for abortions. Under the current Hyde Amendment, poor women on Medicare are prohibited from using the federal health insurance to pay for an abortion. So for 33 years poor women have had to go out of pocket, choose between paying the rent or getting an abortion. Now, essentially, the Stupak Amendment would require all women who would receive federally subsidized health insurance to be treated like poor women, which seems to really offend some of us.
There is no doubt in my mind personally that women should have the right to do with our bodies as we see fit, including, deciding whether we want to grow a baby in it. I have said for years if men could have babies, abortion would not be an issue. I think most women would have a hard time imagining some guy they had a brief relationship with conceding to their demand to carry a child for ten months and then go through labor? I mean, let's be real, it's hard enough to get some guys to return a phone call. With statistics as high as 22% of American children are raised by single moms, it seems abortion is more an issue of a woman having the power to terminate a pregnancy without the approval or consent of the man who impregnated her, rather than any heartfelt commitment of a father to a would-be child. It is for these reasons I feel very strongly that men need to keep their mouths shut on the issue of abortion, including Rep. Stupak.
Yet and still, the debate over abortion has not only transformed legislation, it has over time changed women's attitudes on both sides. While each individual has dominion over their reproductive organs according to the law, there is a moral question we feel the need to keep asking. At this point the debate has become a national compulsion with every order of business in this country coming down to abortion (and sometimes gay rights).
My guess is abortion is on no woman's list of life's happiest moments. I have never heard a woman speak of their abortion proudly or with fond memory. Instead, I have heard regret to have been in the circumstance and relief. Most women I know who have had an abortion became diligent after the fact about birth control and many have gone on to become incredible mothers. For those of us who have conviction of a woman's right to choose, we understand the compassion for children our pro-life sisters express. We just think that compassion should go to the countless number of children that exist in the world today not those that could possibly be. One need only open your eyes and ears to understand children all over the world suffer in brutality and desperation for no other reason than they are born into poverty. And you don't have to look to the developing world to find these children. Just look in the juvenile corrections system or Childrens' Services right here in the United States and you will find an endless supply of children who are in need of compassion. Yet and still, it is only fair to consider a few points of pro-life American women.
In Britain where abortion is covered by the National Health Service, repeat abortions continue to rise. I think most of us can agree abortion is not a desirable form of birth control. At this point in medical science you can take a pill, get a shot, get a sponge, a disc, a suppository. It would not be surprising if soon, contraception will come in the form of a fruity drink-- I recommend cosmo flavor. And with the advent of HIV/AIDS safe sex has become common practice, compared to that of previous generations. So it's easy for American women to avoid getting pregnant if you don't want to get pregnant, which is why the rate of abortion in the United States has been in long-term decline since 1974 and reached its lowest rate in 2008, with even lower numbers expected ahead.
Late term abortions are another point of contention exploited by politicians and evangelicals to distract the American public. Meanwhile, 9 out of 10 abortions are performed in the first eight weeks or less. Meaning, only one out of ten abortions are late term. And one can only assume many of those abortions are due to medical risk, rape or incest. Sadly, some women don't discover they are pregnant or are in denial or simply can't get the $600 or so together to pay for their abortion until they are well into their pregnancy. A remedy to this might be more of us pro-choice supporters regularly donating money to clinics like Planned Parenthood to provide free contraception, pregnancy tests, and affordable early term abortions.
For the sake of our country, we can hope that some day abortion will become a non-issue, stripped of the potency to divide us from our own best interest as a nation. We can dream that someday people will stop choosing candidates with no ideas for our future but one strong opinion on abortion. Perhaps with H.R. 3962 we have an opportunity to heal ourselves of this abulia by not allowing a fraction of the 13% of abortions that are covered by private insurance to keep us from coming out of the Dark Ages and passing H.R. 3962 for a national health care system. And until it passes in the Senate, we should not allow the small number of women who would not be covered under Stupak to blind us to the fact that for the first time in our history the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a comprehensive health care plan for the United States -- a plan that will cover 96% of Americans. That is a victory. That is a victory for women in the form of pap smears, mammograms, early screenings for breast and ovarian cancer, early detection of cysts and tumors, more gynecological exams for young women so we can prevent Chlamydia and other sexually transmitted diseases from causing infertility amongst young women. It means more women can get contraception and prenatal care. It means more women can go to the doctor and get checkups and treatment for whatever ails them. The passing of H.R. 3962 in the House is a victory for women and all women need to recognize that. Abortion is a woman's issue not easily resolved but for today let's celebrate -- for we are united in a victory for women, and for 96% of Americans.
Follow Vanessa Carmichael on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vcvenus
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Health-care reform and abortion coverage: Questions and answers
Abortion is not a low income only problem, if truth be told, there are more higer income people having abortions anyway. This is a health and insurance and humanity issue as Isobel Debrujah stated below, however, to hold up 96% of a nation from receiving health care is wrong, since if a person wants to have an abortion they are going to do so with or without government money. Its like birth control the choice to use it is there & free in most cases and that has not stop people from getting pregnant.
Most agree killing is wrong regardless of party afflilations, but the word "abortion" sends people in a frenzy. I don't want my money spent on abortions, nor do I want it spent on a bunch of other things thats part of being in the a free country, all the laws and rules aren't made to satisfy me personally. Last I check we're all responsible for our own decision / sins and where abortion is concern it would be best that we let the Maker deal with
Until then, you can't tell me what to do with my body.
But I have not heard of a single story of a woman being forced to give birth to a baby and raise it to adulthood because they could not afford the cost of an abortion. Yes there are many barriers to access to abortion, but cost is generally the least of them.
Yet to insure that there is the right kind of solution to the second problem many people seem eager to scuttle the one real chance we are likely to get to solve the first one.
The real bottom line of the Stupak ammendment, very clearly spelled out, isn't to say that abortion can't be covered but that for plans in the exchange it must be purchased as a supplement. Ask anybody over 65 and they will tell you all about supplements. Their mailbox is full of them every week from folks offering to 'cover the things that medicare doesn't'. Countries with national health plans also typically have a brisk industry in selling supplemental coverage.
So if supplemental coverage is readily available and cheap the net effect of the Stupak Ammendment will be miniscule. I believe it will. In particular for those plans in the exchange from private insurers I expect 'special offers' that will make it nearly free because abortion coverage is a net cost saver.
Health CARE reform would involve removing insurance companies from routine, standard care; stuff that is impossible to manage risk on properly. National single payer, with preventative care, screening for treatable conditions and management of chronic conditions would save us a lot of money and lives.
This would be funded by a modest fee on all wages and be set aside with medicare. The percentage of GDP we spent on health care would go down in the long term, after a brief spike where we caught up on the previous problems.
Companies would no longer need entire positions that dealt with insurance matters. Doctors offices would only need one set of forms and would waste less time with paperwork. The incentive for fraud would drop, because you couldn't scam two or three different insurers.
People could start businesses without worrying about losing everything to illness. Even workman's comp and automobile insurance would be simpler.
Instead, we get this little bone from the lobbyist owned Congress at the expense of throwing women under the anti-abortion bus. The idea of a bunch of old men in Congress deciding whether women should be allowed to have abortions on the public plan just makes me want to puke. I'm glad I got a hysterectomy, I don't have to worry about being forced to be a right-to-life handmaid.
This whiny dung about "I don't want MY money to pay for abortion" is ridiculous. I don't want MY money to pay for Bush's wars, viagra, the war on drugs, the bloated prison system, or a military chaplaincy that pushes evangelical Christianity. But I can't stop it, it's part of being a citizen. Your taxes go to stuff you don't like; someone else's go to things they don't like.
"... we understand the compassion for children our pro-life sisters express."
Horse manure. Our "pro-life sisters" have no compassion for children. Once the fetus is born, it's solely the burden of the woman forced to carry. No job, no skills? Too bad, no welfare, shoulda thought about that before you spread 'em. They don't support government provided childcare or job training. They just scream "Welfare queen!". Most don't want girls to get real sex education in school lest kids think we're giving them "permission". Guess what, they're already doing it.
No one likes having any form of surgery - whether it's abortion or removal of an ingrown toenail. But to elevate one to a congressional issue and screw 13% of all women just to get half-baked insurance reform isn't something to brag about, and certainly not something to berate those who support a person's right to chose for being angry about.
First, this bill in no way makes health care "affordable". In fact it goes to great lengths to leave the current unaffordable system in place and then plans on shoveling tax dollars at the insurance industry in a mad attempt to appease them.
Second, WHENEVER you betray one class of Americans for some perceived gain for the rest we lose. All of us. Sacrificing "just women's health care" is not a small price any more than "just locking up the Japanese" or "just enslaving the blacks" was a small price.
This is a mistake we really shouldn't have to make one more time in order to learn the lesson.
on Medicare for All. Pease sign petition....
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1020.php
Please pass on to friends and fam...
Forcing tens of millions of middle and working class Americans to lower their standard of living to buy overpriced, unreliable for-profit insurance at extortion level rates under heavy tax penalty if they don't, with no access to a watered-down, irrelevant public-option in name only, is NOT a victory of 96% of Americans.
This bill is nothing but a giant piece of corporate welfare and progressives don't have to support it just so that our corporate shill President can score a "win" (for corporations).
They should just pass a bill banning pre-existing conditions and lifting the anti-trust exemption for now, and start working on lowering the starting age of Medicare.
The few crumbs in this bill do not justify this tens of millions of dollars of corporate welfare on the backs of those who can lease afford to pay it.
The President's campaign pledge was a robust public option with NO mandate. We are about to get the exact opposite -- a robust mandate with an irrelevant public-option in name only, if even that.
Progressives shouldn't be expect to carry water for this health care "reform" bill when the President gave away the store before negotiations even started, and wasn't willing to demonstrate the character and courage to draw a line in the sand and stand up and fight for a robust public option.
Except if "whatever ails them" is the unintended pregnancy that 1/3 of American women will seek abortion care for in their lives.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-carmichael/and-once-again-its-aborti_b_356275.html#
And please don't underestimate the effect this may have not only on the private insurance market but also the employer-based insurance market, as over the years insurance companies try to conform their plans to allow them to compete for the millions of Americans shopping on the insurance exchange with taxpayer subsidies in hand.
No, it really isn't and thinking like that is why they Hyde Amendment and the Stupak Amendment get traction in the first place. Abortion is a human rights issue. Abortion is a privacy issue. Abortion is a fiscal issue. Human rights, privacy and fiscal issues know no gender.