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Harkin: Stupak Amendment A Slippery Slope

Lynda Waddington — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:33:04 +0000

This article is republished from Iowa Independent under a partnership between Iowa Independent, the Center for Independent Media and RH Reality Check.

A last-minute amendment to the health care reform bill that passed the U.S. House on Saturday is disruptive to the current ban on federal funding for abortion services and could lead down a slippery slope that prevents women from accessing services with their own money as well, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said Tuesday.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

“You have to be a little bit careful here because the way the … amendment is written, it can now be taken to other steps. For example, every health insurance company in America could now lose some of its tax benefits that it gets for providing health insurance if it provides abortion services. You can take this on down. You could just say that anybody that got a federal loan for housing could not get an abortion. You can take this and just keep going on and on and on with no end in sight,” Harkin said.

The language inserted in the House came by way of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which prohibits abortion coverage for any health insurance product subsidized in any way by the federal government. As it is written, the bill dictates that any person seeking insurance is barred from purchasing abortion coverage, even if the premium for such insurance is paid out-of-pocket, if the person receives any government assistance.

“I just fear that the House-passed language goes far beyond [previous restrictions] and will effectively prevent women from receiving abortion coverage under the new health exchanges even if they are using their own money to buy insurance,” Harkin said. “I think that is unfortunate and goes too far. So, we will be addressing this issue before [the Senate bill] goes to the floor. My hope is that we can strike the appropriate balance.”

Harkin said his personal preference, and the one he believed all lawmakers had agreed upon prior to the introduction of this amendment, was maintenance of a nearly three-decade agreement that barred use of federal funds for abortion except in cases of incest, rape and life of the mother.

“I think keeping the status quo is the best thing we can do,” he said. “I think it has worked well over the past 20-some years, and I see no reason to change it at this point.”

The Democratic senator from Cumming, who serves as chairman for the Senate Health, Education, Pensions and Labor Committee, did stop short of saying he would vote against a reform bill in the Senate that included language similar to what was in the House version.

“I’m willing to work with my fellow senators, and my refrain is going to be, ‘Don’t upset the apple cart.’ Right now, I believe everyone in our country — except, let’s face it, some fringe groups — like what we have right now. It works well. We have conscience clauses. We provide no federal funding for abortions anywhere except for incest, rape and life of the mother. I think time has shown that these provisions work well. I see no reason to go beyond that now and to let maybe one fringe group or the other upset our whole health care bill because they want to change what has been an accepted law and practice for the past almost 30 years,” he said.

Although every Republican member of the U.S. House voted in favor of the amendment to further restrict abortion access, only one Republican ended up crossing the aisle to vote for the whole reform bill.

“I think that there are a lot of people, and I think you’ll see this in the Senate debate, who want to vote for amendments and will never vote for the bill,” Harkin said, and noted that within the HELP Committee more than 200 Republican amendments were considered, and 161 adopted, yet no Republican member could find a way to vote for the committee’s final bill.

“I think it will become clear that those who are doing these things aren’t just amending the bill to make it better or to try to make it work better. They want to kill the bill. Period. Republicans have said that repeatedly. They want to kill this bill. They want to stop Obama. They want to stop these changes.”

Midwestern Health Advocates Speak Out on Stupak-Pitts

Robin Marty — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:18:42 +0000

Today, I had the chance to sit in on an action call hosted by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The call, run by President Sarah Stoesz and Vice President of External Affairs Connie Lewis, captured much of the anger, frustration, fear and hope that many of us have been experiencing since the passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

In recapping the action that occurred over the weekend by the advancement of the amendment, Stoesz shared the betrayal pro-choice advocates faced on Saturday. "Health care reform was promised as not being a vehicle to advance any abortion rights agenda," she stated. Pro-choice advocates had agreed in advance not to use the opportunity to force any changes to the Hyde Amendment in exchange for anti-choice factions also agreeing not to use the bill to not attempt to errode abortion rights. "We weren't happy about it, but we thought we had this agreement. We weren't happy about it, but we did it anyway. We obviously care about abortion rights, but we also care about health care for our country."

Despite the pre-arrangement, Rep. Stupak took an abortion-neutral bill and in the last hour used it to roll back abortion rights.

"President Obama promised that no one would be worse off as a result of health care reform. The Stupak amendment makes that untrue."

The abortion restrictions applied to the insurance exchange, a public market of options for the uncovered to receive medical insurance, will initially only affect those women involved. However, the underlying fear is that the 60 million women in this country who have insurance in the private market will eventually see their own coverage decline as private insurers begin to curb their benefits to match those available on the exchange.

Of course, there are things to applaud in this reform bill, according to Stoesz. Gender ratings should be eliminated, allowing women to be charged for insurance at the same cost as men. C-sections, domestic violence, and just simply being female will no longer be considered pre-existing conditions that can cause women to pay higher premiums or be denied coverage all together. And best of all, Medicaid can now be used to pay for family planning expenses, something that has been possible in Minnesota recently but has not been available to the all states.

But still, Lewis added, it can't be seen as a victory yet. "We all imagined ourselves celebrating when health care reform passed the House. This amendment makes that much more difficult."

Pressure over the Stupak amendment has already helped to make some change in the public perception of victory in health care reform. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D - Mo.) has changed from stating that Stupak wasn't that bad of a bill to now saying she will oppose the amendment. And at this time, 42 members of congress have already stated that they will oppose it.

Planned Parenthood hopes to ratchet up that public support against the Stupak amendment in the upcoming weeks. They plan to thank those senators whose pro-choice actions they feel they can count on, as well as encourage those senators like Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, both of North Dakota, who are being pressured heavily by their Catholic caucus.

But they recognize that with only 40 senators publicly declaring themselves pro-choice, it could be a battle.

"We are trying to stay very focused on the big prize - health care for all people that will be affordable and available," said Stoesz. "And that includes abortion care."

Reproductive Health Professionals Alarmed by House Version of Health Care Reform, Call on Congress to Remove It

Jodi Jacobson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:48:05 +0000

Today, the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals issued the following statement on the House Health Reform Bill and the Stupak Amendment.

The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), representing more than 12,000 health care providers, researchers, educators, and advocates in the reproductive health field, announced today its strong concern about the health care reform package, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962), passed by the House of Representatives on Saturday, November 7th by a vote of 220-215.

The House bill includes an amendment that would have a devastating impact on women’s access to abortion services, effectively barring both private and public insurance plans from covering abortion. This untenable amendment would cause millions of women to lose their current abortion coverage, while preventing them from obtaining an abortion even if they pay for their insurance plan themselves.

“This very necessary health care bill has been saddled with an unacceptable, politically motivated amendment that puts an impossible burden on American women,” said Wayne C. Shields, ARHP’s president and CEO. “We are confident that Congress will ultimately respect the law of the land and pass health care legislation that retains the legal right for all women to obtain abortion services.”

“Although the bill contains several important reproductive health provisions, including funding for comprehensive sex education, the inclusion of community providers in health exchanges, and the expansion of Medicaid Family Planning coverage, we cannot ignore that passage came at the expense of the legal right to abortion in the US,” continued Shields.

“Abortion was the only legal medical treatment singled out in this bill,” said Dr. Beth Jordan, Medical Director of ARHP. “The codification of this provision would represent a new and unparalleled restriction on women’s ability to access abortion services. We call on Congress to reject this provision and pass legislation that respects women’s reproductive rights.”

(AUDIO) Laurie Rubiner: Stupak Amendment a Hobson's Choice

Brady Swenson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:29:02 +0000

Laurie Rubiner, Vice President for Policy of Planned Parenthood Federation, spoke with WNYC's Brian Lehrer about the Stupak-Pitts amendment on Monday morning. Laurie explained that the Stupak amendment would actually mean millions of women would lose insurance coverage for abortion, even when purchasing a private plan:

"Right now if a woman goes to buy health insurance in the private market the majority of health plans offer abortion coverage in those plans. Under the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the new house insurance exchange women would not be allowed to purchase insurance that includes abortion coverage. That means that the millions of women who purchase insurance through this new exchange, the good news is they will get health insurance, the bad news is that the abortion coverage available today would be taken away from them and we think that's a real Hobson's choice."

The Tea Party crowd is incredibly adept at hypocrisy. After months of hyperbolic cries about "big government" putting an end to your liberty and freedom by interfering with health care choices we now get an amendment that singles out a legal health care procedure and removes that procedure as a choice for women. And what's worse, they even found a Democratic co-sponsor and 64 anti-choice Democrats to vote with them on the floor of the house.

Rubiner says pro-choice activists must turn their attention to the Senate where she "expects we will be able to temper" the Stupak amendment.

Listen to the interview here:

Michigan State Lawmakers Question Terrorism Charges for HIV-positive Man

Todd Heywood — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:08:12 +0000

This article was originally published at Michigan Messenger and is republished here in partnership with Michigan Messenger and the Center for Independent Media.

An HIV-positive Macomb County man is facing charges created under Michigan’s 2004 terrorism laws for biting another man in a neighborhood scuffle. That, HIV advocates, state lawmakers and legal experts say is “cowardly” and “nonsense” and increases ignorance and stigma surrounding the virus.

State Rep. Mark Meadows, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee said in an interview he does not believe the legislature had the neighborhood fight situation in mind when it drafted the terrorism laws. The Democrat from East Lansing also said he thought the prosecution was “silly.”

“Is this a dangerous instrumentality? It’s like saying that because I breathed on you and I have tuberculosis and we are fighting, that somehow because I have this disease it suddenly becomes more than just that I have this disease,” said Meadows, a former assistant attorney general. “The other charges are more than sufficient to deal with the issues involved.”

In the end, Meadows believes that the circuit court judge will toss out the terrorism charge, which he said was “a stretch.”

A fight among neighbors

The case arose out of an Oct. 18 fight between 44-year-old Daniel Allen and his neighbor Winfred Fernandis Jr. What happened that day is disputed.

According to a report from Clinton Township Police Department, Fernandis said Allen jumped him without provocation when he went to retrieve a football neighborhood kids accidentally threw onto Allen’s yard. Fernandis, according to the police report, said Allen “hugged up” to him and began to bite him. Fernandis suffered a bite wound on the lip so severe, police say, it went all the way through the lip. Fernandis sought medical treatment and the wound was sewn shut.

Allen, however, alleges that Fernandis, his wife Denise and Fernandis’ father assaulted him, and he does not recall biting the younger Fernandis. He too sustained injuries during the incident, and his lawyer during a Nov. 2 hearing presented 37 photographs of injuries, including bite marks to Allen’s body. Allen and his attorney maintain Allen was the victim of a hate crime because Allen is gay. Since the incident, Allen has filed a personal protection order against the Fernadis family and a criminal complaint with the township police.

Following the incident, police were called in and after a brief investigation, placed Allen under arrest and charged him with two crimes: aggravated assault, a misdemeanor charge which carries a punishment of up to one year in jail and/or $1,000 fine and assault with intent to maim, a 10-year felony.

Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith refused to return multiple messages left for him. Allen’s attorney, James Gallen, did not return calls.

HIV Becomes the Feature of the Story

The story, a man severely biting another man, drew the attention of the Detroit-area media, and Fox 2 News soon had Allen on video admitting he was HIV-positive.

That admission lead Smith, a Democrat, to say he would seek additional charges. On Nov. 2, Smith’s office amended its complaint to add a charge of possession or use of a harmful device. That law is a 25-year felony and was part of a 2004 package of terrorism laws created by the legislature in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The law makes it a crime to have a harmful device, which is defined as either biological, chemical, electronic or radioactive. Smith’s office is arguing that Allen being infected with HIV was “a device designed or intended to release a harmful biological substance,” and that his bite was thus an attempt to spread HIV.

Smith’s office is relying on a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in a case of an HIV-positive, and hepatitis B infected prisoner who spit at prison guards during an altercation in the prison. In that case, People v. Antoine Deshaw Odom, the three judge panel found:

We therefore conclude that HIV infected blood is a ‘harmful biological substance,’ as defined by Michigan statute, because it is a substance produced by a human organism that contains a virus that can spread or cause disease in humans.

The three judge panel was silent on whether the hepatitis infection weighed in as a factor as a harmful biological substance. As a result of this finding, the court upheld a stricter sentencing score for Odom. In 2008, the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the matter, upholding the Appeals Court decision.

On Nov. 2, District Court Judge Linda Davis concurred with Smith’s office and bound Allen over to Macomb Circuit Court to face the three charges.

According to The Macomb Daily, the judge said:

“[Allen] knew he was HIV-positive, and he bit the guy,” Davis said from the bench. “That on its own shows intent.”

Criminalizing HIV with traditional, non-HIV specific laws not new

HIV experts say it is a near impossibility to spread HIV through a human bite.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said it has one case on record where it believes HIV was transmitted through a human bite. But the case, out of South Carolina, is of an older man who claims to have had no other risk factors except being bit by a sex worker who was infected with HIV. That sex worker claims the man refused to pay for her sexual services, and she bit him in an attempt to get her money.

But, even allowing for that case, experts say there are other factors to consider. In 2003, the most recent year available for statistics on the CDC website, about 1 million people in the United States were living with HIV/AIDS, putting the prevalence of HIV transmission via biting at .000000001 percent. In contrast, an online search of news reports finds hundreds of media reports of biting incidents involving HIV-positive people.

“Even if you accepted that as a transmission case,” said Catherine Hanssens, executive director of the New York City-based Center for HIV Law and Policy. The charges against Allen, she said, simply aren’t warranted. “It’s just nonsense. It’s cowardly. It’s the kind of thing that keeps kids [with HIV] out of day care and camps and allows kids [with HIV] to be kicked out of karate case.”

She said cases like Allen’s are proof that the nation is failing to address the epidemic with common sense. “It’s continuing the boogey-man characterization of people with HIV,” she said.

“This troubles me very much,” says Lambda Legal HIV Project Director Bebe Anderson. “I think it is a very dangerous thing for prosecution to proceed with a charge or an enhanced charge based on a person’s HIV status. Typically these prosecutions are based on ignorance about HIV transmission. These prosecutions add to ignorance in the general public about HIV transmission, and they certainly add to the stigmatization of people living with HIV.”

The move to charge Allen with terrorism-related charges, Anderson said, was deeply troubling.

“Its a very dangerous notion that somebody who has a physical condition such as H1N1 or HIV or some other virus, that, that person then can then be charged with having a harmful biological substance and then if they are out there in contact with other people and they are putting other people at risk it is troubling.” said Anderson. “That’s not something that is legitimately criminalized and these prosecutions start us in that direction in a very dangerous way, I think.”

Anderson said to her knowledge this is the first time she has seen a terrorism law used in connection with an HIV-infected persons prosecution. She said she believes the terrorism law is being misapplied, and that Allen’s defense is going to have to make basic information about HIV and its transmission clear to the courts.

“I think it is very important to try to get in front of the judges and the prosecution accurate information about HIV,” Anderson said. “I think what happens is that these prosecutions are fueled by ignorance, then unfortunately that ignorance gets compounded because the judge makes a ruling or the jury makes a ruling based on fear and myths of HIV and not the actual risk posed by particular conduct.”

Hanssens and Anderson said that the trend of charging HIV-positive people with charges based on their HIV status is nothing new, but both say there has been an increase in cases in recent years.

“What seems new is there seems to be a sudden uptick in the number of these type of cases in the last year or so,” Anderson said.

HIV activist Mark Peterson, from Michigan POZ Action said he is also concerned about this case. In an email statement to Michigan Messenger, Peterson said:

“This sort of conflict is sad anytime it happens. At the same time, charging a person with possession or use of a harmful device simply because they have an infection, especially where the is NO scientific evidence of HIV ever being spread this way, is just another example of how our laws are based on fear and ignorance and not science…Its interesting to see how the impact of stigma and homophobia that still surrounds HIV shows up in our legal system.”

And Meadows is not the only legislator sounding off on the case.

State Sen. Hansen Clarke, a Detroit Democrat and a vocal advocate on behalf of people living with HIV/AIDS, said in an interview that the charges are out of proportion.

“I think we need to put this in perspective in light of the tragic events at Fort Hood,” Clarke said. “That should be investigated as terrorism. The magnitude of the instances is not even similar.”

He said the impact of such a prosecution was “harmful” to addressing HIV stigma in the state.

“I don’t think our legal system should treat everyone that has a disease that could be communicated to some one else differently,” Clarke said.

State Rep. Rick Jones, a Republican from Grand Ledge who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said the terrorism charge was likely not appropriate.

“If it was a fight and people were biting each other I would not think that is an appropriate charge,” said Jones, a former Eaton County sheriff. “I think you should able to be charged with attempt to transfer HIV if it can be shown in a court of law you made a genuine attempt to transfer [it].”

Changes in law deemed necessary

While the use of non-specific HIV laws to criminalize those infected is not a new trend, neither are the laws to criminalize HIV. Michigan passed a law in 1988 which makes it a felony for a person who knows he or she is infected with HIV to engage in sexual penetration, however slight, without disclosing that status first.

In April, Michigan Messenger highlighted the story of Michael Holder who spent eight years in a Michigan prison for allegedly failing to disclose his HIV-status to his partner. The Iowa Independent, Michigan Messenger’s sibling site, has closely followed the criminal prosecution and conviction of Nick Rhoades, who was convicted of failing to disclose his HIV status and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released in September and is serving a five-year stint on probation after a judge reconsidered his harsh sentence.

Federal law mandated all states to certify each had a law in place to criminally prosecute people with HIV who did not disclose that to people before engaging in behavior which might spread the virus. That mandate was made in 1990 and by 2000 all 50 states had certified.

But two decades into the epidemic, with science getting a better understanding of HIV and how it is spread, lawmakers are beginning to say the current laws need to be revisited.

Jones said during an interview that if some one with HIV spits at a police officer while screaming ‘I hope you get AIDS,’ that that person should be charged with a crime, because that shows an intent, even if the mode of possible transmission via spitting “would be a very difficult way to transmit” the virus. He said the intent to spread the disease is the issue, not necessarily the mode.

Jone, who also once served as a jail administrator, was tasked with knowing universal precaution rules inside and out. He also added that the law should be expanded to include other diseases, such as tuberculous and hepatitis.

Jones discussed Michigan’s 20-year-old disclosure law which makes it a crime for an HIV-positive person to engage in sexual penetration, however slight, without first disclosing their HIV infection. He was surprised to learn the law did not address sharing needles, but including activities that cannot spread HIV, such as sex toys. Asked if he believed it was time to revisit the disclosure law, he said: “Yes. Yes, I would agree with that. But I might add things like needle sharing, and I might subtract things to make more of an intent crime.”

The "Real Life" Effects of Stupak-Pitts: An Analysis by Legal Experts at Planned Parenthood

Jodi Jacobson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:41:18 +0000

What are the real-life effects of the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House health care bill?

An analysis by experts on health law, and reproductive and sexual health issues at Planned Parenthood shows the following:

The New Health Insurance Exchange

The new health insurance exchange is intended to provide a new source of affordable, quality coverage for the roughly 46 million uninsured Americans and the millions more whose current coverage is unaffordable or inadequate. The House bill is expected to cover 96 percent of all uninsured Americans by offering subsidies for private coverage or the choice of a public plan. Depending on their income level and the final package approved by the Congress, individuals would receive subsidies on a sliding scale to purchase private insurance through the exchange.

In the House-passed bill, all individuals with incomes up to 400 percent of poverty ($88,000 for a family of four) would receive subsidies to help purchase health insurance. However, not everyone in the exchange would have subsidized coverage — a significant portion of people (for instance, those currently purchasing in the individual market and those working for small businesses) who would buy insurance in the exchange would not receive any subsidies, also known as affordability credits.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment

The Stupak-Pitts amendment prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion. It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.

Thus, if a plan wants to offer coverage in the exchange to both groups of individuals, it would have to offer two different plans: one with abortion coverage for women without subsidies and one without abortion coverage for women with subsidies. These private insurance plans would need to be identified as either providing or not providing coverage for abortion.

Health insurance plans are highly unlikely to operate in this manner, and it is not even clear that this is feasible under the administration of the exchange and affordability credits. As one alternative, the Stupak amendment purports to allow women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but abortion riders don’t exist. In the five states that only allow abortion coverage through a separate rider, there is no evidence that they are available.

Furthermore, women are unlikely to think ahead to choose a plan that includes abortion coverage, since they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy. In addition, it is not clear that health plans would even be allowed to offer two separate plans under other provisions of the act, such as the anti-discrimination and guaranteed-issue provisions. Those elements of the bill, which are very important to consumers, may make it impossible for plans to provide two separate plans, one that includes abortion and another that does not.

Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak-Pitts amendment is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage.

Who Would Be Covered in the Exchange

Most immediately, the exchange would offer coverage to many of the 17 million women ages 18–64 who are uninsured. It would also be a source of coverage for the 5.7 million women who are now purchasing coverage in the individual market. Typically, these are women who are not receiving health coverage through an employer — they may be self-employed, underemployed, or unemployed. Small employers (with fewer than 100 employees) are also likely to transition their health insurance to the exchange where they may be able to find more affordable options.

In most of these cases, women will lose abortion coverage that they currently have — in the current private insurance market, the majority of health insurance plans include abortion. A self-employed graphic designer or writer, buying coverage from Kaiser Permanente in the individual market, will likely have abortion coverage. Under the health reform plan amended by Stupak, she would purchase that same plan from Kaiser Permanente in the exchange, but it would not include abortion coverage because it would be barred. This ban would be in effect even if she were paying the full premium.

Similarly, a woman working for a small graphic design firm, who currently has abortion coverage through her company’s plan, would lose it under reform if the company decides to seek more affordable coverage in the exchange.

Roughly 60 million women aged 18–64 get their coverage through their employer or through their spouse’s employer. For some of these women, nothing will change immediately. But if current trends continue in the erosion of employer-sponsored health care, more and more women will be getting their health care through the exchange. Women are much more likely to be covered as dependents on their husbands’ health insurance plans, and more and more employers are eliminating dependent coverage as a way to cut costs. Where will these women get covered? They will get health insurance from the exchange where abortion coverage is prohibited.

Moreover, women are much more likely to lose employer-sponsored insurance coverage as a result of a husband’s death or divorce. While they will be able to purchase coverage in the exchange, their coverage will not include abortion coverage. Moreover, the House bill opens the door to large employers joining the exchange by giving the commissioner the authority to allow large employers into the exchange beginning in the third year of the enactment of health reform. If this proves to be true, over time, women who get coverage through large companies would lose access to abortion coverage entirely.

The Two-Tiered Health Care System

The House-passed health care system adds a huge swath of the female population to the “have nots” column of an already two-tiered health care system when it comes to abortion coverage in the United States. Prior to the passage of the House bill, our health care system was a system in which only women who could afford to pay for abortions with their own money or through their insurance plans would have access to abortion. Consider the current restrictions already in place:

low-income women on Medicaid
federal employees, their spouses, and female dependents
women serving in the military overseas
women in federal prisons
women in the District of Columbia

The House-passed bill would add to this list of women who do not have coverage millions of women who are getting their health insurance through the exchange. Consider just a few examples:

working mothers in families that earn up to $88,000

women who are self-employed and paying the entire cost of their coverage and don’t have access to employer-sponsored coverage

young women entering the job market for the first time who are the least likely to have employer-sponsored coverage

women who were insured through their husbands’ employers, but now are divorced and have to purchase coverage on their own through the exchange

women who work in small businesses whose owners decide to seek more affordable, quality coverage through the exchange

The experts conclude:

Over the last six months, we have heard much about how important it is to reform the health care system to meet the needs of women. Women are much more likely to be left out of the current employer-based system because this system wasn’t designed for them — it was designed for higher-wage, full-time earners who have dependents at home — namely, men.

Women tend to be in lower-wage or part-time jobs that don’t offer insurance, move in and out of the workforce because of childbearing and childrearing responsibilities, and become uninsured because of divorce or death of a spouse. But these are the very same women who are targeted by the Stupak-Pitts amendment. And they will join the growing ranks of women who are denied coverage of a legal medical procedure.

It’s turning out to be a strange sisterhood: the poor, the incarcerated, the federally employed, the stateless, the soldier, and now the middle-class in the exchange.

Essentially, the amendment violates the underlying principle of health care reform, as articulated by President Obama, that “no one will lose the benefits they currently have.” The truth is that under the Stupak-Pitts amendment, millions of women would lose benefits that they currently have and millions more would be prohibited from getting the kind of private sector health care coverage that most women have today. To put a fine point on it, millions of women would lose private coverage for abortion services and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money. Simply put, women’s access to private coverage for abortion would be restricted by health care reform.

"We've Got Your Back" Campaign Launches on Daily Kos

Jodi Jacobson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:21:31 +0000

Contributor "Adam B" at Daily Kos has launched an effort to show vulnerable pro-choice Dems "we've got your back."

He offers an updated list of Dems who did the right thing on Stupak and asks for your help in supporting them. The list is below; the link to his campaign is here. Go on over and help out.

AZ-01 Kirkpatrick, Ann R+6
AZ-05 Mitchell, Harry R+5
AZ-08 Giffords, Gabby R+4
KS-03 Moore, Dennis R+3
NY-19 Hall, John R+3
FL-08 Grayson, Alan R+2
MI-07 Schauer, Mark R+2
NY-24 Arcuri, Mike R+2
WI-08 Kagen, Steve R+2
CA-11 McNerney, Jerry R+1
IL-08 Bean, Melissa R+1
IL-11 Halvorson, Debbie R+1
IL-14 Foster, Bill R+1
MN-01 Walz, Tim R+1
NY-23 Owens, Bill R+1
NH-01 Shea-Porter, Carol R+0
NY-01 Bishop, Timothy R+0

Religious Tyranny Shames Religion

Kathleen Reeves — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:00 +0000

In a comment on one of Jodi Jacobson’s posts on this site, a commenter who identifies as a “Pro-Life Catholic for Choice,” applauds Stupak’s amendment to the health care bill. Quoting the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—who stated that they would not support health care reform unless abortion were explicitly excluded from all insurance plans in the new health care system—the commenter says,

The Catholic position is that health care reform is a "national priority" and a "moral imperative". This is the kind of language that makes me proud to be a Catholic.

The Catholic Church’s longtime advocacy for universal health care also makes me proud to be a Catholic. But I’m ashamed of the way the USCCB has acted in this debate, and I’m surprised that a “Pro-Life Catholic for Choice” supports an amendment that restricts choice in a very serious way.

Catholics are free to do what they want. Catholic hospitals have the right to refuse services they find offensive. But when the federal government sets out to reform the health care system in a way that will affect nearly every single American, and only one procedure—affecting only women—is singled out as “inappropriate,” based on the objections of some religious groups, we are not on common ground.

America has honored religious freedom more consistently, perhaps, than any other country. Of course, religious freedom implies plurality. As soon as a religiously-held belief restricts the freedom of others, it’s no longer simply “religious freedom.” It’s tyranny.

This should be a reminder to us that, even with a pro-choice President and a Democratic majority, the war against reproductive health care is far from over. Hydra-like, it rears not one head, but many: sexual hypocrisy, misogyny, religious bigotry. Feministing gets it right:

This has me so incredibly infuriated because it further segregates abortion as something different, off the menu of regular health care. It is a huge backward step in the battle to convey -- not just politically, but to women in their everyday lives -- that reproductive health care is normal and necessary, and must be there if (or, more accurately, when) you need it.

The commenter on Jodi’s post claims that with the bill’s passage, Obama is siding with the USCCB over Planned Parenthood. Is he ashamed that, of all the things the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops could be lobbying for, it has chosen to obstruct access to health care?

In an extraordinary effort over the last 10 days, the bishops conference told priests across the country to talk about the legislation in church, mobilizing parishioners to contact Congress and to pray for the success of anti-abortion amendments.

The bishops sent out information to be “announced at all Masses” and included in parish bulletins, and urged priests and parishioners to tell House members: “Please support the Stupak Amendment that addresses essential pro-life concerns.” They added: “If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed.”

Would the USCCB have been conducting a full-scale organizing effort for health care reform if abortion hadn’t been at issue? Do we ever see the USCCB wearing themselves out over social welfare legislation? What about the death penalty?

When they have the opportunity to help people, the USCCB makes little noise. But given the opportunity to take away women’s rights, the Conference debases itself by turning into a lobbying group of the most aggressive and inappropriate sort. President Obama is, without a doubt, faith-friendly. He understands the importance of religion to Americans, and he believes in the power of religion to do good. But he, like the founding fathers, does not look favorably upon a religious group that would like to create the nation in its image.

So to anyone who thinks that fortune is smiling on USCCB or the Family Research Council or Concerned Women for America, I have this to say: Obama will not let women down. He has the opportunity, and the inclination, to increase funding for health clinics and to change the way abortion providers are treated in this country. And maybe a few years from now, or at least sometime in my lifetime, abortion won’t be a dirty word.

The Reaction To Stupak: What's Really Pissing Me Off

Meteor Blades — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Daily Kos.

"Irrational." "Hypersensitive." "Overreacting." "Hysterical."

Women recognize these words all too well. They're put-downs many of them have had thrown at them all their lives anytime they raise issues about their treatment in relationships, school, the workplace or society at large.

These words and others of similar ilk have found their way into diaries and comments here at Daily Kos yesterday and today around the abomination known as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Calm down, little lady, is the tone. Get real. Be adults. Doncha know how politics really works?

Pffffffft.

Many of these sexist critiques are then followed up by a distortion of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment itself, all of which amounts to the view that this is no big deal, that it does nothing more than the Hyde Amendment, the sexist, classist abomination that has been on the books in one form or another since 1976. In fact, as mcjoan pointed out earlier today, the Stupak-Pitts coathanger amendment goes a good deal further than Hyde.

So besides engaging in put-downs, the patronizers have it dead wrong. This isn't a tempest in a teapot. It matters. And it matters big time, as at least 40 members of Congress led by Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette have made pretty damn clear. If the Democratic leadership doesn't come to grips with this, they're heading the party for big trouble next November, an election month that already may be a difficult time for the party given the state of an economy that may be getting better on paper but is, at best, many months away from even beginning to trickle down to where people actually live their lives.

Even those who aren't willing to back off from their cries of "irrational" and "too much emo" ought to recognize the anti-utilitarian nature of their views that Stupak-Pitts is a no-consequence blip. Money, organizing time, phone bank participation, precinct walking and, on election day, votes are going to be in much shorter supply in November than would otherwise be the case unless something is done to strip this amendment in the Senate-House conference. Right now, the prospects for that are dicey.

About five minutes after the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, the anti-abortion forces began a war on the rights confirmed by that decision. But their molester-enabling, coathanger-selling, health-shattering, woman-hating, forced-pregnancy campaign was two-pronged, a direct assault but also an asymmetrical war, a nibble here, a nibble there.

And at every step of the way, some people who claimed they were pro-choice said that this little nibble or that little nibble wasn't such a big deal. It only affected a small group of people or it was only the case rarely, we were told. The activists who challenged these nibbles were characterized as "hypersensitive," "irrational," and "over-reacting." Not by their enemies. But by their supposed allies.

Over the decades, while engaging in a campaign of intimidation, harassment and murder, the anti-abortion movement has managed, nibble by nibble, to get ever-more restrictive legislation into place. Ultimately, the right of affluent women to obtain an abortion hasn't been much affected - except in the case of late-term procedures. But affluent women always had options even when abortion was illegal in every state. They could fly to Puerto Rico or Japan and get a safe abortion there without having to risk potentially lethal chemicals or abortions at the hands of unlicensed doctors or other providers operating on somebody's kitchen table in less than sterile conditions.

Thanks to Hyde, low-income women in most states are still at a disadvantage when it comes to getting an abortion. Stupak-Pitts, if it survives the conference process, will not only reinforce this classist attack on women, it will also broaden it.

Being ferociously opposed to it is, therefore, not irrational or hypersensitive or over-reactive. It's called standing up for progressive values.

Thirty-six years ago, just a couple of months after Roe v. Wade was decided, Dr. Bob MacFarland and 14 more of us got together in Boulder County, Colorado, to set up the Boulder Valley Clinic, now the Boulder Valley Women's Health Clinic. It was the state's first standalone abortion clinic, and one of the first nonprofit abortion clinics in the United States.

We came from various walks of life - physicians, a nurse, two lawyers, a journalist, a professor, a librarian, a minister, two graduate students. Three of us were Republican women, veteran volunteers of Planned Parenthood. Our common goal: to provide women with a place to obtain the safe abortions the Supreme Court had ruled was their constitutional right.

Abortion foes attacked us immediately, incessantly, from the Op-Ed pages of the local newspapers to the halls of the state legislature. Some legislators and city councilmembers, numerous doctors, and, of course, fanatics of the not-yet-named "right-to-life" community did their worst to shut us down.

We were slandered and libeled repeatedly. Aborted fetuses, it was ridiculously claimed, were being dumped in cans in the alley behind the clinic, to be hauled away once a week by garbage trucks. Every member of the board received phoned and written death threats. Tires were slashed. Rocks were thrown through windows. Graffiti was sprayed. In early 1975, the clinic was the first of scores in the nation to be fire-bombed, with a Molotov cocktail. The terrorists struck at night, and either through bad aim or some other miscalculation in the darkness, set our garage on fire, which was quickly extinguished.

Many a day one or more of us stood sentinel while sometimes aggressive foes of the clinic picketed, shouted Bible verses or epithets at patients and staff, or jostled and grabbed women in an attempt to persuade or intimidate them not to follow through on the choice they had made. We filled out dozens of police-incident reports.

Across the nation, similar tactics were adopted. And far worse, of course, as abortion providers were gunned down, just as Dr. George Tiller was last May. The only doctor who openly does late-term abortions now won't sit in a window with the shades open because he's been threatened by some fanatic who told him a bulletproof vest won't do any good because his killer will aim for a head shot.

Over time the number of America's hospitals that perform abortions has dropped to less than 10% and the percentage of counties with abortion providers has dropped to 13%.

In the past decade, nearly 500 state laws have been enacted to restrict choice. Every state has passed at least one such law. More than 2800 abortion-restricting bills have been introduced at the state level, and more than 200 have passed.

For those who might suggest this is one of those damned "social issues" that gets the Democrats in trouble on election day, let's not forget that it's at its core a class war, as Stupak-Pitts makes quite clear. Affluent women will always find a way to find a safe and legal abortion. Insurance or no insurance.

Stupak-Pitts may only be another nibble, but it is the cumulative effect that matters. Eventually, lots of little nibbles equal the entire pie. Those who say our vigorous, uncompromising opposition to it is an irrational overreaction ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Dear Mr. President: Abortion Is Part of Health Care

Jodi Jacobson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:24:56 +0000

Today, President Obama, the same man who as a candidate actually promised to push for passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, repeated one of the most over-used lines by the Democratic party when it fails to be truly pro-choice.

The famous "This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill" excuse.

Here is what he said, according to Daily Kos:

President Obama said today that Congress needs to change abortion-related language in the health care bill passed by the House of Representatives this weekend that includes tougher restrictions on abortion funding but said there is more work to be done before a final piece of legislation gets to his desk.

I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill,” Obama said. “And we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.

This "explanation" for why we don't address the issue of choice in any number of pieces of legislation in which women's choices are actually profoundly affected is doled out more frequently than DC parking attendants give out tickets. (And for those who don't live here, that is a lot.)

But here is a newsflash: Access to safe abortion is part of health care. A critical, essential component of women's health care.

One-fourth of the 600,000 maternal deaths among women worldwide is due to complications of unsafe abortion. Many times that number are made ill or disabled, or infertile due to complications of unsafe abortion. Women unable to plan and time their pregnancies not only are likely to be less healthy themselves, they also are less likely to be able to feed, provide health care for and ensure the survival of children they do bear. In some countries, such as Peru, complications of unsafe abortion are the single greatest cause of maternal death. In this country, complications of unsafe abortion were indeed a leading cause of maternal death before abortion became legal.

So unless you consider women not to be human, or consider health to be of concern only to men (and yes, I am aware many of you feel this is the case), abortion is a health care issue.

And by definition, the health reform bill is indeed an abortion bill as much as it is a cancer bill, a heart disease bill, a common cold bill or a bill for male erectile dysfunction (treatment of which, is, of course, included under the House bill).

In fact, the Republicans get this connection far more than do the Democrats, who keep trying to campaign and raise money on "pro-choice" platforms, but who apparently feel increasingly comfortable throwing off those cloaks as soon as they get in office, as did Obama and today in his press conference, and Senator Claire McCaskill on MSNBC's early talk show, Morning Joe.

The Democrats' increasingly anemic response to the issue of choice is self-fulfilling. The more afraid they get of standing up for their (supposed) principles, the more they obfuscate on the issue of choice.

The more they obfuscate, the less credibliity they have with their supporters--the people that actually put them into office--and the more the ultra-right conservative Republicans (and there no longer is another kind) smell blood and become more emboldened about threatening to hold them hostage on the issue.

The President has exacerbated this by his weak approach to the issue from the beginning of his time in office: Rather than making clear he was as pro-choice in office as he was on the campaign trail, he started a round of "Common Ground" meetings ostensibly intended to find "common ground" on abortion issues. The fact is: There is no common ground between those who believe in science, evidence, and human rights and conservative religious groups like the Catholic Bishops--who are clearly very powerful in Congress but who object both to abortion and to contraception. It is in fact an issue on which someone has to take the power to lead. But the more Obama tries to be Mr. Conciliation, the more time lapses during which those who have no intention and have had no intention in finding "common ground" to make gains on their anti-choice agenda in Congress.

The main result has been that Obama has lost so much ground unnecessarily he has pissed off the people who put him in office. If this continues, I'd like to see Pennsylvania and Virginia in the next election...

The President needs to show a little spine. Today he said:

"[T]he bill cannot change the status quo."

"There are strong feelings on both sides” about an amendment passed on Saturday and added to the legislation, “and what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo.”

In an exclusive television interview in the Map Rom of the White House, Obama told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that he was confident that the final legislation will ensure that “neither side feels that it’s being betrayed.”

I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” he said.

Moreover, today, according to the Hill, Robert Gibbs completely side-stepped the question about the Stupak Amendment when asked during today's press conference and indicated the President "wasn't taking sides."

Why not? Isn't that why we elected him? Because he had a "side" on this issue?

Why won't the President come out and say he opposes it? Why won't he underscore the very values he espoused on the campaign trail? Why does he feel he needs to appease any of the far right on this?

Mr. President: Abortion is health care. And until you understand and can say that, we are going to continue to have a problem passing this bill.