Action alerts from reproductive rights organizations have shared the information that 19 anti-choice Democrats are trying to keep abortion coverage out of health care reform, putting politics over women's health. An attack on reproductive health services from within the Democratic party is a powerful move that could keep millions of women from accessing important medical care.
Politicians work for the voters. It is important to elect officials who voice support for our issues, make sure they legislate the way we want and hold them accountable if they do not. So I want to share the names of the 19 Democrats who sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi urging her to exclude abortion coverage from health care reform:
Reps. Dan Boren (D-OK); Bart Stupak (D-MI); Colin Peterson (D-MN); Tim Holden (D-PA); Travis Childers (D-MS); Lincoln Davis (D-TN); Heath Shuler (D-NC) Solomon Ortiz (D-TX); Mike McIntyre (D-NC); Jerry Costello (D-IL); Gene Taylor (D-MS); James Oberstar (D-MN); Bobby Bright (D-AL); Steve Driehaus (D-OH); Marcy Kaptur (D-OH); Charlie Melancon (D-LA); John Murtha (D-PA); Paul Kanjorski (D-PA); and Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-PA).
You can read the full letter here .
If you live or vote in any of these Representative's districts you have someone to organize against and vote out of office next election cycle. What good is electing a Democrat if they use their position to legislate against women's health and rights?
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By ensuring that abortions are not funded through any health care reform package, we will take this controversial issue off the table so that Congress can focus on crafting a broadly-supported health care reform bill.
Translation: Want healthcare? Give me your uterus.
For such a "life-affirming" group of people, they sure do want to sacrifice the health of the country for the sake of scoring some political points from people who probably didn't even vote for them. Amazing.
We have a name for such people like the 19 Representatives that Josh mentioned and it is called DINO(-s). DINO stands for Democrat in Name Only.
I agree with Josh, We the People need to vote the DINOs out in the next primary.
Um... yea. Exactly what makes these guy anti-choice again?
The fact that they're fighting against our reproductive rights? If you limit funding, you limit choices as well.
1. They're not fighting against reproductive rights.
2. Limiting public funds does not equal limiting public choice.
Joe - These Representatives want to single out abortion coverage, to treat it as uniquely different from other medical procedures by excluding it from health care.
The U.S. already has laws that limit abortion coverage including the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding for abortion. It makes abortion services incredibly difficult to access for low income women, women in the military or in military families, women receiving care from Indian Health Services, and women on disability insurance.
If these Representatives are successful abortion coverage could be excluded even from the health care of women whose private insurance currently includes abortion. It becomes impossible to choose abortion when one cannot afford the procedure.
These Representatives want a Universal Health Care plan that will actually pass both houses.
Right... but what kind of health care plan will it be if those it covers have to pay 100% out of pocket for a legal and necessary medical procedure, regardless of whether they can afford it?
I know that under my current medical insurance, I have refused expensive treatment if doing so is not life-threatening and my insurance will not contribute to the treatment. By not covering these treatments, my insurance plan makes them luxuries. If abortion is such a luxury under the new health care plan, those who are too poor to pay for it will no longer have a choice, and even those who are able to pay may effectively be coerced into choosing not to abort. Having control over one's own body and reproduction will be restricted to women who can pay for that freedom.
Furthermore, although excluding abortion from health care coverage is not the same as making it illegal, expressly forbidding abortion from being covered by the new health care plan is a case of the government deciding what is best for women's bodies on the basis of moral, subjective reasoning rather than medical, scientific reasoning.
What good is electing a Democrat if they use their position to legislate against women's health and rights?
And this is why I refuse to align with a party and vote straight down the ticket. Some Democrats are douches on issues that matter to me. Some Republicans are highly progressive. It's worth the time it takes to research these people as individuals instead of just relying on their party affiliation to tell you how they stand.
I'm from Oklahoma and anti-choice politicians are the only kind we have here (example: I see Obama=baby killer stickers almost every time I go to the mall or the grocery store). Choice is one of the issues I, as an Oklahoma Dem, have to compromise on or not vote at all. There just aren't other options and I'm not willing to not vote if only because the Republican option is almost always so much worse. I'm not saying I won't send out an email or a letter but in some places there just aren't choices that aren't a compromise. It's not the way it should be but, for now, it's the way it is.
What's the difference between voting for an anti-choice Democrat and not voting at all and the anti-choice Republican winning?
I don't want to speak for her but it seems like Darlene is saying she's more than a single issue voter. It might be that the Republicans in OK don't want Universal Health Care in any regard.
The politicization of medicine is another reason I don't favor the public option. Because no private company could compete with gov't run health care, private plans would be run out of business. Dick Durbin today was talking about inserting a new "conscience clause" into any Universal Health Care bill to ensure medical providers can pull out of procedures they disagree with. WTF? Didn't BO just kill "conscience clause" and here's Durbin negotiating it back in? This is what I mean. Politicalization is inevitable in the nationalization of any industry.
Can anyone tell me the extent to which private plans generally cover abortion?