We all knew it wasn't going to pass without a fight...and some compromises. But when the House just barely eked out enough votes to pass the health care reform bill on Saturday, some significant changes were made at the last minute that have pro-choice advocates reeling. Many feel that abortion was thrown under the bus in order to gain the support of pro-life Democrats who threatened to bury the bill.
Yes, women gained a great many benefits under the version of the health care reform bill that the House passed. But we've lost significant ground on the issue of abortion. Millions of women have just lost access to a safe and legal medical procedure because of what happened last week.
Writing for the Women's Media Center, Peggy Simpson is aghast that the worst rollback of women's reproductive rights in decades happened so casually and so quickly:
It was a showdown shocker between the Catholic bishops and women's rights--and the bishops won.
The House bill would provide the most sweeping expansion of federal prohibitions on abortion since 1976, when the Hyde Amendment was enacted that has since banned federal funds for abortion in the military, the Foreign Service, the Peace Corps, Medicaid and other federally connected health care services....
The first woman House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, a pro-choice Catholic with decades of experience in counting votes, made the deal....
Fewer than two weeks ago...the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops...began spreading the word to grass roots Catholics to lobby House members to oppose health care reform unless anti-abortion bans were tightened. Only in recent days did they insist on applying the Hyde amendment to health care plans.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Bart Stupack (D-Michigan) essentially expanded Hyde to the health care reform bill; and to gain the votes of pro-life Democrats, Pelosi allowed the Stupak amendment to be voted on, and it passed. The amended bill then went on to narrowly pass in the House by only 5 votes.
As Simpson describes it:
Pro-choice House members were furious and said so.
[Representative Rosa] DeLauro [D-CT] called abortion "a matter of conscience on both sides of the debate," adding that the Stupak amendment takes away the "freedom of conscience from American women" and prohibits them from abortion coverage "even if they pay for it with their own money."
Representative Barbara Lee, D-CA, said she had been reared in the Catholic Church and respected Stupak but called his amendment "simply outrageous" for inserting the church's "religious views into our public policy....We're a democracy, not a theocracy."
Women gained a great deal from the passage of the health care reform act. But we lost a critical right that many have taken for granted for decades. That fact needs to be made known loud and clear. Abortion, a legal medical procedure, will now be blocked from nearly all the health care plans made possible by health care reform. As Terry O'Neill, President of NOW explains:
The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:
- Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
- Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
- Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.
At least two prominent national reproductive rights groups say that this version of health care reform will leave women "worse off" than before. Is this what we wanted from health care reform?
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Colorado is stepping onto the slipperiest of slopes with ballot initiative 25, also known as the Colorado Personhood Amendment, which will severely curtail the rights of pregnant women by granting full legal rights to the cells of a fertilized egg. Initiative 25 would also extend personhood rights to eggs fertilized asexually, which would impact in vitro fertilization. And it falsely assigns 'personhood' without really understanding human development.
The initiative is less about promoting personhood and more about restricting reproductive choice. It's part of a nationwide effort by pro-life activist organization Personhood USA to introduce similiar legislation in every state in the U.S., a goal they announced earlier today. Founded by Cal Zastrow and Keith Mason, the two men are clear on their intent as they told MetroCatholic.com:
"Our goal has been to serve Jesus Christ and offer support to grassroots pro-lifers," stated Cal Zastrow, co-founder of Personhood USA. "Personhood USA exists to support, encourage, and assist Personhood movements across the country. We are excited to continue this fight against the dehumanization and murder of preborn children."
Attorneys affiliated with Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union say that Personhood USA is essentially opening up a can of worms with little regard for the legal ramifications. In Colorado, initiative 25 would amend the state constitution in more than 20,000 places, opening the door to potential criminal charges being filed against pregnant women who have a drink, are morbidly obese, attempt suicide, or use the Pill -- all situations that could pose a risk to the fetus. And a woman could be charged with a crime even if she didn't know she was pregnant at the time.
According to the Colorado Independent, the co-founders of Personhood USA could give a hoot about any of the above:
The legal questions surrounding the initiative at this point are not a priority to Personhood USA....
Presented with some of the hypothetical legal and rights issues related to the initiative, Keith Mason...one of the proponents of Initiative 25, said he didn't want to speculate on the particulars of the bill.
"I can't answer that because it's a hypothetical," said Mason. "It's like asking what would happen if a Martian came down and impregnated a woman on Earth. Let's talk about real issues."
Mason said he would "worry about the [legal] details later," after the bill had passed.
Let's talk about the real issues then, as Mason said.
The real issue is that any form of 'personhood' would ban all forms of abortion, even in the case of rape or incest; it would deny women the right to choose; and it would even make illegal many forms of contraception such as birth control pills, which prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
Personhood destroys the most fundamental of American democratic concepts -- the separation of church and state, a guiding principle of government that our founding fathers knew was critical to freedom and self-determination. Personhood is far more dangerous than we realize.
Personhood is misogyny wrapped up in the 'you can't touch this' veil of religion and puts forth a faith-based viewpoint which does not even represent the majority of those who are followers of Christianity and/or believe in God or a higher Being.
Looking at 'personhood' from a purely rational perspective, consider this; it's estimated that the human body has between 50 and 75 trillion cells. If we go back to basic biology, you'll remember that when the sperm penetrates the egg, the resulting single cell is called a zygote. At this point, Personhood USA refers to this material as a 'person'...but is it? Read on to refresh your memory about how embryonic development occurs:
The zygote spends the next few days traveling down the Fallopian tube and divides to form a ball of cells. The zygote continues to divide, creating an inner group of cells with an outer shell. This stage is called a blastocyst. The inner group of cells will become the embryo, while the outer group of cells will become the membranes that nourish and protect it.
The blastocyst reaches the womb (uterus) around day 5, and implants into the uterine wall on about day 6....The cells of the embryo now multiply and begin to take on specific functions. This process is called differentiation. It leads to the various cell types that make up a human being (such as blood cells, kidney cells, and nerve cells).
I've bolded the sentence that highlights the biggest flaw in the personhood argument -- a point I have yet to see any anti-choice advocate refute.
In the early stages of fetal development, only a small portion of the cells actually become 'the baby.' The other portion becomes the placenta, the support material that makes a full-term pregnancy possible but is 'thrown out' after birth -- in fact, it's often called 'afterbirth.' Afterbirth arises from embryonic tissue, but it is not a 'person.'
So personhood amendments, in effect, are elevating the cells of the zygote by labeling all of them a 'person' when many of them will never grow into a human being and lack the potential to do so. In fact, can anyone tell the difference between the cells of the zygote that will become the fetus and those that will develop into the placenta?
As for the fetus itself, cell differentiation doesn't begin until after day 6 following conception.
Keep this in mind as we go back and compare the woman with the zygote.
What rational, intelligent, thinking human being would say, "Yes, I agree that the rights of the 50-70 trillion cells of the mother should be superseded by the rights of the 32-celled zygote when it's not even clear which of those cells will become a baby and which will become the placenta which will be thrown out after birth."
That's what Personhood USA is saying, and it's not only an irrational argument, it's an incredibly emotional and uninformed position to take.
I'll support 'personhood' when Mason and Zastrow can look at a multi-celled embryo and tell me which ones will grow and emerge as a baby, speak its first words, take its first steps, attend kindergarten, learn to read, go to prom, graduate from high school, get a job, pay taxes, marry or live alone, raise children (or not) and eventually die...and which ones will become the placenta and get 'thrown out.'
Because Personhood USA is adamantly opposed to throwing out cells -- it intends to empower them by making them 'persons' at an arbitrary point in embryonic development. But it ignores basic biology and attempts to slap a simplistic, emotionally-laced definition of 'personhood' on a cellular mass of genetic material, some of which may or may not have the potential to become human life.
And there's the rub. When we begin to falsely empower placenta cells -- in an attempt to protect human life and 'unborn babies' -- and trample the basic rights of women in the U.S., then something is terribly, terribly wrong. And smart, intelligent, rational women and men cannot stand aside and let this happen without a fight.
There are so many monkey wrenches being thrown into Congress' attempt to pass a health care reform bill that it can be hard to separate fiction from fact.
One example is the claim that government funds will be used to pay for abortion. And another is that the government health insurance program known as Medicare is so ill-managed that fraud eats up roughly 13% -- or $6o billion -- of its $456 billion budget; and if Medicare is such a mess, we'd be stupid to extend government health care further. Right?
Few of us have the knowledge, resources, time or energy to fact check every claim back to its original source. But when determined people take the time to do so, it can be disturbing to find out what turns up.
Recently, the well-respected grandparent of all news magazine shows, 60 Minutes, did a segment on Medicare fraud, citing those numbers I mentioned above -- specifically the alleged $60 million figure. One of my About.com colleagues, Pierre Tristam (who also writes for the Daytona Beach News-Journal), felt discouraged by the story, thinking it was another nail in the coffin for health care reform. So he started calling around to verify the facts, beginning with the producers of 60 Minutes:
It didn't take long for the story to unravel. There are no facts. "60 Minutes" doesn't know how much Medicare fraud there is. You don't know. I don't know. The federal government doesn't know. Nobody knows, because Medicare fraud as a whole isn't tracked. That's why "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft said fraud is "estimated now to total about $60 billion a year." Estimated. Fine. By whom?
Pierre tried to find the original source for that very specific number, and a 60 Minutes spokesperson handed him over to the Justice Department, where they attempted to pass him off to Health and Human Services. He describes his search and his ultimate findings in "Loose With Numbers: Medicare Fraud Report a Fiction" and tells us, "Those are the numbers -- the fictions -- shaping public opinion across the country and public policy in Washington."
What makes this story a women's issue?
Health care reform is in our best interests. If it's passed, we'll see the elimination of many gender inequities that persist in the current system such as charging women more for insurance than men and calling 'domestic violence' a pre-existing condition and denying coverage.
But more important, it teaches us to question everything that's placed in front of us as 'fact.' So many times, women don't trust their own instincts, experiences, or background knowledge. We get shouted down in debates, or feel unsure of our own research and findings, or hesitate to express an opinion for fear that we might be wrong.
When the most honored of investigative journalism news programs gets it wrong, that tells us that the 'facts' can be slanted, or misunderstood, or selectively chosen (or ignored) to support or discredit a position on a key issue. Or a piece of legislation -- like health care reform -- that will enhance women's lives.
Keep this in mind the next time a politician or pundit spews forth a laundry list of facts and figures to back up his or her argument. If there were a fact checker verifying every claim, how much of it would really be ' the truth'?
We all knew that at some juncture in the health care debate, pro-life and pro-choice advocates would confront each other...and abortion would become a sticking point. Several issues previously targeted as potential deal breakers -- including a public option -- have been resolved through compromise and careful negotiation. But abortion has never engendered civil discourse between opposing sides. One of the prime arguments put forth by abortion opponents is that the issue could derail health care reform...so pro-choice advocates had better back off in pushing for it.
We have just reached the crossroads where push comes to shove.
As the Christian Science Monitor notes, one member of the House claims there are enough anti-abortion Democrats to prevent health care reform supporters from reaching 218 votes, which is the minimum count needed for a majority in the House. That person is Representative Bart Stupak (D-Michigan) who says he has 40 Democrats who'll side with him in opposing anything that might allow federal funds to be used for abortion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has received letters (signed by some of those supporters) asking that an anti-abortion amendment to the reform bill be considered.
Yesterday afternoon, Stupak's office released a statement which made clear where he draws the line in the sand: "I will oppose bringing the bill to the floor until an amendment can be offered or language agreed to that will prevent public funding for abortion."
Is this really necessary? As the Monitor points out:
Currently, a federal law known as the Hyde Amendment already prevents the federal funding of abortion. In the drafting of health reform legislation, members of Congress worked to keep the reform "abortion neutral."
In what is known as the Capps Amendment, named for its author, Rep. Lois Capps (D) of California, the reform would allow private health care plans included in a new insurance marketplace to cover abortion, as long as the funds were segregated. In other words, an individual's private funds would be used for abortion coverage, not federal monies....
Advocates of abortion rights argue that the Capps Amendment's provision that separates public from private funds succeeds in keeping the legislation "abortion neutral." Keeping funds separate is a technique already used by the government....[F]ederal Medicaid funds and state matching funds may not be used for abortion, but states have the option of providing supplemental abortion coverage.
Pro-choice advocacy groups such as NARAL believe that Stupak is seeking an outright ban on abortion in the new system health care reform would create. At the very least, his efforts will reduce the reproductive health care coverage women currently have, as NARAL states 85% of private insurers cover abortion.
Even USA Today supports abortion coverage for women and decries its use as weapon against health care reform. Here's what they said on their opinion page:
As long as abortion remains a legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure, it ought to be covered by insurance plans, private or public. Regardless of how the issue plays out in Congress, though, it mustn't be allowed to scuttle the urgently needed effort to overhaul the nation's dysfunctional health care system.
