On Hardball right now, Matthews is grilling Axelrod that abortion may be covered under the potential health plans, and said “what about people who think abortion is immoral.”
Well, screw ’em. The government is constantly doing things that some people think is immoral. Lots of people think it is immoral to wage war. We got two of ’em going right now. Lots of people think it is immoral put people in jail for nonviolent drug offenses. Got a few of those folks in jail right now, too. And on and on.
Other than the implications of the Hyde amendment, this shouldn’t be the slightest concern to anyone crafting the health care legislation.
James Hare
Lots of people think the death penalty and we never even get a fair hearing. I guess the difference is if you’re trying to control womens’ bodies, you are automatically credible enough to demand satisfaction.
arguingwithsignposts
And now he’s got Rudy G911iani on talking about destroying the health care system. It’s all about changing the tax code. sigh.
General Winfield Stuck
I think Tweety invoked the E word, “evil”. You just never know what will come out of his mouth. And yes, fuck em with a rusty Pogo stick. We all have had to eat shit sandwiches with our tax dollars. The government using tax money to torture people jumps to mind.
JenJen
Yes. But RUDY!
demkat620
How about the people who think the War in Iraq is immoral? Why is it only the people on the right side of any political issue are due deference?
The Anti abortion, pro death penalty, anti sex, anti equality people get treated with kid gloves because of religion. Why?
My religion says no death penalty, life begins at birth, no war and love each other as you want to be loved.
Why am I treated like the freak?
Martin
Blood transfusions are immoral to Jehova’s Witnesses.
Psychatric services are immoral to Scientologists.
Fuck, government run health care is immoral to Republicans.
Oh, and I guess gays won’t get coverage under Obama’s health plan either, because they’re all immoral and shit too.
arguingwithsignposts
I’ll give it to G911liani on the birth certificate thing. “I think we should get off it.” He’s liable to get excommunicated the way Tweety phrased the question.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fucking catholics.
MBunge
How are most elective surgical procedures treated under potential reform plans?
Mike
Incertus
And in the meantime, even anti-choice Dems can’t get any love from anti-choice groups if they support contraception as part of an abortion-reduction policy.
Tell you what–those fucks who have a problem with a woman’s right to choose can have their tax dollars go to building F-22s and killing civilian populations and people like me can have our dollars go to health care for everyone. Deal?
TX Expat
A public health care plan that doesn’t cover women’s reproductive health (yes, including abortion) is no kind of plan at all and would most likely be a violation the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.
As if it needs to be said, Chris Matthews needs to STFU.
We’ve seen how focusing on abstinence has worked out – skyrocketing teen pregnancy, syphilis (good grief, people still get that???) and gonorrhea. Here’s the story from The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/20/bush-teen-pregnancy-cdc-report
Thing of it is, how can any person said to be free if they don’t have complete control over their bodies? Furthermore, this type of rule disproportionately impacts poor women. You know damn well that if Chris Matthew’s wife or daughter (if he has one) were pregnant and needed an abortion (for health reasons or otherwise – none of my business) she would get one. Grrr!
Tom65
Fine, don’t have one.
SATSQ
gypsy howell
Tweety is first and always Irish Catholic. Abortion is icky, and that’s all that matters to him.
Meanwhile, featured on the front page of my repulsive representative Mr PITTS website: “Joe Exposes Hidden Abortion Mandate in Healthcare Reform.”
Yelli
And speaking of f—ed logic, has anyone seen the newest Republican Talking Points? This article is getting passed around by “people who supported Obama.”
http://tinyurl.com/morerepubbs
inkadu
Paying federal income tax is immoral.
vacuumslayer
Exactly. I’m offended by lots of things my tax dollars are spent on, like the murder of thousands and thousands of Americans and Iraqis. I guess the anti-choice people need to suck it up just like I do.
Da Bomb
It’s just another way to turn Obamacare into the evil rapture shit that conservatives think it is.
Next they will somehow convince the morans that Obama will turn the American public into flesh eating zombies, because the government will release a secret toxin in the air, so people will get sick and the only way they can get cured is by having “gubmint sponsored healthcare”.
Idjits!
inkadu
@Yelli: Wow. Reading that was like reading a Quaker’s arguments against the Iraq War. You know they’re not going to support it no matter what, so all their arguments are moot from word one.
Da Bomb
@TX Expat: According to Govenah Perry, any STD can be cured by a shot and looking at his plastic shiny hair.
Dork
I’m pretty certain cable news shows have a quota of the number of times they must say controversial shit, to drive ratings.
Clearly they were way behind on their abortion terms, so they had Matthews just throwin’ junk out there to see what nutjobs would dial in.
vacuumslayer
And may I just say I am so tired of the anti-choice people and their goddamn incessant squawking? I mean, they NEVER shut up. It’s settled law, asshats. Yes, those slutty, no-good women have the right to decide what goes on in their own bodies. Deal with it. Then shut the fuck up.
dmsilev
When Tweety covers abortion, has he ever had a woman on as a guest? It always seems to be men, or maybe my memory is playing games with me. It’d be nice to see (for example) Joan Walsh smack him upside the head once in a while.
-dms
slag
But our teenage pregnancy and syphilis numbers are already on the rise. This advice seems slightly counter productive.
Other than that, I couldn’t agree more.
Just Some Fuckhead
My Indian compatriots think eating cows and monitoring volcanoes is immoral.
arguingwithsignposts
@vacuumslayer:
from an earlier comment by Joe from Lowell:
I’m still thinking bumperstickers. Maybe it’s my new sideline.
TX Expat
@Da Bomb:
Looking at (or more effective still, listening to) him, at least for me, eradicates all form of sexual thoughts.
Secession, bitches! snark….
vacuumslayer
@slag:
“But our teenage pregnancy and syphilis numbers are already on the rise.”
But, hey at least they get those nifty purity rings. They’re sparkly!
kth
Matthews’ objection might make sense if anti-abortion voters were a swing constituency, but they aren’t.
arguingwithsignposts
And from Freeperville via Sadly, No! – some more of that treason/rebellion stuff that seems to be going around.
It’s only been six months and already they’re this far gone. Do we really have to suffer through 7 1/2 more years of the wingularity?
Maybe I’m just blocking the memories, but even when I was a semi-wingnut myself (similar to JC), I don’t remember seeing the “moonbats” going this far. Perhaps it’s because the Dem leadership were actually somewhat moderate and sane, so the far left got pushed to the curb. I don’t know.
Wallace
What’s customary? Do most employer-sponsored plans cover abortion?
Yelli
I don’t know if any of you saw this on Yglesias but going back to the abortion point, haven’t we already established this has nothing to do with saving precious fetuses and more to do with
Indylib
OT Dem. Ohio Congressman Boccieri has gotten together with 22 other Congressmen that have served in the military and written to Roger Ailes and demanded an apology for that what douchebag Lt. Col. Peters said on not one, but 2 Faux News shows about Pfc. Bergdahl being a deserter and how the Taliban could save us legal fees by just killing the poor kid.
http://boccieri.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=216&Itemid=64
Best quote –
“Mr. Peters’ comments are so far beyond the pale that they don’t even approach the decorum and respect deserved by a member of the United States Armed Forces. Mr. Peters’ indefensible comments call into question, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, PFC Bergdahl’s patriotism and commitment to his country, and suggest in a non-subtle way that he deserved to be captured. The events surrounding the capture of PFC Bergdahl are irrelevant at this point. The only priority should be his safe and immediate release to U.S. forces.”
Pro Life Dem
It may not matter to you but what might matter is that having tax payers fund birth control aboritons will endanger the entire legislation. There are dozens of dems, many not blue dogs who will not support it under aboriton is out.
So what’s the big deal? Take elective surgery out, whether it be abortion, cosmetic surgery, etc. that way you get votes and affect the plan minimally.
linda
tweety’s all about punishing those slutty whores who had sex. they must pay the consequences.
i’ve actually heard him describe women as deciding, hohum, that it would be inconvenient to have a baby right now, so off to the abortion bar they go.
and there’s nothing that pisses me off more than to watch a panel of middleaged white MEN opine on who will control women’s healthcare. and it ain’t ever the woman.
oh, and don’t get too hopeful about his birther dust-up last nite — he had deedee myers and fat tony blankley on to describe how ‘the other side’ has nitwits just as nitwitty as the birthers in the mean things they said about idiot son and the puppetmaster.
TX Expat
@Wallace:
Short answer is yes. The figure is around 90% according to a 2002 survey by the Guttmacher Institute.
Olliander
Last I checked, those procedures don’t terminate life. But, what’s a triviality to get in the way of some highminded narrative. Carry on….
inkadu
@Wallace: I can’t tell if most insurance provider plans cover abortion or not. From what I can tell from the web (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/spib_RICA.pdf) five states restrict private plans, and 12 restrict their public plans.
The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/07/ap_botches_abortion_statistic.asp) says that most plans do not, in fact, cover abortions unless the safety of the mother (but, you know, since child birth is probably the single riskiest medical procedure a women will undertake in her life…).
So I’m guessing if the state doesn’t REQUIRE it’s covered — and I don’t see anywhere that they do — then insurance companies are not going to offer it.
Seebach
Last I checked, those procedures don’t terminate life.
Abortion doesn’t terminate life. It just removes the blastocyst from the welfare teat it’s been abusing. It’s perfectly capable of pulling itself up from its bootstraps and continue cell division on its own. If it’s too lazy to do so, that’s its problem.
Interrobang
Last I checked, those procedures don’t terminate life.
So, uh, question: Do you think that if someone invades my house with the intent to take my stuff and do me bodily harm, I have the right to use appropriate force to remove them, up to and including killing them?
If so, why is it that you have a problem with the idea of doing the same if someone invades my body with the intent of taking my stuff (like some of the nutrients from my food, and the calcium from my bones) and doing me bodily harm (such as the physiological changes that inevitably occur with pregnancy, never mind deadly shit like eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and infections)? That’s somehow okay if it happens and I don’t want it to?
‘Cause when you get right down to it, it’s still my body, I was here first, and I get to say what happens to it.
Anybody who claims this is about “life” is a moron anyway — sperm is alive too, but nobody panics when billions of men wank and then flush their used kleenexes, and eggs are alive, but nobody panics because tampons are legal; but ah, let men think for an instant that women can no longer be forced into having babies, and they get really antsy.
scav
@Olliander: Ah, but alas and alack! as blood transfusions may terminate one’s immortal life should they not be even more vehemently opposed?! What, simply WHAT have you got against people’s very souls!
DBrown
@Pro Life Dem: Are you that ignorant on this subject that you believe abortion is elective surgery? Try learning what elective surgery is before you talk about a subject you know less than zero about. This is a health issue in most cases and sometimes, decides if the mother will live. That’s not elective.
slag
@vacuumslayer: Whenever I think of purity rings, I think of things like this:
And then I laugh.
JGabriel
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Catholics mirror the rest of the country in terms of being pro-choice – if anything, they’re slightly more liberal, on average. It’s the bishops and a conservative minority that are really vocal about the issue.
Fundies, in general, are way more anti-choice than catholics.
.
jenniebee
Matthews gets hung up on the Hyde amendment, which I don’t see how it applies if a public option is revenue-neutral. If public customers, not taxpayers, are ponying up the cash voluntarily to be covered by a public plan then nobody’s being forced to pay for abortion (unless you’re a crazy uncle who thinks that tax incentives “force” you to wear a cardigan).
Matthews then went on to talk about the politics of the costs. The only explanations I’ve seen about those costs are Robert Reich’s. His take is that the cost of the bill is largely because it’s loaded with goodies for pharma and providers to make them willing to back it. All the ‘pubs are spinning it that it’s the public option that is the expensive part.
TX Expat
@inkadu:
Ok, found the study I was referencing above (w/a handy chart even!). They surveyed private insurers around the country and found that 9 of the 10 most commonly purchased by employers did cover it.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/07/2/gr070204.html
Public funds are another story and there are indeed 5 states that prohibit even private insurers from covering abortion.
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/choice-action-center/in_your_state/who-decides/fast-facts/issues-insurance-prohibition.html
slag
I watched Barack Obama “terminate life” right there on my teevee when he swatted that fly. I “terminate life” every time I exfoliate my skin. And I won’t even go into details of how many plants I’ve killed in my time. As a concept, the termination of life means very little in our world. So, farewell, cruel platitude.
Zifnab
@slag: Sorry. Rephrase that as “terminate innocent white Jesus babies”. Remember, every abortion is like murdering Jesus in the womb. Imagine if Jesus was aborted. Then we wouldn’t be here moralizing you to death over the right for a woman to see a gynocologist while you’re suffering from a pre-existing condition your private insurer won’t cover.
There are 1.3 million abortions a year. That means you don’t get your stinking socialized medicine unless you eat my magic crackers. So suck it, evil America.
Ruckus
@Interrobang:
Nicely stated. Even some of us OWM agree that if we all keep control of our own bodies, life would be much better.
slag
@Zifnab: Magic Crackers: the other white meat.
And let’s be honest. If those Jesus Babies really wanted to be born, they would have gotten themselves hooked up with parents who were able and willing to have them. But they didn’t, did they? Freakin’ Whiney Ass Jesus Babies! I’m with @Seebach on this one.
kay
@Pro Life Dem:
“So what’s the big deal? Take elective surgery out, whether it be abortion, cosmetic surgery, etc. that way you get votes and affect the plan minimally.”
I think you’d end up right back at “life or health of the mother”.
“Elective” has different definitions.
You’re going to have to give me the pro-life definition.
As an example, is abortion “elective” to you if my carrying a baby threatens my life or health? I mean, it isn’t “elective” to me. It’s emergency medical care, and I gotta tell you, it may be selfish and threaten health care reform, and I hate to be a pain in the ass, but I don’t think I can offer that concession on a good-faith basis. This “life” definition gets bigger and bigger all the time. I understand the more dogmatic pro-lifers are throwing anti-abortion Democrats out of the pro-life tent for advocating birth control. That’s a broad definition of “life”.
DBrown
As for the people that don’t want abortion to be funded with ‘tax’ dollars in a Federal Health system all I can say is – ‘How is your money being spent now?’ Have you helped to pay (with all extra funds you have besides housing and food) the costs that a number of woman endure who carry a fetus to term and deliver a child that will not survive at all except using extreme medical care that costs many tens of thousands of dollars but then, the baby will live only one to two weeks and in pain.
With todays internet you could easily find such people right now who may have to decide to terminate because they can’t afford the costs to let the child live a few days. You can live up to your beliefs and provide funding for their delivery and ‘put your money where your mouth is”.
No?
Where are your values now?
Oh, I see. Your values don’t include spending your money to support your morals … what does that make you?
Tonal Crow
GOP ’em. Why should their “morals” get more solicitude than ours? Plus, caving on this will just encourage the GOPers to move the goalposts another 10 yards right. When will Congressional Democrats learn that you win by fighting, not by conceding?
JR -- Bryan, TX
Couldn’t agree more — I found something immoral damn near every day of the Reagan and both Bushie administrations.
Fight, you fucking spineless Dems, or you deserve your losses.
phillygirl
John. You were a Republican? How did that happen?
Blue Raven
And as far as removing “elective” surgery from the plan goes, my fibroid tumors would like to have a chat with you about how my getting them removed qualifies as “elective” surgery before the largest one, which is the size of a baby’s head, gets shoved down your throat, AntiWomanDem.
kay
I wrote my Senator and told him I thought it was immoral for him to accept the Congressional health insurance when Congress can’t or won’t draft and pass a bill.
He wrote back, and he hasn’t accepted the Congressional health insurance since Clinton’s plan failed, and won’t until there is a national plan.
I wrote him back and told him he can’t have recess until he’s done with his work, in any event.
I’m a little embarrassed at my idle threat to take “recess” away. It’s like he’s a 4th grader.
Martin
Won’t change a thing. There’s a fuckton of non-elective abortions out there.
And then what? No contraceptives? No gene therapy? There’s no end to it. How about a different plan:
The government insurance plan covers whatever doctors collectively deem should be covered for their patients. Maybe, just maybe, they know better than we do.
Jen R
Percentage of women reporting that specified reasons contributed to their decision to have an abortion, 2004:
Having a baby would dramatically change my life 74%
Can’t afford a baby now 73%
Don’t want to be a single mother or having relationship problems 48%
Have completed my childbearing 38%
Not ready for a(nother) child 32%
Don’t want people to know I had sex or got pregnant 25%
Don’t feel mature enough to raise a(nother) child 22%
Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion 14%
Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus 13%
Physical problem with my health 12%
Parents want me to have an abortion 6%
Was a victim of rape 1%
Became pregnant as a result of incest <0.5%
Guttmacher Institute, “Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions:
Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives” (PDF) (HTML)
asiangrrlMN
@vacuumslayer: Yes, I totally agree with you and everyone else who has nicely shot down all the fucking platitudes about abortion.
If we are going to say what can and can’t be taxed or given money according to individual morality codes, then I withdraw my taxes from the war, from Congressional healthcare until universal healthcare is passed, from giving money to red states at a higher rate than they give to the feds, from subsidizing big Agra and big Pharma, from anything that has anything to do with the death penalty, from giving Wall Street any more of a handout than they have already gotten, from Octopussy and any other person who decides to have a litter and expects the state and/or donations to pay for it, from anything that has anything to do with any religion (in fact, they shouldn’t be tax-exempt in the first place), and that’s just for starters, people.
Your idea of morality does not trump my idea of morality or anyone else’s. Shut.the.fuck.up.
asiangrrlMN
Damn moderation. Let’s see if I got the right word.
@vacuumslayer: Yes, I totally agree with you and everyone else who has nicely shot down all the fucking platitudes about abortion.
If we are going to say what can and can’t be taxed or given money according to individual morality codes, then I withdraw my taxes from the war, from Congressional healthcare until universal healthcare is passed, from giving money to red states at a higher rate than they give to the feds, from subsidizing big Agra and big Pharma, from anything that has anything to do with the death penalty, from giving Wall Street any more of a handout than they have already gotten, from Octokitty and any other person who decides to have a litter and expects the state and/or donations to pay for it, from anything that has anything to do with any religion (in fact, they shouldn’t be tax-exempt in the first place), and that’s just for starters, people.
Your idea of morality does not trump my idea of morality or anyone else’s. Shut.the.fuck.up.
P.S. Add p u s s y to the list of mod words.
Comrade Dread
Well, since I don’t want either, and I don’t want to subsidize corporations or special interests either, I guess that means I get to keep my money, in which case, it’s a deal. Woo-hoo!
grendelkhan
I’d noticed Jill Stanek trying to stir up excitement about this, but I didn’t know that it actually had a chance of working. (She also posts about how Americans are currently growing more conservative, hence my skepticism.) Ugh. What a stupid mess.