Bart Stupak is either lying or stupid (or both) when he said this:
Whether public funds should be used for abortion services is exactly the sort of issue we should be debating openly on the floor of the House of Representatives. My amendment to include Hyde language in H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, is not new or out of line with the current policies regarding federal funding for abortions. There is a strong precedent going back more than 30 years for adding Hyde language. The ban on federal funding for abortions is a long-standing American policy that has been in place since the 1970s and has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
This amendment is not about limiting choice when it comes to abortion services. There is nothing in the amendment that prevents those who choose to obtain abortion services from doing so. The Hyde language simply says taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for those services. Just as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) does not provide plans that cover abortion services, nor should the plans for individuals who enter into the public option or receive federal subsidies for healthcare cover abortions. They are free to purchase a supplemental plan or pay for these services with their own money should they so choose.
No. They’ve been fighting me since July on this. My reaction is that they are saying that no insurance policies will be able to sell abortion coverage, and that is not true. All the members have to do is look at their update that they got from the majority leader, Steny Hoyer [D-MD], that he sent to us about three minutes before 10 [o’clock Saturday night], before we voted on the amendments. Basically, he said, ‘Look, the Stupak amendment is the Hyde amendment. You can’t use federal funds to pay for abortions. However, you can get supplemental coverage, and it does not prevent private insurance companies from selling elective abortion coverage.’ I think the only surprise I have is how much they’ve mischaracterized the amendment, even after their own majority leader report that we all get before we vote clearly states the purpose of the amendment and shows it’s not greater than current law, so all this about taking away women’s rights, restricting it–it’s no different from the restrictions right now.
Because the facts in this case pretty clearly demonstrate that the Stupak amendment goes well beyond Hyde and is a radical piece of legislation:
The George Washington School of Public Health and Health Services has analyzed Stupak-Pitts, and concludes that “the Amendment would produce industry-wide effects, leading to the elimination of health plan coverage for nearly all medically indicated abortions.”
Additionally, “based on past experiences with claim administration decisions involving treatment exclusions,” the analysts conclude that insurers are likely to interpret the exclusion broadly, and exclude not just elective abortions, but also medically indicated abortion and “treatments for serious illnesses, injuries, and medical conditions that include an abortion undertaken for health reasons.” Insurance administrators, they find, are likely to err on the side of coverage denail in order to avoid sanctions.
So not only does Bart Stupak either not know what his amendment does, or he is lying about it, but he wants to blow up the entire health care bill if he doesn’t get his way in the Senate, a legislative body of which he is not even a member.
Who do we send money to to primary this guy? I left the GOP in large part because of the godbotherers.
Just Some Fuckhead
Whatever it takes to save the precious little blastocysts..
Nuetron Flux
This is not an either, or question.
He is clearly both.
Just Some Fuckhead
At any rate, this really is great news for Republicans.
John Sears
Bart Stupak is a monstrous liar who’d rather women get their guts torn out with coathangers than get away with having sex outside of marriage.
To people like him, a lie told for the sake of Jesus is the highest form of truth.
Midnight Marauder
Fixed, and all that jazz.
Charity
@John Sears: While men blithely go merrily on their way. God, I wish men could get pregnant. Abortion would not only be legal, they’d serve champagne and hors d’oeuvres in the waiting room.
feebog
I’ll make this simple; he is lying. A like amendment is not going to be added to the Senate bill. Stupak’s amendment will be stripped out in conference and he knows it. Will he vote against the final bill if that happens? Don’t know. The question is will any other Pro-Life Dems follow him if he does.
Jon O.
Don’t forget, he’s also a C Street asshole.
(Fun aside: “C Street” was the name of the gay bar in the town where I went to college. As far as I know, it wasn’t as debaucherous as the house in DC.)
Chat Noir
Assholes like Stupak are too cowardly to submit a bill to ban abortion outright so they hide behind shenanigans like his amendment to the health care reform bill.
And Pitts? He’s going to vote “no” on any final healthcare reform bill even if the Stupak-Pitts amendment is included, per Rachel Maddow last night.
Now I’m back to feeling like healthcare reform isn’t going to pass. Shoot me now.
John Sears
@Charity: We’re not all like that, you know.
JC has a good idea about the primary thing. Someone should set up an ActBlue style page to gather funds for a primary challenger to Stupak. The only way he’ll get pushed out is with an asston of money.
I’d gladly skip my next videogame purchase to chip in 50 bucks.
kay
Now he has a study that he can point to and conclude that his amendment might have unintended consequences, and the language should track Hyde.
He should grab that, and back down.
Sadly, I think he’s too far into this to make a reversal himself.
Is there someone who voted for this in the House who is willing to reverse publicly, based on better information of its possible consequences? That might help.
Chat Noir
@Charity: Exactly.
Punchy
At least Walmart sponsors elective abortions. In aisle 5, next to the plastic variety and other closet-related items
ellaesther
The thing that frightens me John is that I think that he is very likely not stupid. So, I guess I go with Big, Egregious Liar — of the school of: Tell a big enough lie often enough, and people will believe it. (Hey, that’s kinda Nazi! Maybe STUPAK’S the Nazi!)
This all makes me so angry I can hardly see straight. The lies that rich men tell about the bodies of underclass women enrage me. And those women will remain firmly underclass because if you can’t afford the abortion, you’ll have the baby and have to find a way to afford a kid. And that’s a lot more expensive, both literally, and in a social sense. Fucking hell.
I wrote this yesterday, but I will do so again now: Yesterday I blogged about Stupak, and provided links to some more information about the amendment and how to fight it, as well as an old newspaper commentary I wrote about my own abortion and the fact that we in America don’t even begin to discuss this issue honestly. If you’re interested in a little activism, or honest discussion about the abortions so many of us actually have, please come on by.
Kirk Spencer
@feebog: Mostly agreed.
The Senate bill is supposed to be available for reading tonight – released to the floor at ~5:30 pm. As soon as it’s available online I intend to read it to start figuring out the outside limits for the final (between house and senate bills).
But if Stupak like language is not in the Senate bill, it’s not going to get added to the bill. It appears that this is a case of Republicans being hoisted by their own petard – they forced a set of rules that boil down to any amendment needing two votes, the first of which is a 60 vote threshold for “consideration for amendment”. 60 votes for “should this be considered for the bill”, then 51 for “add this to the bill.”
ain’t gonna happen if it’s not there already.
Oh – and this bill might not cross the magic 60 vote cloture threshold itself. That is another petard, as a big chunk (again, what parts will be better known after it’s released) will then come in from the 51 vote backdoor — and it’s likely to be more liberal. (read, in most cases, better in the eyes of progressives.)
Molly
I watched his interview on Hardball yesterday. He’s being incredibly disingenuous. “The ban on federal funding for abortions is a long-standing American policy that has been in place since the 1970s and has been upheld by the Supreme Court.”
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. He knows EXACTLY what he’s doing. As said above, he’s going far beyond the Hyde amendment…it makes me so fucking mad I want to slap the man. Women can just choose supplemental insurance for abortions? What planet is this idiot living on? “You know, I’m going to pay some extra cash just in case I need an abortion in the future, because, you know, every woman needs to prepare for that. Cancer, heart disease, and abortion.”
I’ve rarely been so mad at a public official. I want him out of public life. I understand the idea of keeping him around because on other issues, he’s solid. I don’t like advocating taking a dissenting voice out of the Democratic party. But this guy…what he is doing here is beyond the pale, and stands to do a hell of a lot more harm to women if passed than any good things he’s done. Get him a gig with Right to Life, let him go write his book and become their hero, and get his ass out.
Kirk Spencer
Ah, I just did a bit of digging.
Stupak is considering running for governor of MI in 2010. That complicates the issue a bit.
Seebach
Honestly, I have to wonder if this had been planned by some think tank. This is actually a very clever way to ban all abortion, even in liberal states like New York and California. Horrendously insane, but effective.
asiangrrlMN
@ellaesther: You got it, ellaesther. It’s just a game, really, to men like Stupak. He doesn’t see the women who have to make these choices as real. He cannot fathom what it would be like to be poor, not privileged, female, and barely surviving, so he doesn’t give a shit. His supposed morals are waaaay more important than any mere human being. Makes me sick.
@Jon O.: He’s a C-Streeter? Even less of a surprise. I am glad that their building got its tax-exempt status revoked.
The Grand Panjandrum
What galls me more than anything is that I share great great grandparents with this lying jackal. Fuck me to tears.
John Sears
@Seebach: At times like this I start to wonder if all of American democracy isn’t actually an elaborate Blofeldian plot to destroy Western Civilization.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
I think you continue to be far too generous in your characterization of Stupak, kay. There’s not a chance in hell that he would accept this study as an opportunity to back down because, in his mind, there’s nothing to back down from. The amendment did exactly what he wanted it to do. This is not some kind of mistake we’re talking about here. This is a coldly calculated plan being executed in a disturbingly flawless fashion, for the most part. He’s not going to reverse himself because, again, this is what he believes. He’s a C-Street creep. This is the kind of shit those guys pull all the time.
Seriously, this asshole does not deserve anything resembling the benefit of the doubt. This is a feature, not a bug.
El Cid
On Rachel Maddow last night, Stupak was quoted as saying he had 10-20 votes he could keep voting against the bill.
That’s down from the 40 he claimed he had last week.
In addition, Stupak’s own office clarified that the Republican co-author Pitts of the Stupak-Pitts amendment would not vote for the bill whether or not the amendment was on it.
It’s just an attempt at a poison pill. Duh.
Max
@ellaesther: I read and commented at your blog because your piece was very moving to me and I appreciated your raising a point of view that doesn’t get raised.
It’s amazing to me that because of social stigmas, women are shamed into hiding the fact that they have had a completely legal procedure.
Sex tape? No problem, god forgives.
DUI? No problem, god forgives.
Adultry? No problem, god forgives.
Embezzlement and rape, ala Jim Baker? No problem, god forgives.
Murder? Hey, as long as you accept Jesus Christ as your savior right before they stick the needle in your arm, god forgives.
Abortion? You’re going to burn in hell.
Hypocracy.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I look at this from a different perspective.
Well, ok, Stupak isn’t somebody I want as a Democrat and he’s a lying sack of shit in all of this.
That being said…
Suppose this is simply a cunning plan by Pelosi to galvanize a shitload of support for a better bill, one she might not have gotten thru the House? I mean there’s nothing like an effective legislative ban on abortion to get the populace on both sides of the aisle up in arms. I mean shunting aside the batshit, wingnut, fundie, everyspermisprecious crowd, a majority in this country has supported abortion rights since 1973, nothing has changed.
Thus, when that looks to be directly imperiled, it’s amazing how many indies and moderate repups come out of the woodwork to agitate for something.
Now, this could all be the hoooeey talking but then again, Pelosi has done something with a real tactical flair as the process goes, particularly in the Senate. I mean now all we’re hearing about is how the Senate will strip that provision from *the House bill* and very little about passing some stoopid, fuck
Baucususeless bill.Zifnab
@Charity:
You know what I’ve been waiting for? Male birth control.
I know this may come as a shock to all the GOP limp dicks, but I’m at a considerable risk of getting a girl pregnant when my condom breaks or when she doesn’t take her pill on time. That’s not cool for me either.
This isn’t even just men versus women. This is old versus young. The 20-something kids in college hook up after a football game. He’s got no insurance. She’s got no insurance. Neither of them want to have kids. Both of them know it.
Sucks to be both of you, though, because Bart Stupak has a morale prerogative he needs to fulfill. If you’re a virile young teenager or aspiring young professional, you don’t get to choose whether or not you get to have kids short of confining your social life to a sock in your drawer.
Fuck that. A bunch of grandparents passing legislation to hamstring the kids of their kids for the next generation.
Seebach
It’s so obvious in retrospect, it just screams. Who couldn’t have guessed it would be the pro-life movement that prevented affordable healthcare for all?
Kanamit
If I was old enough I’d have half a mind to move to the Upper Peninsula and primary him myself, assuming no one else runs.
The Grand Panjandrum
BTW the government has subsidized selective abortions since Roe v. Wade. It’s called the Employer Tax Deduction for providing health insurance. Stupak is a ratfucking busybody godbotherer.
asiangrrlMN
@Max: Brilliant. You have said it in a nutshell. Why is it that abortion is the only supposedly unforgivable sin in the eyes of the rightwingnutters? Could it be because it’s only women who can have them?
Jonny Scrum-half
I don’t know enough to have an opinion either way, but for what it’s worth Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler has a different viewpoint about the Stupak issue.
SpotWeld
After all the fear-mongering about how the attempts at medical reform would result in the goverment interfering with a doctor’s ability to care for patients, it now becomes apparent that the Right-wing is activly attempting to insert legislation that is precisely calculated to interfere with a doctor’s ability to provide care for thier patients…
This is not a difficult idea to get a across, it’s certainly a timely and “hot” topic…
So, when will be the prime time special on this?
asiangrrlMN
@The Grand Panjandrum: Seriously? I weep for you.
ellaesther
@Max: Thank you very much for saying so. I ran a few pieces like that one over the course of few years, kind of following the battle around the country through the commentary pages of newspapers, and I was always touched by the women who would thank me for putting it up front like that. It makes me so angry that women have to feel grateful to someone just for being honest.
John Sears
@The Grand Panjandrum: GWU points that out in their analysis, actually.
Chat Noir
@Kirk Spencer:
Then that would mean he would be challenging John Cherry, the current lieutenant governor (a Democrat).
A Thousand Faces
First off, let me say that I’m not a troll and I’m am extremely pro choice. That said, how many private insurers cover abortions right now? How many women that get abortions even have health insurance in the first place? In sum, what real world impact would this amendment have in before vs. after effects, not before vs. potential effects.
Although, I strongly disagree with their conclusions, I have a great deal of empathy for abortion opponents. If I thought abortion was murdering babies, I certainly wouldn’t want my tax money going to funding them. And although I happen to think their conclusions about life, choice etc. are extremely simplistic and judgmental, they are not altogether illogical. It is one of the few views of my opponents that I think is held in good (albeit misplaced) faith.
It is my understanding that abortions are relatively cheap procedure (400-700). It seems like that is the type of cost that can be borne by most in most cases and if we’re saddled with this amendment, the rest could be funded through grassroots action (nonprofits, etc.) Is this amendment a dick move and just an excuse not to vote for the bill? Yes. But in my estimation, I just don’t see anywhere near the danger that so many seem to see in further limiting abortion. I just don’t. It will still be available for anyone with the $600, and the people that are right now strapped for that kind of cash almost assuredly don’t have health insurance covered abortions as it is. If I have to choose between this bill (which gets so many more people covered, including women’s mammograms etc.) and the amendment, to me it is a flat out no-brainer.
I think we should also recognize, as I said before that we are a very divided country on this issue. Those people have a right to have their views represented as well. I don’t know that disallowing coverage as part of the federal health plan is altogether wrong, even if I personally disagree.
ellaesther
@The Grand Panjandrum: Well, if it’s any comfort, that far back you’re probably related to Obama and Neil Patrick Harris, too. And me! You’re related to me! Whoot!
@Zifnab: (I wrote about this exact thing over at Ta-Nehisi’s place yesterday, but what the hell, repetition is a writer’s bread and butter!) Another thing that would really help is if we as a culture began to hold men accountable for the children born to them. If men knew in their bones, like women do, that they would have to raise and care for any child they create (and have their very manhood questioned if they failed to do so), there would be a WHOLE lot more responsibility out there.
Adrienne
@Molly:
Of course he’s fuckin lying about what his amendment says. If his amendment just reiterates long standing American law as upheld by the Supreme Court, then why does he even feel the need to insert it into the bill? If that’s the case, wouldn’t it just make his amendment redundant law that doesn’t really matter whether it’s in the bill or not? If it doesn’t go any further than laws already on the books then why is he so willing to go to the mat over it, going so far as to threaten to blow up the whole bill over a law to which the bill would already have to adhere?
I’ll tell you why: He’s a snoveling, self-important, woman hating, male chauvanist asshole who’s lying through his fucking teeth. He can fuck himself with a rusty screwdriver as far as I’m concerned – better yet, a rusty coathanger.
EPIPHANY ALERT!!!! Can we liberals put together a drive to sent massive amounts of wire coathangers to his office? If RedState can send salt to Olympia Snowe, why can’t we send this asshole hangers? THAT would be change I can believe in for the ’09.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
My impression, after listening to him yesterday, is that is was both.
ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: You and me, both, grrrl. I think of my 6 year old daughter, and the extent to which men like him will be defining the reality into which she and her friends come of age, and, well, I kind of lose my ability to make coherent speech.
asiangrrlMN
@A Thousand Faces: You know what? I don’t want my money to go to defense, but it fucking does. Abortion is a legal medical procedure. And, I am sure others can come up with the stats on how drastically abortion coverage will be reduced if this passes (as they have), but I don’t give a shit. It is chipping away at a LEGAL medical procedure that will greatly affect poor women. It’s pure bullshit. And, if anti-abortion people were serious about life, they would be for more social services, which they are not. So, fuck them.
Seebach
I don’t know why abortion is the only matter of conscience that matters. My tax money has to go to executing innocent prisoners and murdering innocent children and probably even fetuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I get no recourse. My tax money goes to Halliburton, and I get no recourse.
Why is it that the Fetus Cult is the only group in America who gets to decide how tax money is spent?
asiangrrlMN
@ellaesther: That was my conclusion. I do not want my eleven-year old niece to have LESS reproductive options than I do. Talk about walking back equal rights.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
is is you is
or is you ain’t
my editable post?
Damn. “… it was both.”
( sound of gunfire and shattering computer monitor )
Martin
Almost all of them do. It’s easy money – a D&C is a standard procedure, in most cases not expensive, and in many parts of the country very hard to actually get done. An insurers dream is to collect money for a procedure that nobody can use. It’s almost always a rider, however, and easy to take off, but even most employer provided plans include it.
Most of them have health insurance, actually. The real world impact is on those women than need a D&C for a critical issue. Then it can be expensive because it’s grown into a life-or-death situation and that’s precisely the moment we want to make sure that insurance will pay.
What’s sick about this situation is that if there was a compromise on this issue, it’d probably come down to first trimester getting covered (usually the cheap procedure) and not the 2nd/3rd trimester ones that are almost always medically necessary.
gwangung
At certain stages. At other stages, less so. And this amendment would certainly not support those stages. Those later stages are a part of the discussion as well.
John Sears
@A Thousand Faces: Let’s see….
87% of all private health insurance plans cover some or all medically necessary abortions, and 46% of all Americans with private insurance fall under those plans. (from the GWU study).
So it affects a shit-ton of people, first.
Secondly, several hundred dollars may not seem like a lot to you, but to many people coming up with it in a short period of time would be a huge burden (and remember, thanks to the viability issue, time is very limited).
Third, according to the GWU study, Stupak can be expected to make insurers reluctant to cover any procedure that might cause an abortion as a side-effect, so that while pregnant women will have every medical decision, prescription and surgery second-guessed by their insurance company, which by law has to put their fetus’ needs first, in order to avoid a potentially bigass government sanction (unless the woman’s life is directly in imminent danger).
This leaves aside any ethical, moral or legal implications of treating 51% of the population as second-class citizens, or the dangerous slippery slope of making public policy in conjunction with private religious authorities.
ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: As Jeffrey Toobin quotes Ruth Bader Ginsburg as saying (and then concludes):
…as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed not long ago, abortion rights “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” Every diminishment of that right diminishes women.
asiangrrlMN
@Seebach: Yeah, you said it much better than I did. Thanks.
@A Thousand Faces: Here is Steve Benen on the effects of the Stupak Amendment. He has written several times about it.
ellaesther
@gwangung: Not to mention that if you can barely afford rent, $400-700 might as well be the moon.
Koz
Wtf, who needs insurance to have an abortion anyway? If somebody can’t cough up 300 dollars or however much it is, maybe they should consider some other alternatives.
Morbo
I would suggest no one getting their hopes up on the primary front. He ran unopposed in last year’s primary, and he beat the Republican around 2:1. Compounding that, the 1st is such a vast, sparsely populated place that it would be difficult to target ad dollars even with a good competitor. It’s not likely to be redistricted out of existence either in 2010. Pretty much the only way I can imagine getting rid of him is changing the location of the Michigan/Wisconsin border so that his home is in Wisconsin’s 8th instead.
Midnight Marauder
@Adrienne:
Some folks are well ahead in that department.
MK
I’ve always thought the approach (albeit a very cynical one) to the dealing with people/legislators wanting to outlaw abortion is to mandate a tax increase in order to support social programs for underprivileged/single/underage mothers and their children.
Of course, I know that the counterargument to helping such women is “Hey, it’s their fault. They weren’t ready for it, couldn’t afford it, so they shouldn’t have gotten pregnant.” At which point the reply ought to be “Think of the children! Why do you hate American children? Why do you hate them so much that you would rather they starve, not get educated, etc?’ And continue the rhetorical pissing match…
I’ve given up trying to understand the cognitive dissonance that allows people to shout “Sanctity of Life!” and “Welfare Queens!” at the same time.
Adrienne
Most private insurance plans cover abortions. Basically, if it covers pregnancy in any way, shape, form or fashion, it also covers elective terminations. Most private HMO’s cover them as well. At my job, I basically have gold plated insurance so my insurance not only covers elective terminations, it also covers fertility treatments as well. But, that’s not the point.
With his amendment, women who participate in the exchange will not even have the option of choosing a plan that covers it w/o purchasing an additional rider to cover ONE particular procedure. It’s ludicrous. The insurance companies are not going to put out two versions of every plan in order to participate in the exchange, so in the end, this amendment could very well have the affect of decreasing coverage of the procedure across the spectrum – even for women NOT in the exchange who purchase on their own or have coverage through their employer. The ripple effects could be staggering.
Further, even with the option of purchasing a rider, most women won’t so there’s no guarantee there will be enough profit available there to make the insurance companies willing to even offer one. If you couldn’t afford insurance by yourself in the first place, what the hell are the chances that you are going to be able to afford the rider? They are asking you to pre-plan for just that ONE possible condition – an unplanned/unviable pregnancy – and it’s extremely unfairto women that our reproductive rights are intruded upon in the most degrading of ways.
A Thousand Faces
@asiangrrlMN. Sorry don’t know how to do the reply @ thing, so I don’t know if I did it right. I don’t want my money to go to defense either. I wish we could get defense spending at least in half. Unfortunately, that is an extreeeeme minority view. Abortion opponents are a substantial portion of the population and their views are willingly represented in congress. I won’t defend Stupak much b/c he sounds like a dick who is doing this for craven political reasons, but in a representative democracy his constituents have a right to have their views (which I completely disagree with) represented in the form of limiting coverage for abortions. Part of the problem with politics as it is right now, is that there is no empathy or understanding of the person on the other side of the issue. I can simultaneously defend my pro choice position and have empathy for people on the other side of it.
As far as limiting abortions (not coverage for abortions, but abortions themselves) I just don’t think this amendment does much. As stated before, I would bet that lots of abortions are either a. not covered already b. those seeking them don’t have health insurance. Without the amendment, the potential for expanding coverage for women is lost, but I honestly don’t see the armageddon everyone is saying this is.
Martin
@Koz:
Yeah, why didn’t she choose to not get raped? Great plan.
How about this – we open up free access to abortion in every state through legislation to be paid for by wages earned by sex offenders in prison?
Fiscally neutral. Will conservatives support it then?
Just Some Fuckhead
How long before Bart Stupak starts bombing abortion clinics? Here’s my timeline: He gets primaried in 2010 and joins Operation Rescue in 2011. Later that year, he begins standing outside of abortion clinics showing pictures of bloody aborted fetuses to passersby. In 2012, several violent altercations with clinic staff and authorities lead to a restraining order. Stupak vows revenge. Several clinics are vandalized, petty stuff- no one takes credit. In 2014, a bomb goes off and a doctor is killed. Investigators trace it back to Stupak. After hiding out in the Wisconsin wilderness for several months, Stupak is finally captured and brought to justice. Stupak gives all the glory to God.
oklahomo
@Koz:
Like what? One of those donation jars in a store? Or do you believe that women have abortions on a whim?
Woody
As the tactics appear to be shaking out, the Dims are gonna be asked/required to trade womens’ reproductive freedom for something that Obama can call and sign, with Imperial flourish, and historic public acclaim, a “Public Option.”
That sound about right?
The Moar You Know
@A Thousand Faces: You gotta try way harder than that around here. That was all I read of your very long, undoubtedly idiotic post.
Seebach
No. Human rights are not up to public referendum, or else you get travesties like Maine and California. Minority rights are to be protected against the mob.
John Sears
@A Thousand Faces: You’re really not reading peoples’ responses, are you?
The vast majority of private health plans cover abortion, and a near-majority of people under private plans have abortion services covered. GWU anticipates that all those people will lose their insurance coverage of abortion, as they have it now, thanks to Stupak.
This bill will rob people of insurance they already have, despite Obama’s many claims to the contrary, but only if they’re women. Nice trick.
Aaron S. Veenstra
FWIW, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence, other than an uncited sentence on Wikipedia, that Stupak is going to run for governor. Even with his heightened profile of late, the idea of a Yooper winning the Democratic nomination for any statewide office in Michigan is pretty far-fetched (and I say this as a native Yooper Democrat).
John Sears
@Seebach: This.
jibeaux
@A Thousand Faces:
Interesting thoughts. It’s always a weird thing for me to argue because I am pro-choice, but I am iffier about it than any other lefty issue. (I don’t really think of myself as “iffier”, but I learned from the internet that apparently the hard lefty line is that the choice of abortion is morally and ethically exactly the same as the choice to have the child, and ergo the idea of “safe, legal and rare” or that decreasing abortions would be an admirable goal is “right wing framing” that we should not accept. I don’t agree with that.) My mom is one of those devoted religious people who would never block an abortion clinic or call someone a sinner, but she does attend candlelight vigils, she sincerely does believe that this is life, that we are not entitled to take it. If she could, she would personally feed, clothe, shelter, and send to college every unwanted baby in the country and she lives those convictions in a lot of volunteer work with children. Knowing and loving pro-life people greatly complicates their demonization. Anyway, to your point… I don’t know what abortion costs, but it isn’t covered by Medicaid and I read recently that it’s only covered by about half of health insurance plans (there are states which already ban insurers from covering it). Add in all the people uninsured for everything, and my guess would be that a majority of women having abortions are paying out of pocket. It’s a bad amendment, but I don’t think it’s a backdoor to banning them like another commenter said. As long as women are getting pregnant, some of them are going to seek to end those pregnancies — this seems to be a truism constant throughout time, and for me a very strong argument for keeping them safe and legal, but also something that makes me thing as long as they are safe and legal, they will continue.
(Now, y’all can flame me or whatever. I’ve been called a racist and a cancer on the Democratic party already on this blog , so I’d probably go ahead and start with Nazi.)
Martin
We’ve already demonstrated that most are already covered.
The amendment is designed to poison the well. Any insurer that takes taxpayer money in an insurance collective would be forbidden from offering a rider to anyone since the amendment claims that the public/private dollars can’t be segregated.
It forces one of two outcomes – either insurers provide coverage and don’t participate in any kind of public subsidy, thereby killing the public subsidy, or they stop offering abortion riders to all of their policies.
The impact of this would be borne entirely by the low-income end of the public. What is the social benefit of making it harder for low-income people to get something they currently already have?
gizmo
Question for Stupak:
If your amendment doesn’t add anything to Hyde, and doesn’t change anything, then why are you so determined and passionate about adding it to the healthcare bill?
Midnight Marauder
@A Thousand Faces:
Have you read any of the replies to your original post, with all kinds of facts and empirically documented statistics and projections for what would happen to abortion coverage if HCR is enacted? Because that’s the real kicker: as the exchange(s) expand over time, the coverage becomes less and less available. For a perfectly legal medical procedure, which always bears repeating.
Molly
@A Thousand Faces:
“That said, how many private insurers cover abortions right now?”
Roughly 2/3rds.
“How many women that get abortions even have health insurance in the first place? In sum, what real world impact would this amendment have in before vs. after effects, not before vs. potential effects.”
You’re thinking of abortions purely in terms of elective abortions to terminate an unwanted child. I am concerned about that, but it’s not my chief concern. I am worried about insurance companies not covering D&Cs which are medically necessary. For instance, a severe fetal abnormality, or an accidental pregnancy in a woman with Type 1 diabetes that could potentially kill her. In addition, many times women who miscarry need a follow up D&C because they do not completely miscarry the fetus.
THIS is what people are missing in this debate. There are reasons for D&Cs that have nothing at all to do with terminating an unwanted pregnancy. He’s opened up the way for insurance companies not to cover those procedures. That’s why I am so mad. He is putting the health of an untold number of women in danger by not thinking through the repercussions of this. He’s being so damned reckless.
“Although, I strongly disagree with their conclusions, I have a great deal of empathy for abortion opponents.”
I do as well, and I don’t have a problem with federal tax dollars not funding abortions that are not medically indicated to treat a pregnancy gone wrong. I am not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but this one is an elephant on ice.
“It is my understanding that abortions are relatively cheap procedure (400-700). It seems like that is the type of cost that can be borne by most in most cases.”
Again, reframe the debate. D&Cs after miscarriage are very common. Let’s say a woman miscarries a baby, and she is told by her doctor traces of her baby remain inside her. She needs a D&C to complete the natural abortion of her baby, but her insurance doesn’t cover that, so she needs to pay another $400 to $700. How is that OK?
“But in my estimation, I just don’t see anywhere near the danger that so many seem to see in further limiting abortion. I just don’t.”
See my screed above. :) This is why so many women like me are really freaking out over this. The debate in this country has become so black and white over abortion that people do not remember there are perfectly solid medical reasons for them that have nothing to do with someone’s moral knickers.
Law of unintended consequences.
Woody
Abortion: On Demand, No Questions Asked.
It ain’t none o’yore dadgum bidness, mister…
sal
I live in his district, & Morbo’s right. I don’t think he’s ever had a credible challenger. There are some far right R’s in the lower peninsula part of his district (i.e. Petoskey, Charlevoix), but not enough to affect anything. They’d support him in this anyway. The UP’s his base.
That said, I know a lot of Dems in the district are pretty pissed at him, so maybe there’s a shot. Just can’t think of who a contender with a chance would be in a primary. If anything, softer support among Dems makes it more likely the district would go Republican, rather than to a more progressive Dem.
John Sears
@jibeaux: I guess I’m to the left of the hard lefty position then.
I think abortion is *more* moral than carrying a pregnancy to term, and will continue to feel that way until every single child in need of a home has been adopted.
If you want a kid and have the time and money to raise one, there are a lot out there who could use a hand.
ellaesther
@Max: (I meant to say: “And for commenting!” !! I love it when BJers comment over at my place! It’s very cool and oddly validating…!)
Violet
@asiangrrlMN:
This is the crux of the issue. They scream day and night about protecting the blastocysts, but they do NOTHING once those kids are born. Then it’s all blame-the-mother-she-should-get-a-better-job talking points. They’re really much more concerned about people having sex without whatever Religious Seal of Approval they deem worthy than anything else. It’s all about dicks and vajayjays and who gets put what where and when.
That’s all a very long way of saying they want to control women’s sexuality. It’s about control, not life.
A Thousand Faces
@John Sears.
No. I’m reading all of them. It’s just the last one took some time to write. I stand corrected on the private insurers. Color me surprised. I assumed that they would cut corners on anything like that. You seem quite knowledgable so maybe you can tell me what Stupak does that infringes are causes private insurers to stop covering abortions? I thought the amendment related to federal funding and the public option.
To everyone else jumping down my throat. Geeesh. I left Kos b/c it was just an ornery echo chamber. I’ve been lurking for quite awhile and I’m pretty disappointed at the level of discourse here. I’m not BoB. I’m exploring my views and trying to learn in good faith.
Seebach
Yes, yes, we’re all such horrible people.
jibeaux
@The Moar You Know:
It really wasn’t idiotic. Srsly. I mean, if we’re using BoB the Spoof as the gold standard, not even close.
I’m looking for a cite on the insurance coverage thing. I read half in the Raleigh N & O, but I’m not having any luck re-finding that. But given that there are already, currently, states which ban private insurance from covering elective abortion, wouldn’t that be a good “control group” of sorts to look at this issue from? It seems like looking at those states would provide a lot of answers as to whether it would result in denials of coverage for medically indicated abortions, etc. I’ve only read the summary of the GWU report, though, not the whole thing, maybe the full report does do that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Sears:
Trust me, when John Cole adopts a kid, everyone will want to adopt one.
jibeaux
@Seebach:
Yes, that’s exactly what I said and meant.
Woody
It’s interesting to me the number of studies which demonstrate that the correlation between improving women’s control over their reproduction and improvements in both political and economic freedom for the population as a whole where women improve their rights is just about 1.
Molly
@Molly: “I do as well, and I don’t have a problem with federal tax dollars not funding abortions that are not medically indicated to treat a pregnancy gone wrong. ”
And in my indignation, this was stated ambiguously. Specifically, the thing I have the most concern about is the fact that reimbursement of insurance expenses would not be available to a woman who chooses a plan that covers abortions. I am unequivocably pro-choice, I’m pissed as hell that this should even be an issue, but I am more pissed at the utter stupidity of this man not even thinking about the ripple effects his pet bill could cause.
Seebach
I’m so glad your mother gets off to fluttering fetus fairies, but you aren’t the only one who “knows” pro-life people. It’s easier to demonize them when you do see them than if you just imagine them as sweet old ladies who love human suffering.
jibeaux
I’ve re-read the whole thread and can’t find a citation to the percentage of insurance plans currently covering elective rather than medically necessary abortions. Who has one?
arguingwithsignposts
Reading a thousand faces’ response just made me realize why we will never, ever, ever have a decent single-payer system in the U.S. The anti-abortion crowd would REALLY throw a hissy fit if the gov’t was funding every abortion.
sigh.
MikeJ
He’ll make it wear a Steeler’s collar and roll in dead shit.
Koz
“How about this – we open up free access to abortion in every state through legislation to be paid for by wages earned by sex offenders in prison?”
Yeah, why not? Let’s have Rosa DeLauro or somebody write an amendment to health care bill and see how far it goes.
Adrienne
@Koz: First of all, you’re an asshole.
Second of all, how much an abortion costs depends on many factors: Where you live, how far along you are, the facility, etc. But, let’s just say the average first trimester abortion runs about $400. If you are already living paycheck to paycheck (or worse) with no health insurance, that $400 might as well be $4,000 which might as well be a million. Even if you decide to scrape and save for it, that might take you longer than the two months you have left in your first trimester if you find out at the earliest possible point in the pregnancy. Remember, by the time you miss your first period, you are already FOUR WEEKS. Time’s ticking……
Early second trimester abortions can jump to about $650-800+ and the price tag goes up EVERY WEEK. Mid second tri’s get to $1K+ minimum. Depending on where you live, there’s no guarantee that the closest facility even does second tri’s, so you might have to travel. You might have to go out-of-state. There might be a 24 waiting period. If so, you may have to stay the night in a hotel out-of-state. You probably have to miss work to do this, and chances are, if you live paycheck to paycheck (or worse) you don’t have paid sick time. Hell, if you have to do a late term termination due to medical complications, you might even need a plane ticket to get to a special facility that performs such procedures. All this is time and money.
As you can see, it ain’t that damn easy. But, hey, you’re ignorant. I don’t expect you to know, or give a damn.
Samnell
Primary Stupak? I wish. I’m one of his constituents. Years ago they had a “debate” with him, the GOP challenger who was going to lose, the Libertarian who was going to lose, and the Natural Law Party candidate who was going to lose. They spent most of the half hour falling over one another to show how each was a bigger fan of coat hangers and wanted to stick it to those uppity whores who had it coming anyway and deserve it even more for refusing to be semen receptacles for anything with a penis that walks by.
Molly
@A Thousand Faces: “To everyone else jumping down my throat. Geeesh. I left Kos b/c it was just an ornery echo chamber. I’ve been lurking for quite awhile and I’m pretty disappointed at the level of discourse here.”
No one is jumping down your throat. This doesn’t tend to be a place where people work out their thoughts and learn real-time, we tend to do our research before we post, or else someone will call us on it. Sometimes harshly.
Research, take a position, back it intelligently, and be prepared for people to disagree. Welcome to the party.
Comrade Darkness
So, these dipshits get the right to have their tax dollars follow their conscience? Excuse me, I’d like to not have paid for, chemical weapons research, rapes and murders in Central America, Iraq, Bob Dole’s erections . . . oodles of stuff my conscious objects to. Why do these bible control freaks get a right none of the rest of us fucking get?
John Sears
@A Thousand Faces: Read this and you’ll get what you need to know about Stupak-Pitts.
In essence, it works like this. Insurance companies under Stupak can’t take a dime of federal money from the health reform bill if they provide abortion coverage. All plans in the Exchange have to accept anyone within the Exchange, so those plans, anticipated to reach 40 million people, will be abortion free.
There are already large swaths of private insurance that are by law abortion free (except for what Hyde allows), including the plans offered to 8 million federal employees and their families, and the plans offered in five states which prohibit abortion coverage in a basic plan.
Health insurance companies save money by streamlining, selling the same basic package to as many groups as possible. Under Stupak you have yet another large group that can’t take the standard package, which includes abortion. It makes more sense for the insurance companies to streamline and cut it from all plans, so they can sell the same core plan to all comers across the Exchange, federal employee, small group and individual markets.
It also goes into great detail on how, as many commenters here have noted, Stupak will likely lead to a large number of other procedures being dropped for coverage, and how they likely won’t offer riders for abortion either, and that even if they did, they wouldn’t work.
Comrade Darkness
conscious -> conscience.
Jesus does not love me since he does not give me an edit.
A Thousand Faces
@arguingwithsignposts
Fuck it. I’ll just shut up then. Carry on making snarky comments about cats or spouting memes in relation to Republicans.
The Raven
Bad news on primarying the guy. That’s probably why he was chosen to submit the thing. On the other hand, I bet he’s got some sexual kink or other–a lot of the C Street guys do. Some detective work might pay off.
jibeaux
@Seebach:
The point, obviously, is that for people who see unborn fetuses as human beings, abortion is human suffering. And a lot of people are always going to see things that way. And you can think of them as evil if you want, but my mother has not for a day in her life discouraged or demonized anyone for having an abortion, for considering abortion, or for supporting abortion rights. She hasn’t demonized you or me. She doesn’t judge candidates based on that. She has made her peace with its legality. What she has done has made real, recognizable, concrete improvements in the lives of foster children and children in need of guardians ad litem. It is the way that she chooses to live her conviction that life is valuable, and it’s a lot more valuable than spending your time on internet flame wars to insult people with sincerely held convictions.
terry chay
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/13890
Just Some Fuckhead
@Adrienne:
Well hell, ya might as well have the kid then. How much does that cost?
Waitafuckingminute. Are my tax dollars paying for people to pump out babies like a broken slot machine? This is bullshit. I shouldn’t have to pay for Octo-mom’s litter. In fact, I shouldn’t have to pay for any birth I don’t get to personally approve. What if the birth couple is ugly?
Can I haz an ammendment too?
John Sears
@jibeaux: Define ‘elective’.
Under Hyde, that would mean any abortion not taken directly to save the woman’s life.
In the real world, there are many other circumstances calling for abortion, ranging from miscarriage to medical complications short of causing death. Are those ‘elective’, or ‘medically necessary’?
Then there are procedures that result in abortion but aren’t themselves abortion, which Stupak would also likely ban from coverage.
Seebach
Is she sure she’s not wasting her time? Maybe she could be spending time with some unborn children and having snowflakes implanted in her uterus. Born children are so passe.
terry chay
@Jon O.:
Chester Street?
gwangung
I hope this is not an excuse to avoid dealing with the substantive posts (of which, there are many).
jibeaux
And by the by, this
makes no sense whatsover.
John Sears
@MikeJ: That made me laugh.
Great mental image of a baby on a leash wearing Steelers garb rolling around on a dead squirrel.
Seebach
Also, that means she’s pro-choice.
Adrienne
@Comrade Darkness:
DING DING DING!!!! I’ve got to pay for their murdering of real, ACTUAL, people who are living, and breathing, and working and raising children, but they get to “conscientously object” to my reproductive rights? FUCK EM ALL. I really mean that. Knowing pro-life people does not make demonization of them difficult for me in any way, shape, form, or fashion. They damn sure don’t have a problem demonizing us as heartless, godless, murdering abortionists – I’m just returning the favor.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Heh. It’s more of a food fight, but the good news is, you can eat the stuff that sticks to your hair.
Midnight Marauder
@A Thousand Faces:
That’s in the other thread. This one here is one one of dem “serious threads.”
jibeaux
@John Sears:
I’m just looking for a rough statistic, people keep throwing out numbers, and I have too because what I read and now can’t find was 1/2, but I can’t get a cite. I would probably define it as an abortions not recommended by medical professionals, but I would just be interested in finding the source material for the numbers being cited.
Fergus Wooster
@gwangung:
Um, it sounds like that’s exactly what it is.
“First, let me say I’m not a troll and I’m extremely pro-choice” should have been a red flag.
geg6
@ellaesther:
I just want to contradict one small thing in your comment. Stupak, by all accounts of people who know him and have worked with him, is MONUMENTALLY stupid. So stupid that he couldn’t even really defend himself from Tweety’s softball questions on this and was fumbling and stuttering and finally just mouthed whatever talking points he’d been given on the amendment with his name.
Stupak is a C Streeter. His co-sponsor (whose name we almost never hear in reference to the amendment and that’s just how top level C Streeters like it) is Joseph Pitts (R-PA), a 30 or so year veteran of C Street and considered one of the top people in the Family. Pitts is the guy who cooked this up to hang on his idiot Dem C Street buddy in order to create this exact chaos. No way Stupak could have come up with this on his own. HE’S MONUMENTALLY STUPID.
This is Pitts and the Family. Stupak was just the convenient dimwit.
Mary
@Molly: Someone had Hardball on the tv in my gym while I was on the treadmill last night. I got so angry I had to stop running and leave.
Molly
@jibeaux: “I’ve re-read the whole thread and can’t find a citation to the percentage of insurance plans currently covering elective rather than medically necessary abortions. Who has one?”
There’s no definitive study, and the numbers range from 46% to 87%, so you’d have to read the various studies and decide which menthodology you think is the soundest.
Guttmacher
Kaiser Family 2003 Benefits Annual Servey
The Guttmacher link has a good discussion on the differences in the study protocols.
dr. luba
@Kirk Spencer: I haven’t heard anything about Stupak running for governor (or thinking about it), and I’m a Michigan Dem who pays attention to politics. Hoekstra, the western MI Republican (and asshole) is running.
Stupak is playing to his base in the northern LP and UP. Even in good times these areas are fairly poor, with no economy except tourism, and seasonal employment at best. It is a red area of a blue state. And, like most red areas, they suck at the government teat while decrying government intervention and yelling loudly about their independence and moral superiority.
BTW, I read recently that La Palina’s accent was examined by those who know these things and found to be based on MI, WI, and MN accents. Apparently her part of the state was settled with immigrants from these areas.
A Thousand Faces
@gwangung
I’ll give it a whirl. Molly, John Sears, and Adrienne made some very salient points about abortions as medical procedures and how Stupak could mess with women’s health. Not cool. The amendment needs to be stripped or amended.
The other line of posts seem to be complaining that abortion opponents are effective in getting their representatives to legislate for them. There I have basically no sympathy. I disagree with the anti-choice position, but I’m not going to bedgrudge them and cry foul for successfully advocating for themselves to get legislation that reflects their views, just b/c I’m not able to, say, get my representative to talk seriously about cutting the defense budget in half.
I also stand by my assertion that on the issue of abortion each side does not have enough empathy for the other.
jibeaux
@Seebach:
No, it doesn’t. It’s actually a fairly mainstream Catholic philosophy, frequently advocated by their more leftist thinkers. They are personally opposed to elective abortion and do not support its legality, but they have made a pragmatic, politically and ethically motivated decision that because abortion policy in the US is unlikely to change, their goals would be better served elsewhere. It is similar to how progressives have all but ceded the ground of gun control. They may like to see gun laws changed, but recognize political realities for what they are. That does not transform them into pro-gun nuts. And as for this
Good grief. I was making a sincere point.
Koz
“….. that $400 might as well be $4,000 which might as well be a million. Even if you decide to scrape and save for it, that might take you longer ………. You might have to go out-of-state. There might be a 24 waiting period. If so, you may have to stay the night in a hotel out-of-state……..”
Yeah, yeah. Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Persia
@A Thousand Faces: Abortion opponents are a substantial portion of the population and their views are willingly represented in congress.
You know what, I don’t give a fuck. I have rights. People who didn’t believe in women getting the vote used to be “a substantial portion of the population [with] their views … willingly represented in congress” too. My body is my body and as long as I’m in sound mind and body, I am the only person authorized to make medical decisions for myself. Not your mom, not fucking Stupak, not the Pope. Me.
John Sears
@jibeaux: I have no idea where you would get a statistic like that.
To start with you’d have to have a good representative pool of people who’d readily admit to having an abortion. Or access to the records of a big section of abortion providers.
It isn’t relevant to me. I think of an abortion as medically necessary the moment the woman wants it, the same way I consider removing a hangnail or lancing a boil medically necessary.
Persia
@Koz: You seem to be hungry. Do you need a billy goat?
Seebach
So she really thinks that a holocaust of the unborn is going on in this country, and millions of people are being needlessly slaughtered, and she feels it should be illegal, but has decided to do nothing?
What a moral coward.
John Sears
@Koz: Oddly enough it would be a lot easier to plan for abortion availability if people didn’t bomb the clinics or shoot the doctors.
Halfwit.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MikeJ:
Yeah, and everyone will post delightful comments about the idiosyncratic behavior of their own Cole-inspired adopted children. And a few assholes will claim they adopted children before John Cole popularized it, like that fucking matters. Sigh, good times.
Seebach
Tell that to the side with the guns and bombs, please. Your concern is noted.
Koz
“My body is my body and as long as I’m in sound mind and body, I am the only person authorized to make medical decisions for myself. Not your mom, not fucking Stupak, not the Pope.”
Ok, pay for your abortion then.
Comrade Darkness
Okay, I’ve finally caught up.
One thing that occurred to me that hasn’t been mentioned is what a wake up call this is. There is a serious “be careful what you wish for” looming for the left. I’m sorta surprised the right hasn’t figured it out until now. I’m surprised they are risking showing their hand, but dickheads rarely can resist being dickheads.
With the government holding the pursestrings, the rights of women to not be chattel is going to swing more violently than ever based on the party in charge. And that is going to suck.
jibeaux
@Molly:
Thank you. I’ll look at those. It still seems to me that given Medicaid (no), private insurance (46-87% chance), and the uninsured (no), the majority of these women are going to be paying themselves, I’m not sure the consequences are going to be that dramatic as far as paying for individual abortions. But I do think it has a lot of harmful potential in the unintended consequences department, as we’ve talked about.
Wile E. Quixote
@The Raven
Let’s dump the fucker then. Seriously, Stupak is a Republican, he’s fucking over his party and fucking over his country for those C street dipshits in the Family. Send money to his Republican opponent in 2010 and take away Bart’s cushy job as a congresscritter.
At some point your political party has to stand for something, you have to draw some line in the sand and say “OK, step across this line and you are no longer with us, regardless of whatever else you may have done, you are against us.” The Republicans do this on damn nearly every issue, which is what cost them NY 23 but the Democrats don’t do it at all, which is why they have a party full of backstabbers like Lieberman and Stupak.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Don’t worry about that. He’s lost every online supporter. He’s not getting any money from GOS, Act Blue, or any of those related organizations.
Fergus Wooster
@Persia:
This. Civil rights should never be governed by referendum. See the marriage rights referenda in Cali and Maine.
If this were the benchmark we used on civil rights, the south would still be segregated.
jibeaux
@Seebach:
Aaaaannd we’re done with the arguing in good faith. Find someone else, maybe your own mom.
gwangung
I do not think these consequences are uninteded by the authors of this measure. They know PRECISELY what they are doing.
The asshole Blue Dog Dems who voted for this measure, however, need a few lessons on what the likely consequences are. In bloody detail. From the women most directly affected.
Molly
@Koz: “Yeah, yeah. Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Nearing Thanksgiving, and it’s time to plan desserts, which of course, need to include a pumpkin pie. I am very partial to cherry and apple myself, and my husband loves chocolate peanut butter pie. Anyone have any good pie recipes? John, can we have an open pie thread in honor of the holidays?
Thanks.
Wile E. Quixote
@Koz
Hey Koz, I would have been more than happy to pay for your Mom’s abortion and still would be. What trimester did you say you were in?
Comrade Darkness
@Seebach: when the other side stops acting like prudent Victorian children and agrees to policies to actually reduce elective abortion, maybe. They are the worst of the worst dishonest negotiators. They should be shunned until they act like adults and want to make actual progress. So far the only end purpose to their actions is further abuse of victims and getting off on how superior their own pathetic lives are because they get to jerk women around. Until that ends. Fucking no way.
Comrade Darkness
@Molly: Topical win!
A Thousand Faces
@Persia
As shitty as it is, that right is not absolute. You would still have the right, but not the right to medical insurance reimbursement under certain plans. If there is a functional difference between the two on some level is a tricky question. You make a good point though. But someone on the other side of the issue also believes that there is another body involved that has rights. This is not a simple or easily reconciled issue, and some degree of compromise on the part of both sides is what makes sense to me.
Seebach
I’m arguing in the same good faith your mother is. Perhaps she should move a country that would not sully her conscience as much. I’m only trying to help.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Persia:
Sounds about right to me. I have always thought that only women should have the right to vote on issues related to reproductive rights. If that were the case, we’d have had a Constitutional amendment that guaranteed choice a long time ago.
Not only would that solve the choice problem, it would give us men more time to argue about more fun things, like football, and cars.
I’m not kidding. If it were up to me, I’d change the law right now.
John Sears
@jibeaux: I think there’s a legitimate point in there. If a person really believes that abortion is murder, they should, logically, oppose it as strongly as they do murder.
This is an easy way of gauging the sincerity of many pro-lifers, who may claim that they feel a fetus is a full person and abortion is murder, but when pressed will readily admit that, say, they would save a single crying child from a burning building rather than a petri dish full of blastocysts.
The Moar You Know
@A Thousand Faces: Since you like crying about the heat, get your ass back in the kitchen and bake me a fucking pie.
geg6
@A Thousand Faces:
And with this comment, my skepticism of your pro-choice bona fides is proven correct.
You haven’t read a single post that here that factually answers these supposed “questions” you have about how many health insurance policies carry abortion coverage or what the real world effect of this amendment will do to even private insurance and the availability of the procedure overall. You’ve been given links to all of these things and yet still say the opposite of what the experts have said.
The majority of people in this country support the availability of abortion to those who need or wish to have one. The Supreme Court has ruled over and over that Roe is settle law. Fuck this argument that this minority gets its way over the vast majority of the country. And if you are arguing that we should all just hold hands and sing Kumbaya and we’ll all find some sort of compromise on abortion, you’re fucking nuts. Because I will fight for the right to choose until my dying breath. I didn’t fight to get it all those years ago to have some asshole say just give up this thing that the fundies can’t reconcile themselves to because it’s just too controversial. I mean, it’s just your right to control your own body, amirite? Seriously, can’t we all just get along? /snark
Fuck that. No, we can’t all just get along as long as I have to give up my rights and my body so the asshole fundies don’t have the fucking vapors. And if you can’t deal with fight over it, then get the hell out of the way for those of us who can and will.
Seebach
I know I’m going Godwin, but a pro-lifer who isn’t bombing clinics is pretty much a Good German, willing to sit idle until Hitler resigns, apparently, because nothing can be done to change the politics of Germany of the day.
jibeaux
@gwangung:
Well, that I don’t know about, because I’m inclined to think that the consequence that they want to effect is fewer elective abortions, as well as to throw up a hurdle in obtaining them. I doubt the goal is to change the industry interpretation of medically indicated ones, e.g. I don’t think they’re trying to make women who have lost a baby through miscarriage then jump through hoops with the insurance carrier trying to get the subsequent D & C authorized. I don’t honestly think they’re trying to strip insurance coverage for the removal of a fetus who has died in utero. I’m thinking that they’re going to have less of the consequence that they actually wanted, and more of consequences they didn’t intend, and that as kay said in the beginning this could be something one of them pays attention to. But eh, probably won’t.
A Thousand Faces
@Fergus Wooster
Actually making abortion illegal would be a civil rights issue. Whether tax money goes to in any way fund abortions is a legislative matter. I don’t agree with the amendment, but it is not an issue of fundamental rights. That is a different ball of wax.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Full disclosure, though, I have to add that I don’t think keeping elective abortion (non health critical) out of the current healthcare process is a bad idea.
The alternative is to say, “Nobody gets healthcare unless we get our abortion coverage.” Um, sorry, no matter how strong a choice supporter I am, and I am pretty strong, that “take my ball and go home” move is an absurd and insulting position. We are going to condemn millions to poor health, and kill people, so that choice advocates can have what they want, or else?
Um, no, I won’t support that. I hate what Stupak is doing, but if it’s up to me, I let him do it, and then come back and fix that later. Healthcare reform advocates who don’t get this are letting themselves be manipulated AFAIC.
geg6
@jibeaux:
They will continue at the same rate regardless of whether they are safe and legal. The only difference is that more women will die or lose all ability to ever reproduce a second time.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
That’s a solvable problem. It’s all a matter of the language in the bill, which is going to be written in conference. Stupak’s language is not likely to survive conference.
All-or-nothing is one way the assholes have kept us from getting reform for fifty years. We can do better than that.
All-or-nothing sounds great in the blog world, but it doesn’t work very well in the legislative process.
ellaesther
@geg6: Oh. Well then. Now I’m even more disturbed!
The reason I was doubting that he was stupid is because of the enormity of what the amendment is and does. But if he’s the tool of the evil genius – I mean, The Family — well. That is far, far worse.
Holy crap. I just discovered yesterday that he’s a Democrat! (I mean, you know what they say, when you assume you make and ass of… etc, etc, and I just assumed he was a Republican…!)
Comrade Darkness
@jibeaux: I don’t honestly think they’re trying to strip insurance coverage for the removal of a fetus who has died in utero.
Um, except that is *exactly* what all the screaming about the “partial birth abortion” was about. They invented a fake name for a rare procedure to terminate a doomed pregnancy in order to freak out about it. That doesn’t bode well for rational thinking at this juncture.
Adrienne
@Koz:
But, yet MY tax dollars can go to men getting Via-gra, Cia-lis, and everything else. Name a legal, actual medical procedure that the gov’t is willing to force men to pony up for out of pocket? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Bottom line: the same wankers who are yelling that HCR is Democrats trying to insert the gov’t into the “sacred relationship btw you and your doctor” are the only people who actually ARE inserting the gov’t into that relationship. Keep the gov’t out of medical decisions my ass. This is putting the gov’t SQUARE btw millions of women and their doctors, and their medical decisions. Hell, this is putting the gov’t square btw millions of women and their own bodies. Fuck anyone who thinks this isn’t a big deal.
A Thousand Faces
@The Moar You Know
I feel sorry for someone who feels the need to so reflexively revert to tough guy internet sarcasm and assholiness at every turn. I really do.
Seebach
You… really… don’t… have any idea what we’re dealing with here, do you?
Fergus Wooster
@A Thousand Faces:
Actually repealing the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act would be a civil rights issue. But directing my tax dollars to provide oversight and security to guarantee the exercise of those rights is a legislative issue.
Not that I agree with Bull Connor and the haters, but providing national guard troops and other taxpayer-funded resources to guarantee marchers’ and voters’ security is not an issue of fundamental rights.
John Sears
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: As a staunch feminist and atheist, I’d be willing to let this bill, which won’t do much of anything to contain costs (projected to rise, post-bill, at 5% a year by the Commonwealth Fund) or fix our dysfunctional system, die, rather than letting the Council of Bishops write our domestic health policy on behalf of the Pope.
I seem to recall more than a few examples of what happens to people who let the Church dictate government policy.
I wrote a 5k word essay last week on just the major reasons I wouldn’t support this bill. Excluding Stupak there are things like cost-containment, biologics, insufficient subsidies, erosion of the church-state separation (you should see what the Christian Scientists are up to in the Senate), cancellation of SCHIP, and the lousy nature of the minimum quality plans to be offered on the exchange.
geg6
@jibeaux:
If all anti-abortion people did as your mother did, this world would be a better place. But they don’t (in fact, I’d have to say she’s in a very small minority), so I, personally, have no problem flaming every single one of them until they prove me wrong about them.
Jackie
There also needs to be, at the very least, an exemption for the health of the mother that doesn’t require imminent death. I could have cheerfully strangled John McCain when he air quoted that. That is no joke.
And very few people can easily afford the cost of a late abortion. Let alone the volume of people who can’t pay for an early abortion if they live somewhere where the zealots have terrorized all abortion providers out.
They can impose their morality on the rest of us when they get a constitional amendment passed to make it illegal.
A Thousand Faces
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
This.
Comrade Darkness
@A Thousand Faces: It clicks the arrow to the right of the date.
And then it puts it back in the basket.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@John Sears: I’ll bite. What are the Christian Scientists up to in the Senate? Got a linky?
jibeaux
@John Sears:
Some may view it as the same as murder, probably the ones who are speed bumps at abortion clinics do, but not all pro-lifers do. Some people have black and white views, it’s either equivalent to a baby or it’s a hangnail. Possibly this is why some on this blog want us all to take a side between to the free gay forced abortion party and the Holocaust party.
In reality, probably a plurality of people have a much more nuanced view, although you wouldn’t get that impression from the interwebs. There’s a study on it from I believe it’s those Third Way people, I could try to find it if you’re interested. It’s why there’s majority support for the legality of abortion, but also majority support for waiting periods, for parental notification. Anyway, to the extent that you, John, are sincerely interested, the view is more that we have a potential for life, something which is not yet a baby breathing its own air, and yet also not just cells. And to some extent, nearly everyone recognizes this, this idea of a continuum is really the underpinning for the trimester framework in Roe. As the fetus gets older, it is more viable, it is more recognizably one of our own, and the state’s interest in life is stronger. And in this respect, it is distinct from the murder of a living person, who may have a loving spouse and kids and co-workers and friends, yet it is still a tragedy in this view. It is less a holocaust than it is a societal failing that we cannot seem to make every child a wanted and cared for child, and it is accordingly on this end that they choose to work.
Nicholas Kristof has a great book, Half the Sky. He talks about how in China, because many people still want a boy for their single child, the sex-selected abortion of female fetuses is a very real concern. And because of this, it is actually illegal in China for the ultrasound technologist to inform parents of the gender of their baby. So, people aren’t having abortions based on gender anymore, which I expect most people view as a good thing. The unintended consequence is, not exactly infanticide, but a greater inclination toward the neglect of female infants. Maybe the parents wait longer to take her to the doctor with a fever than they would for a boy, for example, and there is a higher mortality rate for female babies. So someone has actually done the grisly calculus on this, whatever the numbers were, like a few hundred sex-selected abortions is equivalent to one sex-selected infant female death. I’m not sure what my point is on that. Maybe just that all those statistics, all that information is disturbing to me. Maybe someone else can figure out my point for me, I don’t know.
geg6
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Well, your reasoning is exactly why I shut up about not getting rid of the federal ban on abortion funding through HCR. I bit my tongue on the outrage I still have over the Hyde Amendment, all in the course of being a good player for my side in this fight.
But this goes too far. And, as a woman who has lived both before and after Roe v. Wade, I won’t sit back and take it on this one. Too much at stake.
Adrienne
@Fergus Wooster:
Soooo, in Fergus Wooster’s world, civil rights are all fine and dandy, but the actual, real world application of enforcing those rights is a separate issue from the rights themselves.
Rights with no means to enforce them are almost worst than not having the right at all. At least that’s honest. WTF is the point of rights if one is not granted the means to effectively enforce and practice those rights? It’s two sides to the same coin. You know that’s what the ACTUAL civil rights movement in this country was all about right? Or are you really that stupid? Black folks had the “right” to vote and had been granted “Equal rights” on paper for damn near 100 years BEFORE the CRM. It took the legislation of the Civil Rights Movement to get clear, reliable, and serious methods of enforcing those rights.
A Thousand Faces
@Fergus Wooster
False analogy is false. Sending troops to insure compliance with the Civil Rights Act is protecting an affirmative right through enforcement measures. This would be analogous if, say, protesters were forcibly blocking abortion clinics and the President had to send in troops to protect that affirmative and constitutionally recognized fundamental right. That’s not what this is about, and comparing it to that is crying wolf.
Molly
@Seebach: “You… really… don’t… have any idea what we’re dealing with here, do you?”
I think what people aren’t seeing is the fact that insurance companies are motivated by one thing and one thing only…money, honey. These Morality Moments are opening the door for insurance companies to save money by not covering a procedure. See? Think they won’t do it?
Or, we get to apply a litmus test for coverage. “You need to provide documentation that this is not an elective procedure. We are denying coverage until you do so.”
Look, this isn’t paranoia. I was the one who was denied insurance coverage for my preemie because United Health Care said he had a preexisting condition. That was not personal, it was business. Thousands of dollars of bills, and if they could stall and wear me down, they didn’t have to pay it. That’s all. I knew better, other people don’t. I don’t want this door even cracked, because they will dance right through it. Profit motive.
A Thousand Faces
@Comrade Darkness:
Thanks.
Comrade Darkness
@jibeaux: Something like: bad consequences happen.
Sex selection still happens in China. The birth numbers are still skewed. Bribery is a pretty common way around pesky little laws like this. Secondly, the unintended consequences of letting men far outnumber women in a particular generation is that’s how major political shifts happen. Historically, sons who can’t inherit go off and make wars. China is trying to protect itself, they may be protecting the rest of us too. We’re talking millions of unattached males with little societal direction or purpose. Or Polyandry. Polyandry would work.
Fergus Wooster
@Adrienne:
Umm, it was sarcasm. That’s not Fergus’ world, it’s Thousand Faces’ world. I was replacing abortion rights with civil rights in Thousand Faces’ arguments.
The attempt was to show the fallacy between believing in the rights per se but balking at allocating taxpayer money to secure them.
The offending text:
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Viagra is just a health issue, like any other health issue.
I don’t consider the comparison you are making to be apt.
If abortion is a critical doctor-patient decision, then it is not just elective abortion, and it falls into the same class as Viagra, or insulin, for that matter. If the abortion we are talking about is elective and not health-critical, then I don’t see where the imperative is that justifies taking a pro-lifer’s tax dollars and paying for it.
Taking a hard line opposing that view is what Tweety is calling a Poison Pill in this debate … and I think he is right.
Making the thing a medical matter, involving doctor-patient decisions, also provides a buffer against the moral scolds. To prove that an abortion is NOT medically indicated would be pretty difficult, if the doctor said it was medically indicated, would it not? So wouldn’t the system err on the side of the patient’s choices, out of practical necessity?
Fergus Wooster
Actually, I should be fair, it was my crude analog of Thousand Faces’ world.
Just pointing out the inconsistency, not at all meaning to imply that my obscene example reflects his/her worldview. I’m not that big of an asshole.
jibeaux
@geg6:
I have no information about small minority or not, but I can tell you that at the last guardian ad litem conference I went to, I was genuinely surprised at the number of cars in the parking lot with pro-life bumper stickers (of the “Adoption: it’s a better choice” variety.) For some reason, I had not really anticipated that. I can also reiterate that it is not an uncommon argument among Catholic intellectuals, it was written about and debated regularly in some magazines I saw in the months leading up to the election. I mean, if you are actually interested in results, the track record of the “family values” types is not good. Over and over and over again, they vote for everyone on down to alderman based on abortion views, and nothing changes too much except around the edges. It’s perfectly logical to go for another tack. It’s perfectly logical to switch your focus to death penalty work, for example, which has significantly more potential for change; or to vote for those candidates who you think will improve women’s lives to the point where choosing to have the baby is easier. Jimmy Carter talked about that, if I remember correctly, that the best thing you can do to lower abortions is to improve the situation of poor women.
A Thousand Faces
@Adrienne:
He was being sarcastic… at me. He probably fully agrees with you.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@geg6:
I assume you mean that the Stupak language goes too far. But as I said, that language is not going to survive conference, and after conference, you only need a simple majority to pass the final version. That should be extremely doable if this congress has any competance at all.
Seebach
It is a shame. Too bad the right doesn’t want to offer any actual solutions, and would prefer for women to have to pay out of pocket to have the dead, rotting fetus removed.
John Sears
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Sure do.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-health-religion3-2009nov03,0,2239900.story?page=1
Fergus Wooster
@A Thousand Faces:
Point taken.
Sad fact that in this country health care is not enshrined as an affirmative right.
Comrade Darkness
@Molly: These Morality Moments are opening the door for insurance companies to save money by not covering a procedure. See? Think they won’t do it?
Whoa, you think they want to cover the birth instead and post-natal care if there are complications? Not a chance. The money bets the other way. These guys are actuaries; they know long-term where things stand with costs.
Um, as you said in your last paragraph, actually…
OniHanzo
@Adrienne:
Which is why even a small donation to your state’s PP Justice Fund is a huge assist for women who can’t afford it.
I donated $50 last month. But even $5 is a help.
John Sears
@Comrade Darkness: True, the insurance companies will fall all over themselves to make abortion coverage available.
Until people like Stupak make it cost them more than the pregnancies would.
This is of course his entire plan.
Persia
@Comrade Darkness: And yet Congress had to pass a law requiring them to cover birth control. They won’t pay for anything, ever.
jibeaux
@Comrade Darkness:
What may be even more depressing, is that gender-equity wise as the portrayals are in that book, China comes off looking better than most. Some people have apparently determined that 6 of the 10 richest self-made women in the world are Chinese. They are better by comparison than many, many places that don’t regularly have sex-selected abortion. Anyway, I recommend the book.
jibeaux
Ugh. Special place in hell, and all that.
Hypatia
@Jonny Scrum-half : Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler has a different viewpoint about the Stupak issue
Thanks for mentioning this. I’ve been following him recently and find that he makes a lot of sense because he wants to consider facts before he starts ranting….and rant he does. I can see why some tire of him but, dammit, he makes really good FACT-BASED points.
His basic position (for those of you who are too lazy to go there and read his recent Stupak posts) is that:
(1) most people attacking Stupak cannot explain what Stupak’s amendment does or does not require wrt abortion
(2) our piss poor media don’t seem to view (#1) as a problem, in fact, the so-called liberal sources attack Stupak in exactly that manner.
(3) Complicated issues require a presentation of relevant facts BEFORE analysis (and demonization)
Today’s rant is especially interesting:
Stupak attacker writes: As for claims that women could buy an abortion rider, no woman anticipates an unplanned or unhealthy pregnancy.
Somerby replies: Truly, that highlighted claim may be the most unintelligent talking-point we’ve ever seen in politics. Health insurance is all about “anticipating” events you don’t “plan.” You buy insurance because you know that unplanned events may occur. But so what? This talking-point has been in wide use for the past several months now.
Big news orgs are sitting this topic out; pro-choice groups offer claims like that. In each case, we’d have to say the public interest is being short-changed—insulted.
====end of Somerby reply======
John Sears
@jibeaux: Yeah. Potential life. Right.
I just can’t get behind a moral argument about potential people, and can’t for the life of me understand why anyone else can. It’s a bit like being upset that the Smurfs don’t have a democracy.
Persia
@Hypatia: Health insurance is all about “anticipating” events you don’t “plan.” You buy insurance because you know that unplanned events may occur. But so what? This talking-point has been in wide use for the past several months now.
So lucky us, women get to pay extra for coverage that half the population has for free. No discrimination here, folks!
WereBear
I’m sick and tired of people’s “moral qualms” that they think have just as much force as medical procedures. That’s not right.
It’s legal. It’s a medical procedure. And sometimes, it’s medically required.
Get. Over. It.
Look, I’ll defend vegetarians. They have strongly held convictions, and I’ll stand with them when it comes to humane treatment of animals. But when they start blowing up grocery stores, and zoning butchers and restaurants out of my neighborhood, they are out of line.
And so is everyone else who thinks they have the right to mess with someone else’s body and health.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Fix my moderated post at 170 please.
Molly
@Comrade Darkness: “Whoa, you think they want to cover the birth instead and post-natal care if there are complications? Not a chance. The money bets the other way. These guys are actuaries; they know long-term where things stand with costs.
Um, as you said in your last paragraph, actually…”
LOL, my work productivity today is nil. :)
1 in 4 pregnancies ends in spontaneous miscarriage. Of those, it’s common to need a D&C to complete it safely. Think about the dollars involved if those don’t need to be covered. Then you don’t have to cover a birth or an abortion!
Sigh. I need to go see my dog.
Hypatia
@Jonny Scrum-half: I don’t know enough to have an opinion either way
Also….thanks for just admitting it up front.
I’m happy to admit that I don’t either. Neither do I know many details about the HCR bill that is to be voted on in the Senate soon. And reading extensively in the MSM and on the web has not really informed me about the bill. But I have encountered many writings along the lines of:
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Seebach:
__
I’m not sure that means pro-choice. Sounds more like not pro-life. Unless you go with the idea that “those that are not against me are with me.”
(wonder if the blockquoting like this will still work. No edit button, so I’m stuck with it if it doesn’t.)
jibeaux
@John Sears:
Are the Smurfs potentially real? I was definitely under the impression they were wholly fictional. I mean, I’m not trying to get all emotional here, but I’ve got two kids. There were plenty of potentials and possibilities and likelihoods about being pregnant, but I didn’t have any doubt that at the end of the back aches and the fatigue and the weight that there would be babies. They weren’t potential to me.
Let’s posit that most people would agree that a woman should not have an abortion on her due date because she’s worried about stretch marks (too late). Let’s also posit that most people would agree that a teenage girl who was raped by a relative should have the right, and should probably even be strongly encouraged, to have a first trimester abortion. Most of us fall between these two categories and differ on where we might be on the continuum, and that is because of the iffiness of defining life, and of deciding whose interests ultimately trump. And I think it’s going to stay iffy. Opinions on abortion, unlike say gay rights or civil rights for racial minorities, I think are going to stay highly polarized for a little while yet. You don’t see the big differences of opinion between the old and the young that you do with some other issues.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Molly: Nice tight variance there. No one could just, say, grab a number that they like to support whatever his/her position is.
stormhit
@John Sears:
Dismissing basically an entire realm of actual apolitical secular bioethics because it may complicate your argument is kinda weak.
Hypatia
@Persia: No discrimination here, folks!
If you want to discuss discrimination, fine. That was not the point being made in what I posted.
And I think your statement about “half the population” is demonstrably false. Female children too young to get pregnant and post-menopausal women should not buy abortion coverage. So if you want to stick with that general talking point, you might want to revise it to be more accurate.
See, I think this is pretty much what Somerby is talking about. I understand that many people are angry and frustrated. I am, too. But I just don’t see how venting rage continuously gets us closer to a better world. And in order to make the world better, one must first thoroughly understand the part of the world one wishes to improve. These days that is really hard because THINGS ARE REALLY COMPLICATED and our media aren’t helping. It’s way too easy to just vent and way too hard to get accurate info.
Midnight Marauder
@Hypatia:
Are you trying to claim that isn’t the case? Because despite the failures of the Traditional Media, make no mistake about it–Bart Stupak is a liar. And pretty fucking stupid, to boot.
Seebach
I’m going with the assumption that pro-choice is having the government not involved at all. Pro-life is actively requiring the government to do everything in its power to prevent abortion. If you are not on the side trying to get abortion made illegal, you are essentially not being pro-life, and thus allowing people to choose.
John Sears
@jibeaux: Smurfs might exist, somewhere, you just haven’t seen one. Check under more rocks. Likewise, if we can only force more living breathing women to give up abortion rights we might get more hypothetical people. It’s the unknowable future, and hence spooky, and more valuable than the here and now, where real people have real rights at risk.
It’s nonsense. A third of all pregnancies are spontaneously terminated by the body for being genetically unfit, but you don’t see pro-lifers firebombing churches to get back at God. A fetus is a lump of cells without a mind that is programmed, often badly, to grow into a human body… eventually.
While literally sucking the blood of a real one in the meantime.
To subjugate a living, breathing, functional adult because there’s a small writhing mass that’s taken up residence in her uterus is ridiculous. I’m not going to pretend to take people who believe such fantastic absurdities seriously.
Adrienne
@Fergus Wooster:
Point taken and apology is proffered. I was mistaken and I apologize.
Molly
@Molly: “1 in 4 pregnancies ends in spontaneous miscarriage. Of those, it’s common to need a D&C to complete it safely. Think about the dollars involved if those don’t need to be covered. Then you don’t have to cover a birth or an abortion!”
Now I’m replying to myself. I’ve reached the fugue.
You can have even more fun with this. Who gets to decide whether or not the remaining fetal tissue after a partial miscarriage is or is not viable? Sometimes women begin to miscarry, the miscarriage is halted medically, but the chances of carrying the compromised pregnancy to term are greatly reduced. If she has a D&C at that point, is it elective? If we know she’s probably going to miscarry anyway, can we deny both coverage of treatment designed to prolong her probably doomed pregnancy AND not cover a D&C because it’s elective? Run the numbers. We have a winner.
We can go around and around, and the actuaries absolutely will. Some will follow different financial and predictive models..which is their job, risk. They’ll tweak and run the numbers and find some way to make money off of it, because it’s what they do, again, not personal.
In short, take the damn amendment OUT. Solve this problem at the core. It’s sloppy, shameful legislation, Stupak should be ashamed of himself for being dumber than a mango pit, and if the Senate feels some gnawing need to include any language around abortion in the final bill, the damn thing had better include the most tightly-written, unambiguous language any senator has ever proposed. It cannot be seen as worth the effort to try and get around it, it cannot be made cost-effective.
I’m done now. :) Onward.
John Sears
@stormhit: Give me a break.
Next up, an argument for the civil rights of my left pinky finger, which is, after all, alive and human, consists of millions of cells, feels pain and responds to stimuli. News at 11.
jibeaux
I’m guessing there’s no cute handmade father’s day cards up at the office….
Fergus Wooster
@Adrienne:
No worries.
Anyway I’m feeling like something of a dick for going half-Godwin with my analogy. As Thousand Faces pointed out, it’s not a perfect one (there being no legislated affirmative right to abortion, or health care for that matter).
This topic always gets my blood up.
jibeaux
@John Sears:
Well, I could make an argument for not cutting it off, but if you’re really gung-ho on this…
John Sears
@jibeaux: I’d hang myself with a bedsheet before I’d have a kid.
That being said, it’s a fair description of an obligate parasite like a fetus. (Which, I guess, after viability is just a regular parasite.)
John Sears
@jibeaux: I’d have the right, precisely.
Because the rights of a non-sentient lump of cells, no matter its future growth potential, are several orders of magnitude less important than the rights of a functioning human being.
Glad we came to this consensus.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Okay, I’ll repost since moderation is not working today:
Viagra is just a health issue, like any other health issue.
I don’t consider the comparison to be apt.
If abortion is a critical doctor-patient decision, then it is not just elective abortion, and it falls into the same class as Viagra, or insulin, for that matter. If the abortion we are talking about is elective and not health-critical, then I don’t see the imperative that justifies taking a pro-lifer’s tax dollars to pay for it.
Taking a hard line opposing that view is what Tweety is calling a Poison Pill in this debate … and I think he is right.
Making the thing a medical matter, involving doctor-patient decisions, also provides a buffer against the moral scolds. To prove that an abortion is NOT medically indicated would be pretty difficult, if the doctor said it was medically indicated, would it not? So wouldn’t the system err on the side of the patient’s choices, out of practical necessity?
jibeaux
@John Sears:
Insurance won’t cover it, though.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Okay, I’ll repost a third time since moderation is not working for me today. You can delete the previous two versions of this. Or not, I don’t care.
[email protected] gra is just a health issue, like any other health issue.
I don’t consider the comparison to be apt.
If abortion is a critical doctor-patient decision, then it is not just elective abortion, and it falls into the same class as [email protected]_ gra, or insulin, for that matter. If the abortion we are talking about is elective and not health-critical, then I don’t see the imperative that justifies taking a pro-lifer’s tax dollars to pay for it.
Taking a hard line opposing that view is what Tweety is calling a Poison Pill in this debate … and I think he is right.
Making the thing a medical matter, involving doctor-patient decisions, also provides a buffer against the moral scolds. To prove that an abortion is NOT medically indicated would be pretty difficult, if the doctor said it was medically indicated, would it not? So wouldn’t the system err on the side of the patient’s choices, out of practical necessity?
Hypatia
@Midnight Marauder: Are you trying to claim that isn’t the case? Because despite the failures of the Traditional Media, make no mistake about it—Bart Stupak is a liar. And pretty fucking stupid, to boot.
No, I’m trying to claim that someone would reach that conclusion based on the presentation of facts that support that conclusion. You supply none. Perhaps you’d like to supply links.
The GWU study Cole quotes analyzes the amendment and comes up with their own opinion about what is likely to happen. Their conclusion is not a fact. I haven’t read the GWU study but I would hope it would start with the language of the amendment, followed by a statement about how they interpret that language, and THEN an analysis of the possible effects of that interpretation.
Cole writes: Because the facts in this case pretty clearly demonstrate …
What are the facts about the Stupak amendment? What is the language of the amendment? I don’t see that here.
So just in case I haven’t been clear, I am NOT making a point about Bart Stupak. I am making a point about how issues are “debated” on blogs I frequent. It may apply to other arenas of discourse as well.
Persia
@Hypatia: And I think your statement about “half the population” is demonstrably false. Female children too young to get pregnant and post-menopausal women should not buy abortion coverage. So if you want to stick with that general talking point, you might want to revise it to be more accurate.
So when my daughter is 13 I’ll get to buy the abortion package for her insurance policy? Are you sure they won’t decide that XX chromosomes are a pre-existing condition and they won’t insure her because she hasn’t had abortion coverage all along? (Infertile women won’t have to buy it either, so…er, yay?) The whole enterprise is absurd. That’s the talking point.
Molly
@Persia: “The whole enterprise is absurd. That’s the talking point.”
Amen.
John Sears
@jibeaux: Touche.
But then again, my left pinky finger poses no real risk of death or even a significant drain on my body’s resources, and removing it would cause me harm.
Whereas abortion is safer than full term pregnancy, from a medical perspective.
My health insurance covers mental health, so if I cut it off myself I would in fact be covered for whatever those consequences were, including talking to a nice man or woman about why I felt the need. It also offers wellness plans, which under Stupak would mean it’s eligible for federal money so long as it cuts off abortion coverage to the women on the plan.
Thus we are back on topic. Hooray!
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: Well, pregnancy causes a whole host of medical complications and increases the risk of death quite a bit, so it’s not QUITE like taking a pill to get a stiffy. Unless doing so also increases your life expectancy and removes the risk of a lot of secondary conditions.
Persia
@Hypatia: Facts via TPM, from a George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services study.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@John Sears:
Sorry, but I don’t take your response as convincing. The fact that pregnancy carries risk does not make abortion a medical decision, unless you are going to argue that the whole thing is reduced to “I prefer not to take any risk to my health, therefore I will discontinue this pregnancy.”
That’s the kind of total dismissal of any moral component to the issue at all that drives the prolifers to their self-righteous positions.
Suggesting that the possibility of risk here carries the same weight as an actual threat to health (such as a medical condition that makes the pregnancy more than the ‘ordinary’ amount of dangerous) to me is just obnoxious. I don’t see how an argument can be made that a preganacy should be terminated for no other reason than that it is inconvenient or annoying, which doesn’t put the whole prochoice movement into retrograde.
“I just don’t want to be bothered” is not a really compelling argument, I guess is what I am saying. That doesn’t rise to the equivalent of a medical decision. If the question comes down to that level, then the pro lifers are going to have a field day.
So to be clear, I am saying that asserting that all pregnancy carries some risk and that this ‘ordinary’ risk (unaggravated by other facts) is enough to justify an abortion just seems to me to be just asking for choice to be taken away. I’m pretty pro choice but I can’t support that position at all. I’m pro choice when the choice is respectful of the gravity of the choice. Isn’t your argument the same as “I don’t want to be bothered?” I’m looking for information that would convince me it’s not.
To tie up a loose end here, it’s okay with me if a woman wants to have the attitude that she can have unprotected sex all she wants and abort all the pregnancies she wants. I would make no law against that choice. Where I draw the line is the suggestion that a taxpayer who abhors that choice should have to pay for the abortion. How do you get that taxpayer to respect that choice using the argument we are talking about above?
Persia
If you think a pregnancy is simply a ‘bother’ I recommend you spend some time with a pregnant woman.
twiffer
@Zifnab:
no sex outside of marriage. unless it is sweaty meth-fueled sex with gay escorts. but, since that doesn’t result in pregancy, it’s not really sex…right? cause sex is only to produce babies; nothing else. in fact, once you can’t make babies anymore, you should stop. that’s why the market for impotence pills collapsed…
Seebach
Why do they have to respect it? My tax money is paying for two wars that murder actual children. Nobody cares about me and my qualms.
Joel
stuck with stupak.
frankly, this is time for the democratic congress to display some balls.
Joel
@Zifnab: male birth control is en route. people in my department work on it, and the chinese have already pioneered some clinical studies. the technology is old — using testosterone, essentially — but i reckon a lot of the resistance to introducing it is because testosterone is a common drug of abuse, so to speak.
but in the interim, the best deal is condoms.
Joel
@John Sears: an obligate parasite?
i’m sure being glib is satisfying. setting aside the obvious moral issues with such a blithe statement, parasites are by definition members of different species than their hosts.
John Sears
@Seebach: This.
The risk of DEATH is higher for full term pregnancy than an abortion. And the maternal mortality rate in the US is sky-high compared to Europe, I might add.
The idea that a person shouldn’t be able to control their body unless it’s morally justifiable to someone else, or a big enough inconvenience that it impacts their longevity enough to please you, is narcissism to a remarkable degree.
I don’t give a flying fuck whether you think an abortion is justified, or free speech is justified, or the right to petition the government for redress is justified, in any or in all situations.
Human rights shouldn’t be up for majority vote, and women shouldn’t have to seek outside approval for their own medical decisions.
Here’s a list of some of the ‘bother’ women face with pregnancy though.
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/004.htm
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Seebach:
I don’t find that argument working either. “It’s not fair because I have to pay taxes for things I don’t like” just doesn’t work here. It basically just amounts to changing the subject.
The fact is, you can start a taxpayer revolt against war and its costs, or take other action. You don’t have to sit quietly by and do nothing, any more than pro life activists have to do sit quietly by and do nothing. And if they gain the exclusions they seek, even though I don’t necessarily agree with them, I say good for them. Democratic (small d) processes work, when they work, whether you like the results or not. Agreeing with the results is a whole different ballgame.
This is a political context. Totally refusing to see the other side’s point of view is not likely to be a winner in a closely divided environment. That is just going to lead to a see-saw of tit-for-tat actions and responses that never solve anything or address anyone’s real needs. That’s exactly why Tweety is cautioning against the Poison Pill aspect of this Stupak thing. If everyone takes a hard line, nobody wins, and healthcare reform gets fucked. That’s not a win to me, that is a loss.
John Sears
@Joel: How is it not parasitism, when you have a large foreign body in your gut leeching your nutrients against your will?
Pfft, moral issues. I’ve been over that with enough godbotherers today already.
If you don’t want to call it a parasite, fine. Call it an invasive organism or an unwanted growth.
Persia
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: How is that changing the subject? You just said:
But the fact is that taxpayers have to pay for things they find morally abhorrent all the time. Hell, people find the income tax morally abhorrent. What makes abortion so different and special?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
That’s not the argument. The argument is whether a person should be able to ask for a medical procedure for non-medical reasons and insist that other people pay for it.
That’s hardly the same thing you are describing. “I don’t feel like having a kid” is not a medical decision. Trying to portray it as one is wrong on several levels, not the least of which is that it probably works against the interests of the pro choice voter. It’s a “fuck you, I will do what I want” argument and it is countered with “Okay, I will too, and I will take away your access to my tax money.” The latter position probably wins in this standoff. Something has to give, and if I am Stupidak, it isn’t going to be me. Why should he give? What does he gain by giving in?
That’s just a dumb strategy no matter how you slice it.
marion
OF COURSE HE’S LYING. He’s trying to surrender and save face!
I can’t believe nobody has taken him up on this. the way out is to say “Fine, Congressman, we take you at your word. Here’s the language that will do what you say you want: codify existing law. We realize you didn’t intend what your amendment seems to mean so let’s fix it, OK?”
Everybody’s happy. I know he’s a moron but there’s no point in abusing the silly man…give him a way out of the corner he’s painted himself into and LET’S GET ON WITH IT. The delay in getting this health care job done is draining all the life out of this administration. Independents are jumping ship and we’re only one year in. Even I’m tired of this debate, and I’m one of Obama’s biggest fans!
John Sears
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: How about, ‘I don’t want to have this large thing in my gut that causes me daily pain and increases my risk of death, doctor, please get it out of me, I can barely walk anymore?’
Sounds medical to me.
I go to the doctor for a lot less than that.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Persia:
What makes abortion special? Sorry, if you don’t understand the answer to that, you are playing right into Stupidak’s hands. That attitude, pushed to the legislative limits, probably kills healthcare and accomplishes exactly nothing for either pro choice or pro life advocates.
This is exactly why there is a concern that the scolds are going to push this thing to the point where the adversaries take a hard line, at which point, the scolds probably win.
I hope that’s what you want?
Persia
@John Sears: Don’t be silly, us wimmens are just too mentally fragile and flaky to realize that carrying around a baby for nine months is super-easy and fun too!
Drclaw
You all have changed my mind about this issue-thanks.
I originally was not sure what the big deal was, as it seemed that attaching supplementary insurance would be (at least bureaucratically) trivial. From the comments here, and perusing the original analysis that is certainly not the case. Anybody who continues to insist that this bill only codifies what is currently in place about Federal funding is clearly either lying, or is too stupid to be trusted with governance.
Its just another indication that we have been sold down the river by both the Dems and the Repubs, and I for one am “sick” of it. This is a bad bill, friends. Even if it passes it will accomplish little, and anybody who thinks that it will be fixed later just isn’t paying attention.
Treat me gently, I’m a newbie here (hah-like that will happen :) )
John Sears
@Persia: It is?
Wow, I had no idea.
If it’s so fun, could you bake me a pie while you’re at it? I like cherry and apple best.
Joel
@Persia: namely that it’s universally agreed upon that at some point during gestation, a fetus becomes an individual organism and no longer a part of its mothers body.
what’s not universally agreed upon is what point that may be.
John Sears
@Joel: I hardly see how it’s any more of a special ‘individual organism’ than a tapeworm, or how it becomes one by magic but still filter feeds the mother’s blood.
You know the point at which a fetus becomes a truly independent organism?
Birth.
Why is that so hard to understand. If something is drinking my blood, I have the right to cut it off.
Nobody goes around telling me that I have to respect the rights of mosquitos or ticks.
John Sears
@John Sears: Well, ok, PETA might.
John Sears
@Drclaw: Yeah, the GWU analysis makes that pretty painfully clear on Stupak vs. Hyde.
It’s funny how many people in the comments here today refused to read the analysis in question and kept insisting things were exactly the opposite. Huh. Almost as if they had some powerful motive to be irrational.
John Sears
Oooh shit. This has taken far too long. I’ve got to go for now, but if anyone makes progress on the ‘Rights for Mosquitos’ issue, let me know when I have to stop swatting them.
Later
Joel
@John Sears: that’s your opinion, not especially rooted in scientific fact, and doesn’t really account for the fact that birth happens at any number of gestational stages. a viable (with support) child has been born as short as 22 weeks after impregnation.
i would say that your opinion, which is extreme, is as radical as the catholic church’s declaration that “every sperm is sacred”.
Ruckus
Been away for a while and haven’t read everything but had a thought.
We hear that the amendment will be stripped out and won’t be voted on. If that’s true what is this really about?
I wonder if this whole business is about the insurance companies and not truly about abortion. The concept is that the only way to have insurance pay for an abortion is if a rider is paid for. That means if the majority of the people want abortion available they have to pay for it outside the government. Is someone expecting HCR to end up at single payer and keeping the door open for the insurance cos to cover all sorts of “messy” issues thereby having a need for private insurance. You want an abortion? Private ins. You want any non emergency surgery? Private ins. And you would have to have a basic policy to add the riders to. And the insurance cos will only have to cover a specific issue, that for which you purchased the rider to a basic membership fee.
Drclaw
To Sears:
well, nobody seems to need a motive to be irrational. I was ready to punt on this issue because it is so divisive, but the bill ends up being really tyrannical and pernicious by forcing a large group of people to live by the moral code of, if not a few, certainly not the majority. I can’t abide that, and I can’t abide the continual hijacking of our government by the religious center-right. Barry Lynn (the separation of church and state fellow) is suggesting this bill is unconstitutional. I’m not enough of a law scholar to know whether that’s true, but I’d happily give money to see it challenged should it become law.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@John Sears:
That’s what makes this whole argument so fun.
The Constitution says nothing about the origin of a human other than how to figure citizenship, at birth.
The Great Document also does not describe any right of privacy, does it?
So the whole question is left up to …. us.
Hypatia
@Persia wrote : Facts via TPM
well, not exactly. but thanks for trying. no snark, i’m serious.
The TPM summary contains several hedges:”is likely to”, “can be expected”, “in our view”, “could nonetheless”.
i clicked through to the read the report in the TPM docment collection. it’s a pdf and for some strange reason will not display page 5. WTF?
on page 8, most of the text of the amendment is given. i say “most” because the text contains some ellipses (or one ellipsis? i never know) and a weaselly phrase
“The amendment provides in pertinent part that:”
It then goes on to give some actual language but guess what? I can’t quote it here as the text in the pdf is not selectable.
I read for a bit and got immediately confused. It sounds like the amendment tries to do what the Hyde amendment does (my summary attempt: “no federal dollars” for “elective” abortion). Which is what I have seen Stupak quoted as saying. But it’s so fucking complicated that I can’t be sure.
On page 9 the study authors say:The Amendment, as passed, thus appears to represent an amalgam of the Hyde amendment and the FEHBP coverage exclusion provision in its construction.
So these folks are saying: we are assuming it’s an amalgam and our analysis flows from that assumption.
My response: Fuck how it appears. What does the goddamn amendment really mean? Because until we know that, we cannot debate the merits or lack thereof of the amendment.
This is really my point. How can I make informed choices if I cannot understand what is proposed? I feel comfortable defending only those positions I actually understand.
Why not a debate about what the amendment means instead of just saying Stupak is stupid or lying? Maybe I (and others) could learn something.
dr. luba
There are people who believe that any form of contraception, including sterilization, are morally wrong. Should we then, not cover sterilization (an elective procedure) in any future health care system because of their moral qualms?
Others believe that IUDs cause abortions. They don’t. But in face of this strong belief, should insurance not cover them?
What about oral contraceptives? The pro-birth lobby (which largely overlaps the “pro-life” lobby) objects to them morally. Does this mean that we should honor their moral objection and not cover OCPs?
Where do we draw the line?
Joel
@dr. luba: that’s a good question, and an unresolved one.
i would argue that the line is drawn at the earliest point that a fetus develops a central nervous system and can process stimulatory input. our best available evidence suggests that’s in the vicinity of 20 weeks. but i wouldn’t stake my life on any hard line.
Hypatia
@Drclaw: From the comments here, and perusing the original analysis that is certainly not the case.
Not following your logic. What is “the original analysis”? And where does “the original analysis” demonstrate that it (that is, codification of what is currently in place about Federal funding) is “not the case”?
I don’t see it so I guess I am “clearly either lying, or is too stupid to be trusted with governance”.
Midnight Marauder
@Hypatia:
Again, I would state that the GWU analysis of the outcomes of the Stupak amendment–as currently constructed–is probably the best analysis of the massive problems posed by the amendment that I’ve seen thus far. I’m not really sure what it is that you’re looking for.
Sure, it sounds like it tries to to do that, but it doesn’t, as the study makes quite clear throughout in its analysis. Moreover, one of the reasons why the language of the study contains such “hedges” and “weaselly phrases” is that it’s predicated on the notion of the exchanges expanding over time (as more and more people are eligible to join), which is where the reduction in coverage comes in. So of course they say things like “is likely to” and “can be expected.” It’s academia; that’s how they get down.
It would seem that the failure to understand what would occur if the Stupak-Pitts amendment was made law is not from lack of trying on the part of the commentariat; people have supplied you with more than an ample amount of analysis, facts, and all sorts of other goodies. For whatever reason, they just haven’t been good enough for you. Not to mention that we’ve had several threads over the past few weeks covering what the amendment means and what situations would result from its continued inclusion in the final bill. However, there is another very relevant issue tangled up in the matter of the amendment, which is the shenanigans that went on “behind-the-scenes” that led to the amendment being introduced in the first place.
It’s incredibly relevant to discuss whether Stupak is lying, because people like you say things like “Oh, well the amendment isn’t possibly that bad. It just does what Hyde always has done. This is what Stupak has been saying.” And the man is blatantly lying through his teeth, which creates the situation that he’s either a) knowingly spouting bullshit to further his own radical agenda; or b) has no fucking clue what his amendment actually does, in which case, more questions need to be asked about Pitts/The Family’s role in creating the amendment.
Not to mention the ridiculous number of Democrats who have pulled the “Well, this amendment only codifies Hyde” routine, only to find out that it goes FAR BEYOND the language of Hyde. So, yes, we will continue to talk about what a liar Bart Stupak is, and maybe you can learn something from that, in addition to the other topic you’ve not learned anything about after a substantial number of posts addressed all of your questions and misgivings over the course of 240 replies.
Persia
@Midnight Marauder:
That’s because you’re assuming they’re arguing in good faith. Generally, they are not.
There are plenty of ambiguities about where ‘life’ actually begins. There are plenty of religious arguments about abortion. But those should be left to women and their physicians and clergy. It’s that simple. Stupak’s amendment wasn’t about leftover fetuses at fertility clinics; it was about women’s bodies.
Joel
@Persia: what grounds do you have to assume that people — regular contributors on a left-slanting blogs like this one — are arguing in bad faith?
i agree that the religious arguments about abortion are best kept between individuals and their churches. but i disagree that this is exclusively a parent’s decision, because at some point, a fetus becomes an individual itself. now when that occurs is most certainly ambiguous.
Hypatia
@Midnight Marauder: I’m not really sure what it is that you’re looking for.
Facts. I’m looking for facts. Facts are not opinions.
It is a fact that the GWU study concludes “blah, blah”.
What the GWU study concludes (“blah, blah”) is NOT necessarily a fact. Using terms like “may” or “could” is NOT the same as “will”.
If it is a fact that the Stupak amendment goes beyond Hyde, then that fact can be demonstrated. Or at least that’s my claim. The GWU does not say that it is a fact. It says “appears …”.
This is not so straightforward as the death panels BS. One can read the language for the end of life counseling and see no evidence that implies death panel. They just made it up.
But I am arguing that this instance is much more complicated. You are arguing that I am willfully ignorant. Oh, well.
I would like to believe that we could get Stupak and others who oppose his amendment in a room and have an intelligent moderator ask progressively more nuanced and informed questions and avoid people shouting at each other and talking past each other. But I haven’t seen that yet.
Mayken
@jibeaux: I have to disagree a bit on this issue. I have lived the last four years in the Chinese adoption world so I have done a LOT of research about the One-Child policy and the treatment of girls within the culture. Frankly, absent the One-Child Policy, China would probably still have to have a ban on telling parents the sex of the child during pregnancy. India (for instance, there are other places too, these are just the ones I know well) has the same ban and for precisely the same reason.
And female infanticide/abandonment/maltreatment has been in existence in the culture for thousands of years, way before the government’s less-than-brilliant attempt to control the population. Don’t get me wrong, the One-Child Policy has had its own attendant horrors but blaming it for sex-selective abortion or other forms of maltreatment of girls in China is an incomplete analysis at best. I certainly hope that is not the conclusion the author is trying to get at.
Drclaw
To Hypatia:
(sorry-don’t yet know how to do the linking thing..help?)
Stupak and defenders of this bill have simply said that their amendment codifies existing law indicating federal funds are not to be used for abortion. That was what I was referring to by “original analysis.
The analysis by the GWU group strongly argues that the use of the language in the bill, by expressively forbidding any type of co-administration will make it logistically impossible for insurance companies to offer any type of rider. Their analysis is somewhat complex, and detailed, but it comes down to the fact that any insurance decisions about abortion as being valid have to be considered in any policy that elects not to cover them, and therefore there is no way to simultaneously prevent co-administration and have a rider policy that can cover abortion. My analogy is sort of like a kosher kitchen, which strictly speaking, requires separate utensils and dishware to avoid mixing things that are prohibited; one would need entirely different administrative structures, advertising, web material etc or the insurance company would risk legal sanction. Although one can claim the analysis is “wrong” -that is really only decided through legal means and the arguments put forth by the GWU group indicate, at best, significant ambiguity in the bill. I consider this unacceptable since even that will prevent people from exercising their rights until the issue is settled. It is liable to take an extremely long period of time if it is challenged.
My comments about too stupid for governance were really directed at the politicians and political supporters of this bill. It’s their responsibility to consider this language and the potential implications. If, as they say, they only wish to codify existing law (normally referred to as the Hyde amendment, I think), they are either unaware of its implications (in which case they are derelict in their duty) or they don’t care. It’s possible that neither is the case, but if so, then I would expect they would take the GWU analysis seriously and work on the language of the bill so that it is more clear. Would you like to take bets on whether this will happen?
Hypatia
@Persia:
I get you are very exercised on this topic.
But you’re accusing ME of arguing in bad faith (#247) and yet you do not address the substance of my remark in your reply (which is quoted completely above).
I said that it is not 1/2 of the population that is discriminated against by requiring fertile women to purchase abortion coverage. Instead it is less than 1/2 because not all xx types are fertile. Is this statement false? If so, how?
Believe it or not, I was just trying to suggest that if you want to make statements about discrimination, you MIGHT want them to be factually correct. Oops, those darn facts again.
Joel
@Hypatia: in the language of scientific literature:
is basically strong advancement of a hypothesis. that’s not the wishy-washy language that you’re assuming it is. the language that follows, such as “can be expected” and so on are ancillary to the point. yes, it might make strunk & white angry, but i don’t think it detracts from the argument.
in an ideal world, everyone could have these laws described to them in full and would take the time to understand them. but we don’t live in an ideal world. a big part of this — putting on my jonathan swift hat — is that laws are intended to be confusing, so that the plebs such as ourselves (and even the legislators that enact them) cannot understand them effectively.
now i have to admit, i merely skimmed the gwu study, because it’s boring academic language and i’m not a public policy expert. but i do think it’s important to note the first sentence of their conclusion:
Hypatia
@Drclaw: (sorry-don’t yet know how to do the linking thing..help?)
see that gray counter-clockwise arrow just after the time stamp at the top of each comment? click on it to get the linky thing.
thanks for responding. but i am out the door now and only replied to let you know how to link as it really helps in contexualizing the thread.
later perhaps.
Joel
@Drclaw: this, also.
Gwangung
Well no. Were talking law here . If it cab reasonably argued one way in court, it WILL be argued that way in court.And implemented. Asking for facts is premature.
Persia
@Joel: The people still insisting that there’s no factual basis that Stupak goes beyond Hyde? Do you really think they’re arguing in good faith? Once someone starts putting their fingers in their ears and saying “la la la, I’m not listening” I don’t believe it any more. If you mean all the commenters on this blog, that’s not what I was referring to– sorry if it was unclear. The people who keep asking for examples after examples are given and continually moving the goalposts? They’re the ones who generally do not argue in good faith.
kay
@Persia:
Of course it goes beyond Hyde. It has to. The central pillar of the House bill is an insurance exchange. That exchange includes the public plan. Those without insurance will be buying insurance on the exchange, choosing from among the offered plans. Some of those purchasers will have a government subsidy (sliding scale) to help with the purchase price.
ALL of the plans in the exchange must comply with Stupak.
Regardless of the language of the amendment, it goes beyond Hyde, because Hyde only applies to funding that comes through HHS.
Stupak reachs purely private plans, through the mechanism of the exchange.
Midnight Marauder
@Hypatia:
No one has disputed the complicated nature of this amendment and everything associated with it, so please, kill that noise. And second, I did not accuse you of being willfully ignorant. Spare me that overblown nonsense. What I did say is that I have no idea what it is you’re looking for to solve whatever discrepancies you feel exist. You say you want “facts” and you want analysis–such as the GWU analysis–to come right out and say something like “the Stupak amendment WILL…”
Well, that’s not how academia works, and more importantly, the conclusions articulated by the study are quite forceful in condemning the language of the Stupak amendment. Again, the reason they go with words like “is expected to” and “would lead to” is that they reflect the intent of the analysis, which is to analyze what would happen to the exchanges at the center of HCR if the Stupak amendment was allowed to stand as is. They’re not going to say “such and such WILL happen because.” That’s not the academic style. I mean, sure some of the language is a bit dense, but the sentiment expressed in a sentence like this is quite clear:
Again, that’s a tough read, but it’s pretty clear in the point that it’s making. You will also note that the sentence I included here states that the Stupak/Pitts WILL “impose a coverage exclusion.” Hopefully, that will be enough to end your semantics shenanigans.
Again, I think people here have more than demonstrated the numerous ways in which the language of the Stupak amendment goes well beyond the status quo language of Hyde. Honestly, if you’re not satisfied at this point, you either need to go digging around some more on your own; hunker down and spend some more time with the GWU analysis; or seriously re-evaluate what it is you’re looking for in the answer department.
kay
And, Stupak had to be drafted like that to have the desired effect, because if it had applied only to the public option in the exchange, a consumer could choose to use a subsidy to purchase a private plan.
If they had drafted Stupak to apply only to the public option within the exchange, they would have also had to limit the choices of persons receiving a subsidy to the public option, leaving the public option as essentially the “poor person’s plan”.
It’s a mess of a law. They started with a goal, limit abortion, and then wrote legislation to effect that end.
kay
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who supports abortion rights, said Reid’s new provisions would preserve the Hyde amendment while enabling people to buy insurance plans with abortion coverage on the exchange.
“We’re basically going to keep current law, which is what we ought to do,” Kerry said after the Democratic caucus meeting.
I don’t know how they did that, but it sounds like they did.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
If I am right, which I often am, as I said before, the Stupidassak amendment will not survive conference.
Whatever abortion limits come out of conference will be tailored for votes. We need a simple majority for passage then, yes?
And then, once we have the machinery of healthcare reform in place, we can always come along and fine tune the abortion provisions. But the asshole potatoheads will not be able to derail healthcare reform once it is in place.
Let’s keep our eyes on the ball and not get thrown off track by the C Street thugs. Let’s not lose our cool over a schmuck like Stupak.
jibeaux
@Mayken:
It wasn’t about the one-child policy. It was about valuing boys more than girls.
Mayken
@jibeaux: Your description read as if the author was trying to say the One-Child policy led to sex-selective abortion which led to China banning sexing during ultrasound which led to the unintended consequence of treating girls badly. The valuing of boys over girls is absolutely the cause of maltreatment of girls in China and would most certainly occur with or without the One-Child Policy.
On the other hand, the Chinese government has been running an all out… well propaganda campaign sounds so negative but I cannot think of a better word, about the value of girls to rural Chinese families and it does seem to be having some effect. It only took a total imbalance of the birth ratio of boys to girls and the consequences of that to women and children for them to start doing this but hey, kudos to the government on that score anyway.
And, yeah, not sure what any of that has to do with the argument at hand except maybe as a “Handmaiden’s Tale”-like object lesson for those of us who value reproductive freedom across the board.