Health care reform has occupied President Obama’s agenda for most of his first year, but finally his toils have come to fruition. On Nov. 7, the House voted to pass a massive health care reform bill that would recondition the U.S. health care system. Though proponents of health care reform rejoiced over the House vote, the bill came with a frightening provision barring the coverage of abortions. The historic health care reform bill comes at the expense of women’s reproductive rights and promises to increase friction down the road as the bill seeks approval in the Senate.
Abortion is one of the most polarizing and volatile social disputes in U.S. history. Mention of the subject is enough to clear a room, and for good reason. There is no definitive legislative solution. For the millions of Americans in dire need of health care reform, infiltration of the abortion issue into the health care debate is not promising. Late Saturday night, the House passed the historic health care reform bill by a margin of five votes, with 220 voting in support and 215 against. Next, the bill must be considered by the Senate, where it faces significant opposition from both moderate Democrats and all Republicans. The current bill saw opposition from 39 Democrats and all but one Republican. It was a long night to say the least, ending with a close vote a little before midnight. Often times to pass essential legislation, certain concessions must be made to garner support from key representatives. In order to pass, the health care bill required the votes of moderate Democrats. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats reluctantly made concessions which pose a risk to both women’s health and future dialogue about the bill. Among the concessions made to garner the votes of moderate Democrats was an abortion provision initiated by Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI). The provision bars federal funding for abortion coverage under the House health plan. It also restricts women from using federal subsidies to purchase private insurance plans to cover abortion procedures. Stupak said of the amendment, “Let us stand together on principle — no public funding for abortions, no public funding for insurance policies that pay for abortions.” There is no doubt that the House plan needed an abortion stipulation. Votes of pro-life Democrats were essential to the passage of the bill and will be required if the plan hopes to pass through the Senate. Unfortunately, the Stupak amendment does not attempt to reach a common ground on the abortion issue in the health plan and only allows for increased tensions. The stipulations of the bill takes away a woman’s right to choose, a historic platform of the Democratic Party. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) said of the amendment, “If enacted, this amendment will be the greatest restriction of a woman’s right to choose to pass in our careers.” Although the health care reform bill represents a historic step towards a national health care system desperately needed by millions of Americans, it also allows for a discouraging step backwards for women’s reproductive rights. The trade-off is not acceptable. Democrats should not have given into an amendment that sets back women’s rights and the ability for a woman to make decisions over her own body.
The Stupak amendment does more than threaten a woman’s right to choose. Regardless of one’s position on abortion, the Stupak amendment threatens passage of health care reform and promises to add increased tension to an already steamy debate. The abortion issue and the health care reform issue have become intertwined, making the long road to health care reform even more hazardous. Representatives should have worked vigorously to separate the two issues, but politics once again came before common sense. By aligning the abortion issue with the health care reform issue, representatives have made the passage of a national health care bill even more precarious and unsure. The abortion coverage amendment makes the possibility of reaching compromise increasingly doubtful. Health care reform affects those on both sides of the abortion debate, but the amendment has effectively undermined this common understanding. Too often in American politics, partisan divisions have stymied efforts to enact social reform. Once again, representatives are seeking refuge behind partisan issues rather than attempting to compromise for the benefit of millions of Americans.
Like all other legislation, the health care reform bill faces a long and tenuous battle. If the bill passes the Senate, it must go through more review from a congressional conference committee and final acceptance from both chambers. To rejoice now would be premature. The Stupak amendment and abortion issue threaten to undermine the historic House decision. President Barack Obama was elected on a promise to move beyond Washington politics. Hopefully, the Democrats and Republicans can move beyond historic divisions and seek a common ground. Millions of uninsured Americans desperately depend on health care reform. In the process, women’s health and a women’s right to choose should not be the target of political maneuvering.
Ashley Chappo’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.chappo@cavalierdaily.com.
Ashley,
Fundamental to any rational debate is the acceptance of scientific facts. You have a right to your own opinions, but not your own facts – even if some of those facts are the ones you very specifically choose to hide from people. They don’t become “unfacts” because you find them unpleasant, or they don’t make your political agenda look all that humane. You’re never going to abort human rights, no matter how hard you try.
Elective abortion is NOT health care, no matter how many ways you try and twist your “weird science” into making people think it is. Women who are not pregnant do not seek a doctor’s help in attaining a compromised cervix, a scarred uterus, and heavy bleeding for the sake of their health. And these cause preterm birth later in life for their future children. See the left column here:
http://uvalies.org/birthdefects.html
Even self proclaimed “pro choice doctor and researcher” Dr. Caroline Moreau could no longer hide from the indisputable facts and has admitted that “women with a history of abortion were 1.5 times more likely to give birth very prematurely, and 1.7 times more likely to have a baby born extremely pre term.” So is the point you are making that women who give birth premature to developmentally disabled children healthier for it? Is raising a child with cerebral palsy, with the knowledge that she may well be responsible for her child’s birth defects, healthy for that woman’s emotions? Are these healthy things? And even if you are AOK with thier older brother or sister’s dismemberment and disposal, what – gasp – of that poor child’s rights? Hmm?
We can all see that you believe that only women have rights, and that no child, and indeed no father has any rights whatsoever with regards to a pregnancy. This is just the Dred Scot decision all over again. Why waste our time arguing over where this Dred Scot was born, or his daughters, or any such silliness. None of them, being black, are human anyway! (Supreme Court)case closed. Against slavery, don’t own one and shut up – right?
But while history has seen hundreds of examples of one group in society conveniently removing the humanity of another to facilitate their destruction, it’s the weird science that you sell as “the ability of a woman to make decisions over her own body” that is really stunning. Human biology does not conform to your rather cruel version of political ideology, Ashley. It is 100% impossible for a woman – or any mammal for that matter – to grow an extra head, a heart, a pair of feet, a penis, pair of hands, a prostate, a second blood type, or a second entirely unique double helix of DNA. But, sadly, a woman spontaneously growing a penis, testis, and a prostate as part of her own body is exactly what you and yours want the American people to believe.
It aint gunna happen, Ashley. You’re never going to make medical science vanish any sooner than you will human rights. A uterus is a place that mother and her child SHARE for a time. The pro life democrats, long silenced by the party elite, have roared. You don’t like it? Too bad.
I am for health care reform. Socialist is not a label I reject. But forcing taxpayers to pay for other people to kill their own children and needlessly subject their future children to birth defects is not going to happen. Nor should it. This isn’t politics as usual. This is human rights and womens health winning against insurmountable odds when the votes were supposed to be there to run any pro abortion bill through congress. And winning despite all the money, intimidation and all that the networks (save one) could muster to win one for their beloved pharmaceutical and abortion industries.
Some abortions are, unfortunately, necessary. Such as the ectopic pregnancies caused by the Plan B Morning After Pills. But this amendment makes room for such disasters. It is about elective abortions where a child must die simply for someone elses mere convenience. If you think your idea that everyone should pay for such cruelty is mainstream, I suggest you look beyond your UVA bubble and embrace American reality. If the Stupak Amendment proves anything, it is that this debate is not going anywhere any sooner than the slavery debate did.
It may clear a room at a party, but so did debates started by abolitionists in 1855, and about civil rights in 1955. I am an abolitionist in 2009, and I am obviously not alone. We are on a winning streak the past few weeks as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Pro abortion enemies of human rights leave the room because they know deep down what this is all about, and they really can’t answer the simplest of questions. When did you become female? When are twins made? When did you get your DNA? Would the world be a better place if YOU were aborted? How many children needlessly born preterm with cerebral palsy is abortion worth?
All they can do is hope everyone turns away and doesn’t see or consider what they are doing:
http://abortionno.org/
You are not defending womens health, Ashley, and you know it. And there is no shortage of women who would be glad to tell you of what their decision to abort has done to them since. Ask them if they think we should all chip in to make abortions cheaper. On the contrary, I defy you to find a single woman anywhere who regrets giving birth to her child – whether she raised them or gave them up for adoption.
“A person is a person, no matter how small.” Dr. Suess.
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wow sean… nice to see another man talking about abortion…and you just proved the point of this article…that now thanks to stupak, as you say, “this debate is not going anywhere any sooner than the slavery debate did.” And if it were for people like you im sure there would still be slavery today. Let me guess something as well…are you for gun rights? are you for stricter death penalty laws? heck what about the environment? how do you feel about health care reform? Well you pro-life nutcases certainly have a higher moral plane than all the rest of us… And get one thing straight buddy, women’s rights are not going anywhere no matter how much you want them to.
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and how is abortion not women’s health? you must be crazy if you think abortion does not matter to a woman’s health
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Sean Cannan, you couldn’t be more misguided in your lame assertion that “abortion is not healthcare.”
Have you forgotten that abortions have been going on for centuries, and when abortion is “illegal” it still happens nearly as often? The only difference is that now abortions are being performed by licensed physicians working with health care professionals, instead of my back-alley criminals behind closed doors with crude tools and limited experience.
Women’s health has been greatly improved by Roe vs. Wade, and if you are ignorant to this then you haven’t researched the reality of what went on before the landmark decision.
Ben
CLAS 1999
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Sean, as one who also reads and comments with mild frequency on this website, I must say that you are putting in about 2 hours and 5 pages worth of work commenting every other day or so. Pretty impressive, I must admit.
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Notice how, as usual, nobody in the killing lobby can dare face up to even one of the very simple questions I asked – or write one word regarding the medical, scientific realities that I mentioned. They can’t. All they can do is try desperately to change the subject – like Disappointed did – or dream up some more revisionist history like Ben did. Not one word will be whispered as to the rights of children living lives with cerebral palsy needlessly. Not one word about what happens to women during and after an abortion. And, of course, not one word about abortion’s most immediate, permanent victims. It’s is all too easy to be pro abortion when you are conveniently not the one being aborted. Everyone who was pro slavery was free, also. UVA hospital aborted 309 infants in 1991. The class of 2013 is a bit smaller and with less legacy students, folks.
Ben, compromised cervical muscles from the violence of abortion, a scarred uterine wall, and other physical and emotional after effects of abortion are not going to magically heal themselves because you don’t want to talk about them. Your argument that abortions have been going on for centuries in any where near the numbers they are now is simply idiotic, and you cannot come up with one shred of evidence to prove otherwise.
3500 abortions a DAY were NEVER happening in the USA before 1973. Indeed, it took a few years after that for the numbers to really get rolling and the cash coming in. The government reported 39 deaths of MOTHERS from abortions in 1972 – the year before Roe/Wade – and that included about a dozen from New York and California which had legalized elective abortion on demand on a state level in 1970 and 1967 respectively. (Even back then, these were the kill happy states..)
So your suggestion that it was so dangerous before and became so safe now has exactly ZERO evidence behind it. It’s just a game, as the co-founder of NARAL – Dr. Bernard Nathanson – has since admitted:
“How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL, we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always “5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.” I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the “morality” of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.”
Here’s what two women who have had abortions have to say about the similarly whacko numbers worldwide:
http://afterabortion.blogspot.com/2004/10/shredding-myths-about-abortions_30.html
Doctors doing elective abortions, and those counting the fingers and toes of the people they just destroyed to make sure “they got it all,” are the bottom feeders of medicine. They always have been, and here and now they are tough to find. Not exactly an enjoyable, fulfilling job – unless the money is all that matters. But indeed they have a father of their movement they can be proud of who did indeed make the procedure a bit less dangerous to the mother becoming an “unmother”
http://uvalies.org/mengele.html
Besides which, murder and rape and pedophilia have also been going on for thousands of years now, and will in all likelihood continue to do so. So that argument – the only one you could come up with given you have nothing to go with scientifically or ethically – can just as easily be applied to the right to choose to murder an adult or rape a child. We wouldn’t want to be trying to legislate morality, now would we!? Again, it’s all just fine as long as it’s not YOU whose the victim – right? It’s been around in some capacity for a long time, so lets make t legal.
You may also want to consider the fate of these women, a few hundred who are obviously the tip of the iceberg given that so many abortion related deaths (of unmothers are kept a secret due to the (recently made much smaller) family’s wishes:
http://www.lifedynamics.net/Pro-life_Group/Botched_Abortion/
But of course you will not want to talk about them any more than you will want to talk about what you saw in that video I posted of what you support – yet can’t make it thru a 30 second video watching. Nor will you or Disappointed want to talk about all the people living a life with developmental disabilities and cerebral palsy thanks to abortion. More victims and science that just need to be ignored and suppressed.
Disappointed, I suggest you take a chill pill – other than those others that can kill you – and give an honest and kind look at the after abortion blogspot. And if your response is anything other than “none of those bitches exist, dammit!” then perhaps you could see what the violence and cruelty of abortion has done to so many women since women are the only ones with any rights according to you. Most of the members of my local group taking on UVA are women. Hood for Life at UVA is run entirely by women. And Lila Rose, Gianna Jessen, and Rebecca Kiessling sure look like women to me.. Even if men and children and fathers and infants are expendable and exist only to make the almighty woman’s life better when and where they are told to – you still have lots of very eloquent and capable females turning the tables on you and hoping you may one day embrace a kinder, more caring, and non violent world view regarding reproduction.
John, thanks but it really aint all that. I’m a bad ass typer for speed, I’ve been at this a while in various blogs and such – and I can copy and paste a lot. The medical facts and the science of DNA, embryology, and human development won’t be changing, so it makes it easy. I did spend some time with the “Safety First” article, though, for personal reasons I later described.
The Cavalier Daily has been suppressing/ignoring letters to the editor and deleting comments on this website for about 2 years now. The one heavily edited letter of mine they printed in March, 08 was immediately removed from their online search archive pretty much the day it appeared. Last semester, I was promised an article I had written on behalf of our group would finally be printed if I only edited a few lines and put “The University” where I had put “UVA” and “Grounds” where I had written “campus.” Tripe? yes. But I did it, and then – surprise, surprise – they didn’t print it anyway. Similarly, they went back and forth with the Hoos For Life gals about an article they had written about minor edits and so on – then never printed that one either. It has been a very organized culture of censorship.
But there are a few good folks at the CD who have insisted on the basis of free speech and having done our homework that we can’t be silenced any longer – and I am taking full advantage of that until such time as someone comes back in and says that certain information and certain facts need to be hidden – and certain stories and tragedies suppressed. The influence of the people running this regime who designed it to begin with (Casteen, and the equally radical pro abortion folks at Elson and the Teen Center) will be back whispering in people’s ears soon enough – and these posts will vanish.
At least I’ll have more time for homework. =o) But trust me when I tell you that their problems have just begun. 8000+ visitors to our website so far, some national attention, and a few bits of more information about what they have been up to have already painted them in an honesty and ethics corner. All we have is the truth, a few dozen human rights activists, the facts, a website, and some fliers and chalk. But that is starting to look like it may just be enough to flip the system on its head. Stay tuned.
Inauguration Day in Richmond is January 16.
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wow sean, you certainly have a lot to say. unfortunately it is not your body that you are talking about. You are not a woman so seriously you need to stop talking. you have no real solutions to the abortion issue. You like to label things “murder” and go on and on on your moral plateau but you seem to have difficulty recognizing that talk is cheap. to live in a world where women do not have a say over their own bodies would be a very scary world. for someone who has gone on a monologue about the innocent children, what have you and your pro-life cronies done to improve the lives of the millions of children in America who as we speak are starving and suffering. I can tell you what you have done, absolutely nothing. like i say talk is cheap and sometimes people need to learn when to stop talking.
please read below.
“10. Laws against abortion do not stop abortion; they simply make it less safe. The number of women who get abortions does not change when it goes from being legal to illegal, or vice versa. The only thing that changes is more women die. Every year, 78,000 women die from unsafe abortions.
9. If people want to stop abortion, they should turn to methods that do work. These include comprehensive sex education and safe, affordable contraceptives. Unfortunately, as illogical as it sounds, the people who are most against abortion are also often most against these preventative measures. If they truly wanted to reduce the number of abortions that occur, they would embrace these methods.
8. The politicians “pro-lifers” you so ardently support are only after one thing: self-interest. The majority of them are not “pro-life” because they agree with you; they are because they know you will continue to vote for them—and they know that making women remain pregnant not only takes away their power, but it also keeps them busy, in line, controlled, as well as a baking factory for their failing economy. The more people they have to rule over, the more they have to work and buy. Period.
7. Religious ideology is no foundation for any law. Freedom of religion is guaranteed to any citizen in the United States; so why would the beliefs and values of one religion mandate actual laws for all citizens? It would be unfair, unjust and immoral. We do not have laws against eating fish, nor do we have laws that declare it is legal to sell one’s daughter, rape someone, or keep a person as a slave—all things that are promoted in religious text.
6. Reproductive restrictions do not end with abortion. Many people also argue that contraception itself is wrong—another mainly-religious philosophy—and will deny women the protection they need based on this belief. There are legislative acts that allow actual pharmacists to deny women their birth control because of their beliefs; does this not violate the Hippocratic Oath, especially if thousands of women are on birth control because their very lives depend on it (see #2)? Also, since it is my belief that men should not rape women, if I were a pharmacist, would I have a right to deny a man his Viagra just in case he uses it to rape? You never know.
5. Most people who are against abortion will never even become pregnant. If a law would never, in any circumstance, apply to a man, a man creating that law is preposterous. It is akin to men creating laws that ban women from voting, owning property, or showing skin in public—only much more deadly.
4. Women who are raped or victims of incest should not be forced to carry out a pregnancy. Odds are that 1 in 3 women will be victims of sexual violence in her lifetime. Does this mean that 33% of all women should be forced to carry out a pregnancy from this violation? Considering how many people are killed during childbirth (see #2), should we allow this further risk to endured on top of what has already been done?
Many would argue that these women could endure the pregnancy, spending nearly a year of her life simply re-living the rape and its effects over and over again, to give up a baby at the end of it for adoption. However, we all are aware of the fact that there are millions of unwanted children awaiting adoption as we speak who remain unclaimed; in fact, UNICEF estimates that there are 210 million orphans in the world right now. If they have no one willing to be their parent or guardian, why would another baby have a better chance?
My theory is that people who spend so much time, energy, and money on anti-abortion campaigns should instead spend it on the precious children they say need saving so much—the ones who are alive and parentless. Imagine if all the funds spent on all those billboards and flyers and campaigns were instead either spent adopting or donating to places that are overrun with orphaned children… perhaps some actual credibility would be given to these people who claim to love children so much.
Also, there is the fact of the matter of the more than one million homeless youth in America alone. The number one factor for a child being homeless is physical or sexual abuse at home. Perhaps these “child-lovers” should step in and care for these already-born children as well.
3. Reproductive choice can be the only thing that stands between a woman and poverty. There is a reason that the 1 billion poorest people on the planet are female. In sub-Saharan Africa and west Asia, women typically have five to six children, which leaves them powerless to provide for not only their own families, but themselves.
2. Reproductive choice can be the only thing that stands between a woman and DEATH. Women who face deadly consequences of a pregnancy deserve to choose to live. Teen girls, whose bodies are not yet ready for childbirth, are five times more likely to die. Not only do 70,000 girls ages 15-19 die each year from pregnancy and childbirth, but the babies that do survive have a 60% higher chance of dying as well.
During my own pregnancy—which had been unexpected though joyful up to this point—I was horrified to learn that I had preeclampsia only 25 weeks in. While they were able to save both my daughter and me, she was born at 1 pound, three months premature, and was a medical miracle. Most babies at that weight do not survive; and if they do, they suffer severe complications—as do the mothers, including myself. I was then informed that my risk of it happening all over again was extremely high, and that if there were a next time I may not be so lucky. I am fortunate to have access to birth control, but many women—especially young ones—do not. Preeclampsia alone affects 10 to 15% of all women! There are hundreds of other complications that arise besides preeclampsia that can, and will, result in death as well.>
1. Doctors, not governments, should always be the people to make medical recommendations and opinions. Would you allow the government to tell you if you could have a kidney transplant or a blood transfusion? Of course not. The fact that we even consider, let alone allow, governments to regulate a medical procedure is both illogical and foolish. (from http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/Pheo152/2009/1/26/10-Arguments-in-Favor-of-ProChoice-Policy)”
and by the way…this article was meant to be about healthcare… i guess this proves that stupak’s assinine decision is going to help the million of uninsured americans..
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Dear coward who posts under the anonymous name “disappointment”
Not your head.
Not your heart.
Not your hands.
Not your feet.
Not your blood.
Not your penis.
Not your vagina.
Not your DNA
Not your body.
You can scream at the top of your lungs that the sky is green and the grass is blue all you want. You are never going to make human rights or medical science disappear in favor of your very cruel and heartless political agenda.
For teh record, I volunteer here in town with about a dozen disadvantaged kids – most of whom have no father to speak of, and only about have have anything I would actually call a real mother. But they are better mothers than you, weren’t they? And none of these little darlings are better off dead – as for sure you and yours in the killing lobby would have just loved to cash in on the behead them in utero for their own good.
10. Completely false. Lies with no foundation in fact. So we should just legalize all murder since they’ve always happened – right?
9. Your remedies have failed completely, totally, and irreversibly. Even your own former managers have finally fessed up to “the plan.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaTywSDmls
8. The reality of demographics is that people like you kill their children, and run out of voters eventually. Pro life people have their children, and raise them to be voters that respect others, be responsible for their actions, and be kind people. Did you happen to catch the election results a few weeks ago?
7. Haven’t used any religious backing for my defense of human rights. Try again.
6. Again, you are factually incorrect. You can only try and twist numbers and facts to distract people from the blood and death of what you are doing. Chemical abortions are no better than surgical ones, and the steroid regime has led directly to the USA being # 1 in the world in breast cancer incidence. You destroy women’s health for profit just as gleefully as you behead their children.
5. Fathers have rights too. I direct you to the Feminists For Life Website – or Live Action Films. Or Hoos For Life. Or the Susan B. Anthony List.
4. Lots of women die from abortions also. Your appeal to red herrings – another diversion (and your silly statement that 335 of pregnancies come from sexual assault, LOL) – conveniently avoids the countless children living with cerebral palsy right now that have it simply because of their mothers previous abortion(s). This is one of my questions above that you and yours cannot face. And won’t. As for all the orphans and poverty, the pill and then the combination of the pill and abortions were going to solve all that once and for all. Go back and read planned parenthoods own statements back in the day. the result? Complete failure and catastrophic rises in both SINCE the sexual revolution. The facts, as usual, are 180 degrees from what you want people to think.
3. And 30 years and counting of throwing condoms and pills at them – instead of clean water and education – have a been a complete, horrific failure. Just like here.
2. Your presumption that 13 year old girls should be having lots of sex with whoever is at the basis of the killing lobby’s steroids and abortion program. Notice how you carefully avoid any mention that these steroids also cause breast cancer, cervical cancer, liver cancer, heart disease, plaque, and birth defects. Were you on steroids when you became pregnant? WHat makes you think they weren’t responsible for what happened to you and your child in utero? Hmm?
So your “solution” is more of the same?” Really?
I’m curious about your statement about how “they were able to save both my daughter and me.” But wait, you’re AOK with people’s daughters being beheading and ripped apart at 25 weeks.. Hmm.. Seems you have a bit of a paradox in philosophy here, don’t you? Ey? The preenclampsia Foundations website also leads with this little tidbit:
“Preeclampsia is a disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period and affects both the mother and the unborn baby.”
Baby? What baby? =o)
1. Call him assinine if you want. He won a great victory for human rights.
I’d like to suggest the after abortion blogspot – written by two post abortive women – for you once more. You can’t answer the simplest questions and I think your daughter’s birth has made you realize the essential cruelty of your position in opposition to human rights. Something tells me that she not was really your first child..
It’s never too late to embrace kindness, humanity, and human rights.
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yea wut ever you say sean…i think you need help
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