The health care debate has come around to abortion politics. As this article in the NY Times explains, anti-choice groups are pressuring Congress to prevent consumers who receive federal subsidies from purchasing coverage from health plans that currently cover abortion.
Their claim is that consumers who purchase these insurers' health plans could potentially use those federal dollars to access abortion care. Public funding for abortion was banned, with limited exceptions, under the Hyde Amendment of 1977, which is part of Medicaid law.
This has the potential to pressure private insurers to remove abortion care from their list of covered medical procedures in order to allow consumers who receive federal dollars as part of the health care reform proposal access to coverage. As the frantic action alert I received from Planned Parenthood today succinctly states:
if [this effort is] successful, access to abortion will be practically eliminated in health care reform. And without access, there is no choice.
Whatever your personal politics, it is a remarkable thing when a small but vocal minority can hijack a national issue so effectively and with such sweeping implications. In this case, those who could be hurt include not only insured women who need access to safe and legal abortion care but uninsured women who are just trying to get comprehensive health coverage.
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2 comments:
Hi Abby,
I just read in the CNN political ticker today that Arizona Republican Trent Franks called Obama "an enemy of humanity" in his speech to a group of conservative activists. He claims that his statement refers to Obama's policies on abortions, particularly on Obama's decision to aid international family planning clinics that perform abortions. I think that to call Obama "an enemy of humanity" is wrongly exaggerated, breeds even more hate/fear mongering and is just plain ridiculous. Having family planning clinics and abortions available in third world countries help women and families living in horrible, poor conditions, and with the amount of rape/sexual violence among women in some countries at such high rates, it's very much needed.
Franks' reasoning is because of God and religion and it reminds me of our health care reform workshop where someone stated that conservative religious groups are the hardest minority group to budge on reform so just forget about them. But it is hard like you said that a small, vocal group can make such a huge impact on shutting down reform. They try to distract the media and public by focusing on Obama (his birth certificate) or by exaggerating false aspects of the bills and it is just frustrating! My own mom is a born-again Christian so I deal with this rigidity and false information on a daily basis. I'm not sure how to implement a solution to working with tough groups like this, but I only hope that some kind of substantial change will happen despite those pestering voices in the background.
Here's the link:
(http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/29/franks-aide-clarifies-enemy-of-humanity-comment/)
Hi Abby and all-
On a related note, I want to point out that some religious groups actually seem to be putting aside their pro-life convictions, or at least not taking a hard line as the ones highlighted in the article you posted, in the face of health reform. Within the Catholic Church in particular there seems to be a real split about health reform and whether to support efforts that may provide funding for abortions. As an example of the split, check out the different websites of the Catholic Charities (http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1174) and the Catholic Health Association (http://www.chausa.org/Pub/MainNav/ourcommitments/Health+Reform/Reasons.htm). One unequivocally against any reform that includes abortion funding, the other only emphasizing the social justice aspects of providing care for the poor...abortion is not even explicitly mentioned.
I think that maybe this split says something about the larger issue of increasing polarization in the US, and those with conflicting convictions. Some quasi-relatives of mine pointed out well in this op-ed in the Washington Post last year (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/21/AR2008012101863.html), that they feel like political orphans...democratic leaning in their social justice views, but temporarily housed in moderate Republican views (they both worked for Republicans on medical ethics and malpractice reform issues), until the Republicans moved to the right. While my personal politics don't line up with theirs, I think it is important to see that they are NOT the vocal minority group that won't budge, but are often categorized as such because of their religious convictions.
So how can we get people in this category to have a voice in the health reform debate, when extremes on both sides are screaming so loud?
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