As usual, if you want to get anything done in America, step one is to sacrifice the mental and physical health of women by making it an Abortion Issue. So although HR 218 passed about forty minutes ago, it passed with an amendment which prohibits any insurance company receiving federal funds from covering abortions. This has the charming effect of probably killing insurance coverage for abortion altogether, notes NARAL:
The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women. This would have the effect of denying women the right to use their own personal private funds to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system — a radical departure from the status quo. Presently, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services.
Charmingly I expect that in the next few days all your liberal dude friends will be trying to explain to you that this is really no big deal, look, they had to get the Republicans onboard SOMEHOW, this is just a battle but we won the war, etc etc. It all makes me want to crawl back up across the border. Why don’t these men ever notice that their go-to bargaining chip is women’s bodies? And if they do notice, why doesn’t it bother them? (harpyness)
Women should have the right to an abortion without question, recourse, or apology. Too many people get stuck in the mentality that abortion is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for the irresponsible. Forcing a woman to carry a baby to term is not some trivial slap on the wrist. It’s not something you could consider a ‘teaching moment.’
