Southern States Move to Ban Abortion Funded by Federal Dollars

In my last post, I write about a topic I am deeply passionate about: a woman's choice to have an abortion. Our new health care reform allows this choice to be restricted and states have begun to take such limiting actions.

Obama signed an executive order when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. health care reform) passed that stated: “it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment . . . The purpose of this order is to establish a comprehensive, government-wide set of policies and procedures to achieve this goal and to make certain that all relevant actors . . . are aware of their responsibilities, new and old.” (I added the bold for effect) This signing statement allows for states to ban plans in their future health insurance exchange that allow elective abortion in their insurance exchange. This statement also implies elective abortions are immoral.

In my first blog post, I addressed the issue of abortion in the House and Senate versions of the health care bill. In a later post, published on the day Obama signed the bill into law, I noted how health care reform does not sufficiently protect a woman's reproductive rights.
Now, the actions various pro-choice and feminist organizations feared are occurring in various Southern states' governments. Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana are the states in question.

Missouri's Senate passed a bill that bans the state's future insurance exchange from covering elective abortions. The bill has now moved to the House for debate.

Tennessee's Senate and House passed a bill that does the same thing. According to the Feminist Majority Foundation, "If Governor Philip Bredesen (D) approves the bill, Tennessee will become the first state to legislate against the inclusion of abortion coverage in the state insurance changes created by the new health care package, reported CBS."

Oklahoma's House and Senate have passed five new bills concerning abortion. One of these bills bans any state health insurance provider from including plans with abortion coverage. This bill awaits Governor Brad Henry's signature. He vetoed two of the five bills.

Mississippi's legislature is attempting to pass legislation that would ban abortion coverage in its insurance exchange. It passed in the House.

Louisiana's legislature is doing the same; its proposed bill passed in the House and would ban abortion coverage in its insurance exchange and would ban elective abortions under private insurance plans. "The bill does not include exceptions for rape or incest, but does include an exception if a woman's life is endangered," according to the Associated Press and Feminist Majority Foundation. This is worrisome because Obama's signing statement DOES allow for federally funded abortion in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life.

Some of these bills include other abortion-limiting provisions, such as a mandatory live ultrasound that must be performed before an abortion and the pregnant woman must be able to hear the fetus' heat beat.

Abortion is a hotly contested issue; Americans disagree if elective abortion should even be legal at all. Fake clinics still abound across the country, giving women misinformation in an attempt to dissuade them from having an abortion. Health care reform, in my opinion, should not have allowed the option of severely limited abortion with a mere signing statement. If Louisiana's legislation becomes law, then women will have to travel out of state for an elective abortion and pay for it themselves. Can a state legislature really decide what is best for ALL women?

Health care reform's implementation seems to have a lot of hurdles ahead; this is only one of them. In the coming years we will see what states limit or attempt to limit a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. These states are the first battlegrounds.

Sources:
Missouri State Senate Passes Expanded Abortion Bill
Tennessee Legislators Approve Ban on State-Backed Insurance Abortion Coverage
Bill to prohibit tax dollars for abortion services
Oklahoma Senate Passes Five New Anti-Choice Bills
Oklahoma lawmakers approve several abortion bills
Senate Approves Abortion Bills
Mississippi, Louisiana, Moving to Ban State-Backed Insurance Abortion Coverage
Bill would ban insurance on all elective abortions

Reproductive Rights, further information:
10 Worst Abortion Myths--and How to Refute Them
Students Fight CPC on Public Campus
What the Health Care Bill Means for Women
Anti-Abortion Extremists go to "Hell"
Criminalized Abortion: Coming to a State Near You

Blog by a pro-lifer: Jill Stanek, with her fingers on the pro-life pulse
(check out her 9/18/09 post about late-term a.k.a. "partial birth abortions")

Photos courtesy of: NY Daily News and Black Christian News

Implications and Effects of Secondary Political Issues on the Healthcare Debate

As our healthcare blog winds down, I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss some of the secondary political issues that affect the landscape of the healthcare debate (and apologize for my absentminded three-week hiatus earlier this month- sorry guys).

Sometimes it seems like the healthcare debate involves.... well, just healthcare. But in reality, many other political and social factors manipulate the healthcare issue. I plan to overview some of these issues and hopefully shed some light on a few of these secondary components.

1. Abortion- the Stupak Amendment controversy highlighted the fact that, like almost every other facet of the political sphere, healthcare is deeply affected by the pro-life, pro-choice divide. Organizations on both sides of the aisle threatened to pull their backing of the healthcare bill earlier this year if they didn't get their way on the abortion wording. In the end, the Stupak amendment was not part of the deal, but President Obama promised to sign an executive order to the same effect. According to an article on The Washington Times website, President Obama insisted on signing the order without any media present- a sign of the controversial nature of the order.

2. Small Government/ Large Government- The issue of government size, subsidies, regulation, and intervention all came up repeatedly during the healthcare debates in Congress and in the media. Democrats pushed for a public, government run option, while Republicans raised the specter of big government socialism and government overspending (which, after the Bush years, made even this right-leaning moderate laugh out loud).

3. Race- like pretty much everything else involving our country's first black president, race was a factor in the debates. Older, generally well-to-do tea partiers carried racially provocative signs about President Obama. The idea that the proposed changes might benefit underprivileged minorities enraged some white Americans with more reactionary tendencies. Also, it seems that many ultra-conservatives were especially upset at the fact that a black man was "running the show" and imposing what they saw as excessive governmental regulation.

4. Party Politics- Democrats in Congress were expected by their party to vote for the bill, and Republicans were expected to vote against it. The Democrats wanted Obama to accomplish some sort of healthcare reform before next election, and the Republicans wanted to prevent him from doing that at any cost. These agendas clearly represented what was best for their respective parties in the upcoming elections.

In conclusion, while healthcare in and of itself is a big issue, it has been dramatically inflated by many secondary issues that influence peoples' thoughts and statements on the issue.

I want this album:

Yes, this is a spoken word LP by Ronald Reagan to denounce socialized medicine in 1961. According to the ever-handy Wikipedia, it was part of an American Medical Association campaign to prevent the expansion of social security. The health care fear tactics didn't start with the Tea Party.

Do you think this album would make a good summer beach party soundtrack? Without a doubt. All the cool kids are listening to it.

Update on Attorney General Lawsuit

Rob McKenna, Attorney General, R-WA

It has now been a month since a number of attorney generals came together to file a lawsuit against the constitutionality of the health care bill. I was reading an exchange between a writer of the Seattle alternative paper The Stranger and the communications director of Rob McKenna, the AG of Washington, and it gave a little insight into what the official intent of the lawsuit is.

According to Janelle Guthrie (communications director), the intent of the bill is to not overturn the health care bill. Instead, she says that the suit only wants to overturn two pieces:

As this state’s independently elected attorney general, McKenna takes his duty to defend Washington's constitutional rights very seriously. Health care reform is much too important to build on an unconstitutional foundation.

The two main provisions of the lawsuit he joined deal with:

1) The unprecedented and unconstitutional requirement that individuals lacking health insurance must purchase private insurance or face a fine; and

2) The massive expansion of the Medicaid program which will unconstitutionally require states to eventually spend billions more on this program at a time when state budgets are already in crisis.

She says that these two pieces can be taken out without compromising the nature of reform, and that this action is to support the bill.

Really? I'm having a hard time believing that. The Republican attorney generals all reacted immediately after the bill was signed to try and undermine it. These are two of the major components of the bill, and to say that you want to remove them just to make sure the bill succeeds is ludicrous. They can paint this however they want, but the fact of the matter is that this is an attempt to unofficially overturn legislation by undermining its strength.

$$ and Governmental Power in Health Care: Dispelling some misconceptions

This clip from The Daily Show helps answer common questions about how health reform will work and if it will work:
Health Care Dollars and Cents and Backlash, too: The Daily Show: Representative John Dingell

Health care reform opinions to make you think:
Governmental Power and Health Care: The Colbert Report: George Will

Will Obama's Approval Ratings Rebound?

Today, the Rasmussen Reports published in their Daily Presidential Tracking Poll that President Obama's approval ratings have dipped down to 49%, with only 29% of Americans polled expressing strong approval. Over the past week, media coverage of the President has been 52% positive, down from 60% immediately after healthcare reform passed, but up from 47% the week before last.

Now the big question is- will President Obama's approval ratings rise again? I believe that they will, for several reasons. First of all, media coverage of President Obama is coming back up from a low a couple weeks ago. While this may be a short term trend, I think that as the controversy surrounding the passage of health-care reform becomes old news, people will return to a less polarized view of Obama. This has held true in the past- important events affect approval ratings for a while, but things end up stabilizing as other issues come into play and the old issues fade into the past.

After Clinton attempted to pass his version of health care reform (which was much more controversial and extensive) back in the 90's, his approval ratings suffered, but eventually came back up. Now Clinton is generally remembered in a positive light.

Also, I believe that people will start to see positive changes take place in the system. As I've said before, I personally do not favor socialized medicine or a government option, but the version of healthcare reform that passed seems like common sense to me. I think that as time goes on, more and more Americans will realize that Obama's healthcare reform has nothing to do with socialism, and everything to do with an honest attempt at improving healthcare in America.