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

Health Care Reform does not Sufficiently Protect Women's Reproductive Rights

I said that I would focus on health care reform and women; now that health care reform has reached the Senate for reconciliation, I have some feminist objections.

But first, good things in health care reform that help women's reproductive rights:
--contraceptives are covered under a package with required basic benefits that include maternity care and preventative care, such as mammograms
--more women have access to family planning
--limits on gender and age rating

OBJECTIONS:
--no public option
--the Nelson Compromise severely restricts women's right to choose: federal money will only go to abortions in the case of rape, incest, or fatal danger to the mother's health. Those who want an abortion option in their health care plan have to pay two different payments. Also, states can choose to not have abortion covered if they pass a law restricting their Insurance Exchange from including plans that offer abortion coverage.

What Women's Rights Organizations are Saying:
"[W]omen were forced to pay a price. Abortion was the only medical procedure singled out with punitive restrictions. We must repeal the Hyde Amendment"--Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation

"The legislation includes an onerous provision that requires Americans to write two separate checks if the insurance plan they choose includes abortion coverage. This unacceptable bureaucratic stigmatization could cause insurance carriers to drop abortion coverage, even though more than 85 percent of private plans currently cover this care for women."--Nancy Keenan, NARAL Pro-choice America

Articles and Blogs about Health Care Reform and Women:
Feminist Wire
Ms. Magazine Blog
Bitch Magazine
Frances Kissling

Women's Rights Organizations and Activists Statements:
Nancey Keenan on the Executive Order
Nancey Keenan on Health Reform
Planned Parenthood
Eleanor Smeal

Image Courtesy of the National Women's Law Center's Being a Woman is not a Pre-existing Condition Campaign

Health Care for All Genders

Hello! My name is Nona Gronert; I am from Albuquerque, NM and will be the Tuesday blogger. I am currently a first-year at Occidental College. I am a liberal and a feminist; I support the public health care option without the Stupak/Pitts Amendment (in the House version of the bill; "Affordable Health Care for American Act" H.R. 3962) or the Nelson Compromise (in the Senate version of the bill; "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" H.R. 3590) (Health Insurance Reform & Women).

How Health Care can Discriminate Against Women:



While the above ad cannot be considered "objective," it does give a good summary of how women are mistreated by the health care industry through gender rating and classifying acts like rape and domestic violence as preexisting conditions. At A Woman is not a Pre-Existing Condition other videos easily summarize other discriminatory practices in private health insurance coverage.

Overall, the current health care reform proposals do treat the genders equally in health care coverage. However, as mentioned by Alexis, abortion coverage is the exception; it is severely limited in both of the bills.

For a very comprehensive overview of the current status of women's health care and the House and Senate health care reforms' affects on women go to: Health Insurance Reform and Women.

The bipartisan Health Care Summit is scheduled for February 25 (The Foundry).

Sources:
Health Insurance Reform and Women
Kaiser Family Side-by-Side Comparison of House and Senate bills (available at above source)
Reform Matters
A Woman is not a Pre-Existing Condition