House votes strict ban on abortion subsidies

[samanthajane13]

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer – Sun Nov 8, 4:24 am ET

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan House coalition voted Saturday to prohibit coverage of abortions in a new government-run health care plan that Democrats would establish to compete with private insurers.

The 240-194 vote on an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., was a blow to liberals, who would have allowed the Obama administration and its successors to decide whether abortions would be covered by the government plan. Sixty-four Democrats joined 176 Republicans in favor of the prohibition.

Stupak's measure also would bar anyone getting federal health subsidies from purchasing private insurance polices that included abortion coverage.

"Let us stand together on principle — no public funding for abortions, no public funding for insurance policies that pay for abortions," Stupak urged fellow lawmakers before the vote.

The amendment would bar the new government insurance plan from covering abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is in danger. The Democrats' original legislation would have allowed the government plan to cover abortions, if the Health and Human Services secretary decided it should.

The amendment also would prohibit people who receive new federal health subsidies from buying insurance plans that include abortion coverage.

The Democrats' original bill would have allowed people getting federal subsidies to pay for abortion coverage with their own money. Abortion opponents dismissed that as an accounting gimmick.

Abortion rights advocates called the measure the biggest setback to women's reproductive rights in decades. Anti-abortion Democrats forced House leaders to bring it up for a vote by threatening to oppose the underlying bill, and efforts to reach a compromise fell apart Friday night.

"Like it or not, this is a legal medical procedure and we should respect those who need to make this very personal decision," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Some Republicans considered voting "present" in hopes that might unravel support for the underlying health care bill among anti-abortion Democrats, but only one did, Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz.

"If I felt that the (health overhaul) bill could be killed by not advancing the Stupak amendment then it seems it would be prudent to vote in such a way that wouldn't advance the bill, but it doesn't appear that that's a possibility," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said before the vote.

The National Right to Life Committee and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbied lawmakers in both parties on the abortion measure. The bishops said they would oppose the bill if it lacked a strict prohibition on any federal funding for abortions.

Stupak's language applies to policies sold in a federally regulated insurance exchange that would be set up in 2013. The overhaul bill envisions both private companies and the government offering policies in the exchange.

Under the Stupak amendment, people who do not receive federal insurance subsidies could buy private insurance plans in the exchange that include abortion coverage. People who receive federal subsidies could buy separate policies covering only abortions if they use only their own money to do it.

Companies selling insurance policies covering abortions would be required to offer identical policies without the abortion coverage.

Abortion-rights supporters say private insurers will not likely offer policies with abortion coverage in the exchange because many potential buyers will be getting federal subsidies and therefore wouldn't be able to purchase them.

Around 21 million people are expected to get coverage through the exchange by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The majority of Americans who get their insurance coverage from their employers would not be affected.

Abortion-rights supporters say the restrictions in the amendment go further than current law.

A law called the Hyde amendment — which must be renewed annually — bars federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or if the mother's life is in danger. The restrictions apply to Medicaid, forcing states that cover abortions for low-income women to pay for them with state revenues. Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and the military.

Currently abortion coverage is widely available in the private market. A Guttmacher Institute study found that 87 percent of typical employer plans covered abortion in 2002. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in 2003 found that 46 percent of workers in employer plans had abortion coverage. The studies asked different questions, which might help explain the disparity in the results.

Abortions in the first trimester typically cost between $350-$900, according to Planned Parenthood.

A health overhaul bill pending in the Senate also bars federal funding for abortion, but the language is less stringent. Discrepancies between the House and Senate measures would have to be reconciled before any final bill is passed.

(This version corrects the third paragraph to correct the description of the amendment — people getting subsidies could not buy insurance packages covering abortion, instead of people could not get subsidies to buy abortion coverage.)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091108/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_abortion


This is an abortion law I can back.

I believe that abortion HAS to be available to SOME people as outlined above, but to be used as a primary form of birth control just because some people are too damned lazy to throw a condom on or take a pill is JUST WRONG.

The one thing I would have added, though, would be abortion for mothers who are mentally challenged or mentally ill.

Don't forget this case-Otty Sanchez...so very sad...


http://boards.library.trutv.com/showthread.php?t=294109

[samanthajane13]

Abortion amendment 'throws women under bus': US activists
by Karin Zeitvogel Karin Zeitvogel – Tue Nov 10, 12:04 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Rights advocates Monday accused the most pro-choice US government in decades of throwing women under the bus after lawmakers tagged on an amendment restricting abortion access and funding to the health care reform bill.

"We had the most pro-choice candidate in decades, but we don't have the most pro-choice president," said Terry O'Neill, president of the half-million-strong National Organization of Women (NOW).

"The Stupak-Pitts amendment is a giant leap in the direction of making abortion completely inaccessible to all of us," O Neill said.

Sixty-four Democrats joined 176 Republicans to vote for the amendment, named after co-authors Representative Bart Stupak, a Democrat, and Republican lawmaker Joseph Pitts.

"They said they wouldn't have been able to get health care reform passed without this amendment," said O'Neill.

"And they say, 'What are you worried about? At least we got health care reforms through.'

"We want the Senate to drop the amendment, and if they don't, we are going to pressure the president not to sign it. They should be more concerned that they have passed a bill that gives women only partial health care than about angering the Catholic church," O'Neill said.

Stupak-Pitts was drafted by men, passed by a House of Representatives with only 16 percent of women lawmakers and backed by the all-male US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), O'Neill noted.

"Here come all these men, who have never had to worry about missing a period, and they pass a health care bill for 49 percent of the population," she said.

"Well, as one of the 51 percent who only got a partial health care bill, let me say we are irritated," she said, adding that she was still waiting "for Obama the president to deliver on the promises made by Obama, the candidate."

Liza Sabater, a former professor at Rutgers University turned full-time blogger, accused Democratic House lawmakers of "throwing women under the bus" by voting for the amendment.

She listed on her website the names of Democrats who voted in favor of the amendment.

"They're saying that giving people's taxes to fund abortion infringes on constitutional rights," said Sabater, a self-proclaimed "feminist culture pundit."

"But how about anti-war activists? I don't want my tax money going to fund wars," she said.

The amendment would bar the proposed federal government insurance program, known as the "public option," from paying for abortion, except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

It would also block the use of proposed federal subsidies -- tax breaks for people and small businesses with low incomes or revenues to help pay for health insurance -- to fund abortions.

"If anyone on your private plan, which you are paying for out of your own pocket, is subsidized, that plan has to exclude abortion coverage" under the amendment, O'Neill told AFP.

The amendment does provide one way for women to have an abortion -- by purchasing a "single-service rider" to cover the voluntary termination of pregnancy.

But Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- the biggest provider of abortions in the United States -- decried abortion riders as "discriminatory and illogical."

"Women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy," she said.

"Proposing a separate 'abortion rider' or 'single-service plan' is tantamount to banning abortion coverage ... no insurance company would offer such a policy."

The USCCB said the amendment "honored President Obama's commitment to the Congress and the nation that health care reform would not become a vehicle for expanding abortion funding."

Pro-life groups vowed to make sure it did not get gutted from the proposed legislation on health care when it goes before the Senate.

"We will remain vigilant in watching the final language of the Senate bill to ensure that pro-life protections remain in the final health care reform bill," said Americans United for Life Action president and chief executive Charmaine Yoest.

O'Neill warned that, should that happen, "the United States will take a huge step backward toward the back alley."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091110/ts_alt_afp/healthuspoliticsabortion_20091110171010

[samanthajane13]

'No easy way out' for Dems on abortion
Alexander Burns Alexander Burns – Wed Nov 11, 4:44 am ET

The sudden spasm of intense debate over abortion on Capitol Hill this week threatens not only to stall the passage of health care legislation, but also to shatter the delicate cease-fire that has governed the abortion issue during the Obama era.

After months of dodging high-profile confrontations over abortion, Democrats — including President Barack Obama — find themselves faced with a stark set of alternatives: Support a bill that imposes limits on access to abortion or demand one that might, however indirectly, fund the procedure with taxpayer money.

It's the kind of decision point the White House and Democratic leaders have consistently attempted to avoid. By playing down divisions over abortion and emphasizing shared goals — such as reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in the United States — members of the president's party have sought to blur the lines of one of the country's most furious and enduring debates.

"They're looking for an easy way out. And there is no easy way out when it comes to right or wrong or true or false," said former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, an abortion opponent who served as ambassador to the Vatican during the Clinton administration. "On some of these issues, there's just no compromise."

The House health care bill wasn't supposed to become a referendum on abortion rights. But Rep. Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, reshaped the legislative landscape when he offered an amendment banning the sale of insurance policies covering abortion through the proposed national health insurance exchange — or to women who receive health care subsidies from the federal government.

Stupak's proposal, which would also bar any public health insurance plan from covering abortion procedures, passed the House on Saturday over objections from a majority of Democratic lawmakers, who voted against the amendment.

Supporters of abortion rights were outraged — especially House Democratic women, many of whom view Stupak's legislation as a betrayal of a key Democratic commitment.

"What they attempt to do here is just ban coverage, totally ban coverage, and that is a different mindset than maintaining current law," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) "There's people that don't want to respect that reasonable approach."

As the debate over health care moves to the Senate, Democrats find themselves in the unaccustomed position of taking clear sides on an issue they've often dealt with through avoidance and rhetorical sleight of hand.

On this hottest of hot-button social issues, few Democrats have positioned themselves as cautiously as Obama. Though his campaign-trail critics warned he would be the "most pro-abortion president in history," Obama has long presented abortion not as an ideological hand grenade but as a social challenge that can be tackled in a measured, nonpartisan way.

"If you believe that life begins at conception and you are consistent in that belief, then I can't argue with you on that because that is a core issue of faith for you," Obama told an audience at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in August 2008. "What I can do is say, are there ways that we can work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies so that we actually are reducing the sense that women are seeking out abortions?"

Since taking office, Obama has not backed off his support for abortion rights. Just days after his inauguration, Obama reversed the "Mexico City policy" banning federal funding to groups that discuss or provide abortions and withdrew restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. He nominated a lawyer to head his Office of Legal Counsel who once worked as legal director for the abortion-rights group NARAL and plucked a top political aide from the leadership of EMILY's List, the group that helps female candidates who support abortion rights.

When Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the White House tacitly signaled its confidence in her support for the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, with press secretary Robert Gibbs telling reporters Obama spoke with his nominee about the concept of "settled law" and "left very comfortable with her interpretation of the Constitution."


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

But if Obama's policy choices have been aligned with a liberal agenda on abortion, he has also dutifully minimized opportunities for conflict with opponents of abortion. Obama first revealed his method when he signed the executive order yanking the Mexico City policy on funding for groups that provide abortion-related services — in a closed-press ceremony that avoided drawing attention to the policy shift.

The president stuck with that conciliatory pose after a planned commencement speech at Notre Dame drew objections from anti-abortion Catholics opposed to Obama's policies. When it came time for his address, Obama gave a talk urging Americans to engage in civil debate on social issues "without reducing those with differing views to caricature."

Later, after the murder of an abortion provider in Kansas last May, Obama refrained from scoring points against abortion opponents, releasing an anodyne statement saying merely: "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence."

And if Democrats were ultimately pleased with his choice of Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, they had to take the White House's word that she was a supporter of abortion rights: In her 17-year tenure on the federal bench, she didn't issue a single major ruling on the subject.

Activists on the right say Obama's carefully parsed positions haven't won him any converts — but even they concede the president has succeeded in averting potentially volatile confrontations.

"He wants to say things that he thinks we want to hear," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, who heads the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that seeks to elect female candidates who oppose abortion. "I'm not talking about the pro-life movement; I'm talking about the vast majority of Americans who don't want to spend their money on abortion."

Obama hasn't been alone in his ginger approach to abortion. Joining him have been Democratic members of Congress such as DeLauro and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who introduced legislation to broaden family planning and adoption services in order to reduce the need for abortions in the first place.

"It is a difficult issue. It's a sensitive issue. It's a very emotional issue," DeLauro said, insisting: "There certainly is common ground we have worked to achieve over a long period of time."

Given the sensitivity of the abortion debate, however, the Democrats' balancing act was always precarious.

So far, the president has responded to the Stupak amendment by urging lawmakers to take a step back toward the status quo, long governed by the Hyde amendment restricting federal funding of abortion, without adding any new burdens for seekers and providers of abortions.

"This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill," Obama told ABC News Monday. "We're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions."

But as the governing party heads for a painful set of decisions, conservatives, for their part, are looking forward to the Democrats' moment of choosing.

"You can't have it both ways. If you're subsidizing private insurance policies, then you are either paying for it with tax dollars or you're not," said Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, adding that abortion "looks increasingly like it is a major cleavage running through the Democratic Party and that has potentially huge implications, not only for health care but for the 2010 election."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091111/pl_politico/29393;_ylt=AmSEg4g4QPM4PKM6i2X6BlpH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDM TJlMXNlbmRjBGFzc2V0A3BvbGl0aWNvLzIwMDkxMTExLzI5Mzk zBGNwb3MDNgRwb3MDNgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA 25vZWFzeXdheW91dA--

[samanthajane13]

Women face tough choices on abortion coverage
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer David Crary, Ap National Writer – Thu Nov 12, 2:25 pm ET

NEW YORK – Millions of American women will face tough choices about abortion coverage if restrictions in the House health care bill become law, both sides in the abortion debate agree.

Divisions over abortion are a major obstacle in President Barack Obama's push for health care overhaul, with both sides arguing over how to apply current law that bars taxpayer dollars for abortions in a totally new landscape. Under pressure from the Catholic Church and abortion foes, the House added tough restrictions to its version of a health care bill.

The measure would prohibit the proposed new government-run insurance plan from covering abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother's life, and bars any health plan receiving federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace from offering abortion coverage. If women wanted to purchase abortion coverage through such plans, they'd have to buy it separately, as a so-called rider on their policy.

"It forces insurance companies and women to navigate a series of chutes and ladders to get abortion coverage at the end of the day," said Donna Crane, policy director for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The amendment's proponents says its goal is simply to ensure that a long-standing ban on using federal dollars for elective abortions is extended to coverage plans arising from new health care legislation.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., an abortion foe, insisted the amendment is not a dramatic change in current law, offered to negotiate if his critics could convince him otherwise, and said it leaves ample alternatives for women to obtain coverage if they use their own money and are willing to buy a separate, add-on plan.

"If you really still want this coverage, you can have it," he said. "The only difference is that more people will have to make that decision that they didn't confront before. ... More people are going to have to choose, 'Is this a benefit I want?'"

Crane and other abortion-rights advocates say the amendment would make it harder — in some cases perhaps impossible — for millions of women to have health insurance that covers abortion. They depict it as one of the gravest assaults ever on American women's reproductive rights.

Two large groups of women would not be affected by the amendment: low-income women already ineligible for abortion coverage because they rely on federal Medicaid funds for health care, and women who have abortion coverage through the private plans of their own or their husbands' large employers. Most Americans currently have employer-sponsored coverage.

That leaves a significant number of other women likely to be affected — women who would be prime candidates for joining the new federally subsidized plans, but in the process might have to forgo abortion coverage they had previously under a private plan. These would include self-employed women who must buy their own coverage, divorced women who formerly were insured through their husbands' employers, and women who work in small businesses whose owners decide to seek more affordable coverage through the new exchange.

"This is a middle-class abortion ban that would impact millions of middle-class women," added Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "It's saying to them, 'You can't get full coverage that meets your needs.'"

Abortion-rights activists say the option of buying additional coverage for abortion — a so-called rider — is a false promise. They cite the examples of Oklahoma and North Dakota, where riders have had negligible use even though allowed under state laws that otherwise ban insurance coverage of elective abortions.

"Abortion coverage should be part of the regular package," Crane said. "Women don't expect unplanned pregnancies and don't expect their wanted pregnancies to go wrong. ... They don't anticipate needing abortion coverage so they wouldn't buy a rider."

Kristin Binns of WellPoint, Inc., which oversees health plans serving 35 million Americans, said it's impossible for the insurance industry at this stage to estimate how much such riders would cost and the extent to which they might be offered.

"We don't have a clue," she said.

Douglas Johnson, the National Right to Life Committee's legislative director, said it's difficult to forecast the restrictions practical impact, but he agreed that some women now covered for abortions would face restrictions if they wanted to switch to potentially cheaper coverage in the new insurance marketplace, known as an exchange.

"There's a choice they are offered by the government — this gift, this great subsidy — and this plan is not going to cover everything, as a matter of public policy," he said. "If there's a market (for add-on abortion riders), if there are people who think it's that important, it will be offered."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 21 million people would purchase individual coverage through the exchange, under the House plan. That would amount to about 7 percent of Americans under the age of 65. Of those, about 18 million would have government subsidies and thus would have to be in plans that don't cover abortions.

"Beyond that, it's an open question for individual insurance companies — how much of their business is in the exchange or outside it," said Adam Sonfield of the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive-rights issues.

Stupak says one reason his amendment's impact would be limited is because only a small fraction of abortions — 13 percent by Guttmacher Institute estimates — are paid for directly by private insurance. The vast majority are paid for in cash, even by women with abortion coverage who do so out of privacy concerns.

However, Dr. Willie Parker, an abortion provider in Washington, D.C., noted that insurance coverage could be vital for women with health problems who need hospital abortions costing many thousands of dollars, compared to roughly $400 to $800 for a first-trimester abortion in a clinic.

"The cash option was a challenge for many women even in more reasonable economic times," Parker said. "I see that becoming worse as people have to make hard decisions because abortion is not considered part of health care."

Obama says he wants to strike a balance on the issue, but whether such middle ground can be found remains unclear.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/ap_on_re_us/us_heath_overhaul_abortion;_ylt=AuDW4GT27b.xMq3IE2 jV96ZH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTJ0dGY5dHA1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMD kxMTEyL3VzX2hlYXRoX292ZXJoYXVsX2Fib3J0aW9uBGNwb3MD NgRwb3MDNgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA3dvbWVuZm FjZXRvdQ--

[Frieda]

Here in Ireland abortion is still illegal. People go over to the UK mostly. When I was young, it was illegal in Belgium and people used to go to the Netherlands. They made it legal in Belgium in the late 80's IIRC, but only in certain circumstances (if the pregnancy was the result of rape/incest, if the mother's life was in danger or her mental health and if the child was going to be severely handicapped). Belgium has universal health coverage, but I think for an abortion most of the costs have to be carried by the woman herself. I'm not 100% sure of that, not having any experience in this field.

I agree that it should be available to women, but not as a form of birth control. There are other, less invasive, ways for that.