Obama should practice what he preaches. His female staffers make less money than his male staffers.

I don't think lashing "universal healthcare" to abortion or other policies that a fair portion of the population either objects to or has ambivalences about, is a good political strategy.

I would think that growing support for UHC would come first and dithering over the fee schedule-- especially for controversial items (do taxpayers fund viagra or not? elective abortions or not?)-- would necessarily come later.

I think leading on controversy kills support. I also think this is a canard. I have never, ever been part of a health plan that didn't cover women's health issues.

In other words, I were interested in supporting UHC (which I may not be) I wouldn't find it necessary that the candidate most likely to further that agenda indulge my personal feminine neuroses if it's better for the poor people I'm ostensibly concerned about for him to neglect to do so. I can find a better outlet for my personal narcissistic yearnings.

although i think the argument put forth by this post is somewhat nebulous, it does bring up the interesting point that under a universal health care system the government's position on birth control and abortion becomes much more crucial, as the gov't will be in a position to provide or deny these services.

I *don't* think saying, "Let's have universal health care so that abortion can be easier to get!" is going to work.

Universal health care is the issue. To tie abortion rights to it is just going to make it give off a funny smell for those Americans who have qualms about abortion (a majority) but who want universal health care.

Obamas from the do as I say not as I do school:

On average, women working in Obama's Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. That's according to data calculated from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate, which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007. Of the five people in Obama's Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one -- Obama's administrative manager -- was a woman.

The average pay for the 33 men on Obama's staff (who earned more than $23,000, the lowest annual salary paid for non-intern employees) was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on Obama's staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91. (The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama's staff was $55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729. The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the period, who was a male.)

McCain, an Arizona senator, employed a total of 69 people during the reporting period ending in the fall of 2007, but 23 of them were interns. Of his non-intern employees, 30 were women and 16 were men. After excluding interns, the average pay for the 30 women on McCain's staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in McCain's office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.

Hypocrite Obama. He might insist these employees are not really women, he just calls them SWEETIES.

For the critics, Obama is a Pragmatist (in the Deweyian tradition), and his stances on women's issues are likely influenced by the work of Joan Williams. Get educated: http://books.google.com/books?id=UBdki8KQiCkC&dq=joan+williams+unbending+gender&pg=PP1&ots=4-cKxurusF&sig=CSnBTLbhEj9OdZSDsXsH5Dy8pCM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

"Sweetie:" Those numbers are really impressive, except for the fact that they don't tell us anything about the jobs performed by those staffers. So, the numbers don't tell us anything at all, other than the fact that Obama and McCain employ men and women.

Which means that your point is largely meaningless. Get back to us when someone in either office files an Equal Pay Act lawsuit.

I'm an upper middle class woman with employer-provided health care in a major East Coast city. I can access abortion.

Me too. And I agree that lower class women in rural areas may have a harder time getting access to abortion. But they have other problems too--problems that affect many more of them and are much more detrimental to their interests, in particular, employment discrimination.

De facto working class women cannot get the same jobs that their male counterparts can get. They're stuck with boring, dead-end, poorly paid pink-collar work. There are lots more women doing these rotten underpaid jobs than women who need abortions. For working class women avoiding rotten work is much harder than avoiding having an unwanted baby, and doing rotten work is much much worse than disposing of an unwanted baby. Babies can be put up for adoption or legally left at hospitals; healthy white babies can be sold. Having an unwanted baby isn't nearly as bad as spending most of your waking hours doing boring, underpaid, dead-end pink-collar work. And keeping an unwanted baby is a matter of choice, whereas doing pink-collar work isn't: women are forced to work for economic reasons and working class women can't get jobs outside of the pink-collar sector. De facto, a woman can avoid raising a child but most women can't avoid pink-collar work.

Of course I believe that abortion should be safe and legal, and that lower class women should have access to abortion. But access to abortion is not nearly as important as access to traditionally male jobs. Why the hell don't people pay more attention to employment discrimination which affects many more women than this abortion business and causes much more misery and harm to women than any restrictions on the availability of abortion ever could?