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Democrats Leave Women Behind.
Michelle Goldberg on health reform and reproductive rights:
We've reached a point where health-care reform threatens to leave access to abortion in worse shape than it is right now. The Stupak Amendment, added to the health-care bill in last-minute negotiations this weekend, goes beyond the existent ban on federal funding of abortion. By prohibiting anyone receiving federal health-insurance subsidies from buying plans that cover abortion, it's almost certain to compel many plans to drop abortion coverage for everyone.
Almost all progressives have realized that passing health-insurance reform was going to require some bitter compromises. But it's both maddening and heartbreaking that a pro-choice president and a Democratic Congress are poised to give the anti-abortion movement its biggest legislative victory since 2003's Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
COMMENTS (5)
Apart from the use before the jump of the horrid substitution of "reproductive rights" for the more accurate phrase "abortion rights", Ms. Goldberg makes some valid points. (No one has seriously opposed reproductive rights since the Shakers died out, and abortion is about avoidance of reproduction.)
The insistence that government monies should pay for abortion, however, is a separate question from whether abortion should or should not be criminalized. A significant number of those of us who oppose criminalizing abortion nevertheless regard the procedure as morally repugnant, and if it is necessary to accommodate these concerns as part of the price of achieving health insurance reform, then que sera, sera.
I have always been puzzled by the view that, if government does not fund the exercise of a fundamental right, the existence of that right is itself threatened. If I want to publish my political views, I pay a printer, a broadcaster, or an Internet service provider. If I want to use birth control, I purchase a contraceptive device. If I want to bear arms, I buy a gun. If I want to sue to enforce a contract or to redress another's tortious conduct, I pay a filing fee. (For indigent persons, the court cannot constitutionally require prepayment of a filing fee, but the state need not waive the fee altogether.) If I want to travel from one state to another, I pay for a ticket or pay the expense or operating my vehicle. If I am accused of a crime and want to be represented by a lawyer of my choosing, I pay that lawyer's fee. (In the case of indigent defense, a state must appoint a lawyer, but need not pay him/her.)
Why should abortion be different from these other fundamental rights?
Posted by: John in Nashville | November 10, 2009 2:43 PM
Why should abortion be different from these other fundamental rights?
Um, because it precludes the state from having a say over a woman's body?
And last time I checked, you could cross state lines for free.
In the case of indigent defense, a state must appoint a lawyer, but need not pay him/her.
This is probably the closest example you have to the abortion issue, and I guess the simple answer is that the state could appoint a Doctor and need not pay him/her either...Problem solved!
In your world, if I thought you shouldn't have a defense attorney provided for you, you wouldn't have one.
I will never get why men think they should have a say in this.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 10, 2009 4:01 PM
Anonymous, if my comment parsing skills were that limited, I wouldn't sign my name, either.
One can cross state lines for free, if one is near enough to a state line to walk. For the rest of us, should the government be obliged to furnish busfare? Interstate travel was recognized as a fundamental constitutional right years sooner than was abortion. The right to bear arms has only recently been recognized as an individual right. Is the government accordingly obliged to furnish guns to those who want them but want not to have to pay for them?
Cliches become cliches because of the truth contained therein. One such cliche is that freedom is not free. Voting, for example, has long been recognized as a fundamental constitutional right, but it took a separate amendment to prohibit the poll tax.
And as for men thinking that they should have a say in who pays for abortions, that predates the Bill of Rights--extending all the way back to the taxing and spending power vested in the (elected) Congress. Of course, for the past 89 years, women have had the right to vote guaranteed by the Constitution, as they have had the right to petition governmental authorities guaranteed since 1789.
And by the way, anonymous, indigent defense is not analogous. The right to counsel in criminal cases is founded upon the text of the Sixth Amendment; there is no corresponding textual provision regarding a right to receive medical/surgical care. Lawyers are obliged as a condition of licensing to provide pro bono services; so far as I know, physicians are not.
Posted by: John in Nashville | November 11, 2009 12:40 AM
Anonymous, if my comment parsing skills were that limited, I wouldn't sign my name, either
and yet you did! LOL
indigent defense is not analogous.
Nor, might I add are the right to bear arms, free speech or to cross state lines, but that didn't stop you.
Look John, the elephant in your pants is that abortion is the only service you have trouble covering. When you feel repugnance over covering other risky behavior (say driving, or sports - something other than repugnance for a woman's autonomy over her own body) let me know.
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