Monica Davey of the New York Times writes that before Tiller's murder, Carhart performed abortions up to 22 weeks at the Nebraska clinic. However, now that women can't go to Tiller, he says "there is a need" for later procedures, "and I feel deeply about it." He won't specify exactly how late he is willing to perform abortions — perhaps because anything after the 23rd week requires special consultation with him — but his fee schedule mentions procedures as late as the 27th week. Since he has begun providing this service, Operation Rescue has been directing at him some of the vitriol they once saved for Dr. Tiller. Says Operation Rescue president Troy Newman, "We're trying to get criminal charges against him, to get his license revoked, and to get legislators there to look at the law."

Apparently this includes accusing Carhart of the very same "crime" they once tried to pin on Tiller. In 2006, the organization successfully persuaded a grand jury to investigate Tiller's role in the death of a 19-year-old woman named Christin Gilbert. Gilbert had Down syndrome, and became pregnant after she was raped. She received a late-term abortion at Tiller's clinic, and, tragically, died of complications several days later. According to an MSNBC story at the time, Operation Rescue and its anti-abortion allies wanted Tiller charged with "involuntary manslaughter, mistreatment of a dependent adult, and failure to report abuse of a child." The jury found Tiller innocent — and now Operation Rescue is trying to claim that Carhart was actually responsible for Gilbert's death.

The organization put up a blog post in August titled "We Can LEGALLY Stop LeRoy Carhart From Taking Tiller's Place As The Nation's #1 Late-Term Abortionist." The post begins with a "quote" from the dead woman: "'LeRoy Carhart killed me and my baby.' –Christin Gilbert, if she could speak today…" The group that once tried to get Tiller indicted for the manslaughter of Gilbert now says,

That's where LeRoy Carhart comes in. He frequently worked at Tiller's mill-filling in for Tiller as needed-and he was the abortionist in charge of killing Christin's baby.

In fact, the post doesn't mention Tiller's role in the abortion, or in Gilbert's death, at all. Instead, it says,

At Tiller's mill, Carhart and the Tiller staff finally placed an emergency call to 911-begging the dispatcher to come with "No lights, no sirens!" Then they placed the 911 operator ON HOLD for forty-five critical seconds!

Meanwhile, Christin's life ebbed away.[...]

Christin died a horrible, agonizing death at the hands of LeRoy Carhart and the staff at George Tiller's infamous abortion mill.

So who "killed" Christin Gilbert? Apparently, whoever Operation Rescue wants to shut down at the moment. They write,

But now that George Tiller's mill is closed forever, LeRoy Carhart plans to "take his place" and open a new late-term abortion mill in Wichita-in addition to the filthy butchering mill he already operates in Nebraska.

And this is where Operation Rescue comes in.

At least Operation Rescue is careful to say "there is no need for violence against LeRoy Carhart or any abortionist." But others aren't so principled, and since Tiller's death, Carhart has fortified his clinic with a metal detector, new security cameras, and a security consultant. He also limits his travel to short trips and, on the rare occasions he eats out, stays less than 30 minutes. Carhart has to place himself under virtual house arrest because he performs a legal medical procedure — hopefully, this will at least keep him physically safe. Unfortunately, it won't protect him from those who seek to pin a rape victim's tragic death on anybody they don't like.

Abortion Battle Shifts To Clinic In Nebraska [NYT]
We Can LEGALLY Stop LeRoy Carhart From Taking Tiller's Place As The Nation's #1 Late-Term Abortionist [Operation Rescue]

Earlier: More Threats Emerge Against American Abortion Providers
What's Next For Tiller's Clinic, Scott Roeder, And Abortion In Kansas?

Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) said he expected that all but a few Republicans would support the Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-Neb) amendment, which would restrict access to abortions for women who receive federal subsidies.

But the amendment is likely to be subject to the Senate's 60-vote threshold, and Kyl does not expect 20 votes on the other side to back the controversial change.

"Most Republicans will but I don't think that will be enough to carry it through, it's a 60-vote margin," Kyl told The Hill Thursday afternoon.

Republicans control only 40 seats, which means Nelson would have to pick up the support of at least 19 Democrats (or 18 plus one of two independents), an unlikely scenario given strong opposition from the Democratic base.

The Republicans are shaking the filibuster stick, but in the immortal words of the Rock and Wyclef Jean: it doesn't matter!

Now, this doesn't mean that advocates for choice can rest on their laurels. Far from it. The new battle being waged is over Sen. Barbara Mikulski's amendment that ensures preventive care and screening:

The Mikulski "women's health amendment" to the Senate healthcare reform bill didn't include the word abortion. But opponents of abortion allege the amendment, which was passed today, leaves the door open for the Health Resources and Services Administration to include abortion as "preventive care" in its guidelines and therefore guarantee no-cost coverage for the procedure.

"Because today's bill as written has no exclusion for abortion in its language, there is no doubt that Sen. [Barbara] Mikulski's amendment opens the floodgates to massive public underwriting of abortion, a position Planned Parenthood has always favored," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement. "Without the adoption of 'Stupak-Pitts' amendment language in the Senate version of the bill, it's now very clear that taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions."

It's always something.

Nelson amendment expected to fall short even with GOP support [The Hill]
Abortion Fight Moves to Mikulski Amendment [US News]

McArdle seems to have a low opinion of the various opinions put forth against Stupak, writing:

Most of them seem to come from feminists who blithely assume away concerns about the personhood of the fetus, and the staunch political opposition to subsidized abortion from those who lean towards the "person" side. This allows them to spend 1,000 words or so having a completely irrelevant discussion of the disparate effects of the Stupak amendment on poor women, arguing that women's reproductive health care is too real health care, and similarly unrelated side points.

Memo to authors: you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that women's health care is important, that this has a hugely disparate impact on women, that it will result in more women carrying unplanned pregnancies to term, etc . . . and that still wouldn't make a majority of the country want to pay for other peoples' abortions out of their tax dollars.

And once again, the majority of the country doesn't want a lot of shit. People didn't want to desegregate, or have their tax dollars fund schools and public services in minority areas. I don't want to pay for wars with my tax dollars. But the government doesn't work that way - did I miss the line-item veto form on my taxes?

McArdle then busies herself misusing the 13% statistic and making some really large assumptions:

The women who genuinely can't afford $500 bucks for an abortion are the women closest to the poverty line. Those women will be covered by Medicare, and they won't get abortion coverage anyway in most states. The women who will be buying insurance on the exchanges presumably mostly do not have health insurance now, and thus are losing nothing if their new insurance doesn't cover abortions. [...]

Obviously, I am not saying that feminists shouldn't worry whether women will be denied access to abortion if this passes. But the number of people who are going to lose access that they currently have, and therefore be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, is not likely to be all that large. We're mostly talking about a modest number of women who will have to hand over several hundred dollars that they would really rather spend elsewhere. The very small number of women who currently have access to abortion services, and will lose them, and cannot get together a few hundred dollars for an abortion in time—those women can easily be taken care of if everyone who is outraged by this makes a small donation to Planned Parenthood.

Exactly, because that takes care of all the problems, shifting a public health issue onto the plates of private donors. It also makes a huge assumption - that Planned Parenthood and other like-minded organizations are able to reach all the women impacted, particularly when one considers that it can be difficult to find access to these services outside of major urban areas. A donation to Planned Parenthood won't do much good if the person in need of an abortion is more than 250 miles from the nearest provider.

In the new New York magazine, Jennifer Senior provides disheartening facts and figures about support for abortion. While noting that even at the time of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision was against the popular majority, Senior points out that over the years, our nation has swung closer and closer to the anti-choice side of the pendulum. More troubling appears to be the attitudes of the neo-lifers, which fall along these lines:

NARAL's Nancy Keenan likes to say that abortion's biggest defenders right now are a "menopausal militia"-a rueful, inspired little joke. These baby-boomers, whose young adulthoods were defined by the fight over the right to choose, will soon be numerically overtaken by a generation of twentysomethings who is more pro-life than any but our senior citizens. As GOP strategists Christopher Blunt and Fred Steeper have pointed out, this group came of age during the partial-birth debate and was the first to grow up with pictures of sonograms on their refrigerators. The major development in reproductive technology during their lifetimes wasn't something that prevented pregnancies but something that created them: IVF. These kids have no idea-none-what it was like to live in a world without abortion rights. ("This generation's knowledge of Roe is like, ‘Roe vs. what?' " says Keenan.) And they feel much more strongly about personal responsibility than the generations preceding them: Didn't use birth control? The burden's on you.

These anti-choice narratives are changing how women view abortion - and leaving less and less room for stories like this one:

The woman is 28 years old and ten-and-a-half-weeks pregnant. She wears false eyelashes, blue eyeliner, and a striped shirt of black and gray. The condition is: I can sit in on her counseling session if I do not know her name.

"I can see that you are stressed," starts Claire Keyes, her counselor.

"Yeah," the woman responds. "Always look stressed."

Keyes was particularly interested in counseling this woman because of the constellation of adjectives she'd checked off on her intake form: selfish, uncertain, guilty. If you listened only to pro-life cant, you'd think that women were unconflicted-cavalier, even-about their abortions, using them fungibly with birth control. Keyes can tell you this is seldom the case, especially in such a Catholic city as Pittsburgh, and especially among African-Americans, like this woman, who on national surveys are less inclined than whites to identify themselves as pro-choice.

"I see you're going to school," says Keyes. "Is it harder doing that or working?"

"Going to school."

"Because …?"

"Because I got to cram in homework; sometimes I don't do it," says the woman. "I got three kids: 13, 11, and 8. And I got to deal with them, and the household, and phone calls from school, 'cause they're cutting out. So it's just like … a whole lot of … everything." She reaches for a tissue. "Basically, I go to school, and as soon as I come home, I go straight to sleep."

Not all abortion clinics drill down and do this kind of work. But the Allegheny Reproductive Health Center in Pittsburgh, from which Keyes stepped down as director in January but still works as a counselor, has a national reputation for being psychologically oriented. If there's any place where the complexity and ambivalence surrounding abortion plays out, it's here.

Keyes opens the woman's folder. "The first thing I saw in your chart," she says, "is you're not sure about your decision. What do you want to tell me about that?"

"I don't know," says the woman. "In a sense, I got too much going on, and I can't afford to take on another child. But in a sense, I feel pressure from my boyfriend, because he don't want the kids … so it's like, I want to. I'm not into the whole abortion thing. I did it before"-twice, according to her chart, once last year at this very clinic-"and I really didn't like it. I think some things happen for a reason."

Worst still are how all of our discussions of "choice" and "life" can still be so woefully inadequate:

Keyes gestures toward the waiting room, where the patient's boyfriend is sitting. "Is he an important part of your life?"

The woman hesitates. "I guess. For now."

"He doesn't have kids?"

"He's got kids. He just don't want any more."

Keyes pauses. "I don't feel you in this decision, and that makes me sad." She thinks. "If you had to name a percentage-pick a number-what percentage of your decision to be here today is yours?"

The woman stares into space. "Basically, 99 percent of it is him." She looks listlessly at Keyes. "So. Get it done and over with."

Keyes gently returns her look. "We have a saying around here: We don't do abortions for boyfriends."

The woman is silent for several long, drawn-out seconds. Then, she offers something. "But see, that's where it comes down to my percent. I have three kids already. So, he leaves, and now I have four children and no dads."

Often, the default pro-choice discussions shy away from these moments, while anti-choicers relish them. To some, this woman is exactly why the government should not assist anyone in paying for abortion. Her story plays neatly into existing stereotypes about black women, promiscuity, and parental responsibility that seems pulled straight out of the pages of the Moyinahan report. And yet, this woman's story is true, and it is one of the many different circumstances that lead to why women seek abortions in the first place.

What generally isn't applied to this type of analysis is a look at the larger factors surrounding choice. Race and racism loom large in various aspects of the debate, but are rarely discussed. African American children are disproportionately placed in the foster care system, and it is often difficult to find these children homes - the GAO even commissioned a study in 2007 to analyze the problem and propose solutions. Poorer women are already banned from receiving abortion coverage, but this is not a fight that has been taken up. Many mainstream feminist organizations are just concerned with maintaining what American women have, and lack the resources and support to push for more equality.

This may be partially an issue of our own making. As Kimala Price writes in Homegirls Make Some Noise:

From the 1980s to the present, women of color have continued this activist legacy in reproductive rights and justice. In the late 1980s, a group of thirty-five prominent African-American women, including political activists and members of Congress, issued the statement "We Remember." The statement connected reproductive health with other issues such as economic and social justice issues:

We understand why African American women risked their lives then, and why they seek safe legal abortion now. It's been a matter of survival. Hunger and homelessness. Inadequate housing and income to properly provide for themselves and their children. Family instability. Rape. Incest. Abuse. Too young, too old, too sick, too tired. Emotional, physical, mental, economic, social – the reason for not carrying a pregnancy to term are endless and varied, personal, urgent and private. And for all these pressing reasons, African American women once again will be among the first forced to risk their lives if abortion is made illegal (African American Women Are for Reproductive Freedom 1999, p. 39)

This re-articulation is in light of the U.S. government's ugly history of determining who can and cannot be mothers, who has the right to bear and raise children, through coercive policies. In the past, the federal government had sterilization campaigns targeting African America, Puerto Rican, Mexican American and Native American women. Today it uses more insidious ways of accomplishing the same end, such as family cap policies in the "reformed" welfare system in which mothers may lose benefits if the number of children they bear exceeds the limit set by state governments. Thanks to the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which banned federal funding of abortions, most state Medicaid programs will not cover abortions, and women who serve in our nation's armed forces cannot obtain abortions on military bases or through the military's health plan. Women in federal prisons and most state prisons don't have access to abortions as well.

The problem has been that the mainstream reproductive rights movement has not paid that much attention to these and other related issues. Out of their frustration with this, women of color activists are busy building our own movement. [...]

Drawing from human rights and social justice principles, women of color activists have re-defined "reproductive rights" into what they now call "reproductive justice." Reproductive justice is not just about the individualistic right to have an abortion (i.e., the right not to have children) but to include the right to have children and to raise them in healthy and stable families. Accordingly, these activists have broadened reproductive rights and freedom beyond abortion rights, the rights to privacy and "choice" which are normally associated with the movement. In sum, reproductive justice encompasses many other issues such as economic justice, immigration rights, housing rights, and access to health care.

This is the reason that Stupak-Pitts has become an important dividing line for the pro-choice movement. The amendment is horrid enough on its own - however, as a symbol, it continues to show the quiet erosion of women's right to choose and a painful reminder of all that progressives have failed to accomplish.

Interested in helping to Stop Stupak and expressing support for the right to choose? There are events scheduled this week that you may be interested in. There is a National Day of Action (that's this Wednesday, December 2) where coalitions from different Reproductive Rights Organizations will lobby their congresspeople as well as rally. Supporters are welcome, and Planned Parenthood is asking for people to RSVP. NOW has more details on the basic schedule for the day. There are also rallies planned in Illinois (Dec. 2) and New York (December 4) with more details here.

The Abortion Wars Heat Up [The Atlantic]
The Abortion Distortion [New York Magazine]
The Moynihan Report (1965) [The Black Past]
African-American Children In Foster Care [GAO]
Quoted: Kimala Price On Hip-Hop Feminism and Choice [Racialicious]
National Day Of Action [Planned Parenthood]
National Lobby Day And Rally [NOW]

Earlier: Nancy Pelosi: "This Is Not A Bill About Abortion"

The New York Times's David Kirkpatrick writes that despite the relatively small role abortion played in the 2008 election and in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, it's hugely important in the healthcare debate. On the anti-choice side, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List says donations are up 50% from 2007, the last non-election year. She calls abortion coverage in healthcare reform "the biggest fulcrum of activism we have ever had." Ellen Malcolm, of the pro-choice group Emily's List, echoes her observation if not her ideology, saying the Stupak Amendment has touched off the biggest groundswell of support for her group since 1989's Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services. And Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood says, "We have seen money coming in at every level. Congressman Stupak managed to crystallize this movement in a way that is hard to replicate."

Meanwhile, the debate over abortion and healthcare continues to rage in the Senate. According to Time's Jay Newton-Small, there probably aren't enough anti-choice votes to add a Stupak-like amendment to the Senate bill. But because Nancy Pelosi is reportedly considering just passing the Senate bill rather than trying to combine it with the House version, pressure on Senators is intense. Much of it focuses on anti-choice Democrat Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Says Joy Yearout of the Susan B. Anthony List, "He's our No. 1 target to influence others. Casey ran as a pro-life Democrat and it's time he deliver for his constituents." Casey is reportedly considering an amendment that would improve counseling for pregnant women. While this probably won't satisfy anti-choicers, he says, "I just think that there's going to be enough momentum to get a bill passed that one issue - even one very important issue - will not prevent passage."

Despite the inflammatory language used by anti-choice groups (Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says, "We want everybody covered and nobody deliberately killed. It doesn't seem to us an unreasonable request for health care."), limiting abortion coverage may not actually be a key part of healthcare reform for most Americans. Although 46% say government benefits shouldn't cover abortion services (a position, we should note, that's compatible with less extreme restrictions than Stupak), just 3% of healthcare opponents cite abortion as their reason. It may still be true, as it was in the election, that abortion is becoming less of a wedge issue for voters. Unfortunately, it still seems like a wedge issue for lawmakers — perhaps because some feel beholden to an extremely vocal and extremely anti-choice minority. It would be a shame if the Senate, like the House, conceded to this minority by imposing abortion restrictions that, as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says, "will put the lives of women and girls at risk" — especially if these restrictions aren't even important to most people.

Health Bill Revives Abortion Groups [NYT]
Can Bob Casey Bridge The Abortion Divide On Health Care? [Time]
Abortion To Be New Flashpoint In Senate Bill [Wall Street Journal]

Senator Reid unveiled his plan last night with both fanfare and steely resolve:

Reid's plan would expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans through a government-run health insurance option - allowing states to opt out - and other features, all while reducing future federal deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released late Wednesday. [...]

But Reid's plan contains considerable differences from House legislation passed earlier this month - with a more limited public option and different ways to pay for the bill. Reid included an excise tax on insurers who offer "Cadillac" health plans, not the "millionaire's tax" that's in the House bill.

And one of the biggest differences between the bills – on language restricting federal funding for abortion – could prove problematic for Reid. His bill doesn't include as many limits as the House bill and already is drawing fire from anti-abortion activists.

On the issue of abortion, the bill makes the following provisions:

The bill grants the secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to determine whether federal money is being used to fund abortions under the public plans, but doesn't ban those plans from offering the coverage. Reid's bill also explicitly requires insurers to separate private premiums from any public subsidies used to pay for that coverage to assure taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund the procedure - which is prohibited by the Hyde Amendment. [...]

There is a conscience clause that makes it perfectly acceptable for insurance companies to deny that coverage or health care providers to refuse carrying out the procedure. But the bill also requires each exchange to offer one plan that provides abortion coverage and one that doesn't - a major sticking point for critics of the original House language.

California Rep. Lois Capps, who tried to hatch a compromise on the Energy and Commerce Committee, commended Reid's language, saying, "I am pleased that the Senate has adopted a reasonable, common ground approach on this difficult question. It appears that their approach closely mirrors my language which was originally included in the House bill."

In a statement, she went on to point out that the bill "ensures that federal funds do not pay for abortions but allows continued access to this legal medical procedure."

We also have a date: Reid's version of the bill would start exchanges in 2014.

Reid, it should be noted, isn't fucking around with party holdouts.

At a special evening meeting of the Democratic caucus tonight, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined, in broad strokes, the details of his health care bill, which the CBO has found, in a preliminary analysis, will expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans while reducing the deficit. And earlier in the day, during a separate meeting about floor procedure, Reid let three of his party's key skeptics know that if they join Republicans at any stage of the process to block the bill, he still retains the option of passing major parts of it through the filibuster proof budget reconciliation process.

In response to a question from TPMDC Nelson told reporters that, at a meeting this afternoon with Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Reid "talked about process, procedure, discussion about reconciliation and a whole host of issues of that sort."

"Nobody's really jumping up and down to push for reconciliation," Nelson said, "he's not threatening that, but anybody can conclude that if you don't move something on to the floor, that is one of the possibilities."

National Right to Life-rs are, of course, talking shit, but I'm going to ignore them in favor of reason and sanity. The real battle begins on Saturday.

Reid plan ups pressure on moderates [Politico]
Reid's restrictions on abortion [Politico]
Reid Outlines Bill For Caucus, Warns Conservative Dems That Reconciliation Is Still An Option [TPM]
National Right to Life blasts the Reid bill [Politico]

Last night, Mr. Stupak spent eight minutes regurgitating the same points.

But here's the thing: the reason why Stupak-Pitts is gaining so much attention and momentum is because it is expanding the scope of Hyde in such a way that it will impact the majority of women.

Talking Points Memo summarizes:

In other words, though the immediate impact of the Stupak amendment will be limited to the millions of women initially insured through a new insurance exchange, over time, as the exchanges grow, the insurance industry will scale down their abortion coverage options until they offer none at all.

"As a result, Stupak/Pitts can be expected to move the industry away from current norms of coverage for medically indicated abortions. In combination with the Hyde Amendment, Stupak/Pitts will impose a coverage exclusion for medically indicated abortions on such a widespread basis that the health benefit services industry can be expected to recalibrate product design downward across the board in order to accommodate the exclusion in selected markets."

Furthermore the study finds that the supposed fallback option for impacted women—a "rider" policy that provides supplemental coverage for abortions only—may not even be allowed under the terms of the law. "In our view, the terms and impact of the Amendment will work to defeat the development of a supplemental coverage market for medically indicated abortions. In any supplemental coverage arrangement, it is essential that the supplemental coverage be administered in conjunction with basic coverage. This intertwined administration approach is barred under Stupak/Pitts because of the prohibition against financial comingling."

Now some, like Ruth Marcus, seem to think that again, this isn't a big deal. The most important thing is going to be health insurance coverage, right?

The issue with that stance though is that while we know Stupak-Pitts is fucked-up, we don't know that this reform bill is good. We don't know how they will determine what constitutes affordable and we don't know when this exchange will start bringing costs down, though we may now be penalized for failing to purchase insurance. And to trade a right that was hard-won and continues to be fought for daily for a box of ifs, possibles, and maybes is too high of a price to pay.

Study: Stupak Amendment Will Eliminate Abortion Coverage 'Over Time For All Women' [TPMDC]
GWU School Of Public Health's Study Into The Effects Of The Stupak Amendment [TPM Documents]
Health reform's false abortion debate [Washington Post]

Pro-choicers had a signature drive, which allowed them to physically stack admissions of women's support and deliver it to the White House:

NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered a petition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday urging him not to include controversial anti-abortion language in the Senate bill.

The group gathered 97,218 signatures in a 72-hour drive over the weekend imploring the senate majority leader not to include the Stupak-Pitts amendment in his final version of health care reform. The amendment, initially offered by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), would prevent private insurers from offering abortion coverage to anyone who receives government subsidies through a new insurance exchange.

Stephanie Simon of the Wall Street Journal committed a Guttmacher faux pas by using the organization's research to say that this change will not have a major impact on women:

Restrictions on abortion coverage approved in the House version of the health-care bill likely will affect the affordability of the procedure for only a small minority of women.

Although the bill has stirred passions on both sides of the abortion-rights debate — which are likely to be echoed when the Senate takes up its version — the practical effect of the restrictions will be limited, statistics suggest and some experts in family-planning issues say. [...]

Just 13% of abortions nationwide are billed to private insurance, according to a 2001 study by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights but is cited as a reliable source of data by both sides in the abortion debate. An unknown number of people might seek reimbursement from their insurance company after the procedure. Applying the 13% figure to the most recent abortion data available suggests that fewer than 160,000 women a year rely on insurance to cover the cost of an abortion upfront.

As a reminder, the Institute has stated very clearly:

Among the many arguments being made in the debate over health care reform is the claim that because very few women use private insurance coverage to pay for abortion services, loss of this coverage would have minimal impact. Those making this argument cite a Guttmacher Institute statistic showing that 13% of all abortions in 2001 were directly billed to private insurance companies (see Table 3, page 20, here).

However, that statistic alone misrepresents the situation on three counts:

* Our study included all women who obtained abortions in 2001, including women on Medicaid and those who are uninsured. If one looked only at privately insured women, the percentage of procedures billed directly to insurance companies would be substantially higher than 13%.
* Perhaps even more importantly, the 13% statistic does not include women who pay for an abortion up front and then seek reimbursement from their insurance provider. This is common when a medical provider does not participate in a patient's insurance plan, as is often the case with small, specialized providers, including abortion providers.
* Lastly, some of the women whom our study identified as paying out of pocket likely had insurance coverage for abortion care, but may not have known they had it or chose not to use it for reasons of confidentiality. Given the stigma that still surrounds abortion, many women might not have wanted their insurer or employer-or their spouse or parent who may be the primary policyholder-to learn that they had obtained an abortion. That antiabortion activists who have worked for decades to perpetuate that stigma are now turning around and using it to argue why women should not be able to purchase insurance coverage for abortion is deeply cynical.

Over in Massachusetts, the Stupak-Pitts amendment galvanized the senate race, with each entrant trying to out-maneuver the other:

State Attorney General Martha Coakley, the front-runner in the Dec. 8 contest, laid down the first marker by declaring soon after the House vote last week that she would have voted against the bill because of the amendment restricting 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.

Asked in an interview with a Boston radio station whether she would have voted for the bill, Coakley said, "I believe that I would not."

"I think that this particular amendment that was put in is really a poison pill for that bill, and it's taking two steps back," she said.

Massachusetts Rep. Michael Capuano, who is also seeking the Senate seat and who was one of 219 House Democrats who voted for the bill, quickly seized on her comment, calling it "manna from heaven" for his campaign.

"I'm proud that my vote helped keep health care reform with a public option alive, so that the fight for health care reform will go forward," Capuano said in a statement. "I believe it's what the people of Massachusetts expect and what Ted Kennedy would have demanded."

In essence, Coakley is arguing that she would have voted no outright, in protest of Stupak, while Capuano said he voted for a bill to keep dialogue going, while voting against the final bill if Stupak is still in there.

However, there is some hopeful news. It looks like some of the Dems are hatching a plot to preserve the public option:

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who requested the meeting with Reid, said progressives believe they have compromised enough on the public option – from a Medicare-for-all proposal to Reid's proposal to create a national government plan with a provision for states to opt-out.

"Most of us in the caucus want a strong public option, support the Reid way of doing it," Brown said. "And we're confident that over time, as the debate unfolds and we take amendment after amendment after amendment, that we can get 60 votes."

He acknowledged several moderates need convincing, but said there is little willingness among progressives to back down. [...]

A Senate aide said there were plans to discuss passing the health care bill through a procedural maneuver known as reconciliation – which favored by progressive activists because it would allow Democrats to circumvent the 60-vote filibuster threshold. A majority of the Democratic caucus supports the public option, and only 51 senators would be needed to approve the legislation under reconciliation.

Max Baucus is one of the moderate Dems that seems to believe that no matter what's in the bill, the most important thing to do push the Frankenbill to Obama:

"They wanted to talk about the importance of the public option being in the bill, which I understand," Baucus said. "But the main point is that we must pass health care reform hopefully by the end of this year. But we must pass it."

But as the public outcry over the Stupak-Pitts amendment has shown, the citizenry is becoming increasingly more concerned with the content of the bill, not just its existence.

NARAL delivers petition to Reid [Politico]
Limited Effect Seen in Abortion Clause [Wall Street Journal]
Misuse of Guttmacher Statistic on Insurance Coverage of Abortion [Guttmacher Institute]
Abortion key issue in Massachusetts race [Politico]
Senate liberals press Reid on public option [Politico]

Time magazine summarizes this dynamic beautifully: "In the end, all of the tea-party town halls, Glenn Beck rallies and "death panel" rumors may have less of a hand in bringing down health-care reform than an intraparty Democratic culture war."

The battle over abortion rights is more than a cultural conflict. While politicians choose to position the impact of the amendment differently, it still amounts to a frighteningly blatant assault on women's autonomy. The Time piece sheds some light onto the political wheeling and dealing that led to Stupak:

In mid-June, Stupak and 18 other pro-life Democrats sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi warning that they could not vote for the bill that had been introduced unless it was changed to prevent taxpayer funding of abortion. (The original health-reform bill introduced in the House contained no reference to abortion, which both pro-life and pro-choice activists read as allowing coverage of abortion through the so-called public option, a government-run alternative to private insurance plans that some individuals and small businesses would have access to.) They received no response.

A month later, five other pro-life Democrats led by Tim Ryan of Ohio sent another letter to Pelosi expressing their concerns as well, but suggesting a compromise to the abortion quandary. This time, Pelosi was interested and she gave Ryan the green light to develop language that ended up known as the Capps amendment, because Lois Capps of California introduced it during the House Energy and Commerce Committee's markup of health-reform legislation.

The provision extended the decades-old Hyde Amendment prohibitions against funding of abortions through Medicaid and federal employee health plans except in the case of rape, incest, or to save the woman's life to the medical care covered under the public option. In addition, Capps put forward a system in which an insurance plan could segregate private funds to pay for abortions from public subsidies, which could not.

At the time, Stupak's opposition to the Capps amendment - he was suspicious of it because it had been drafted without his group's input, by a pro-choice Democrat no less - seemed unimportant. Democratic leaders thought their solution would allow them to cobble together enough pro-life votes, and they were convinced that the amendment had taken abortion off the table.

Indeed, up until the last week before the House vote on health reform, both Pelosi and Stupak thought they each had the votes to get their way on abortion. As a result, when Indiana Congressman Brad Ellsworth, a pro-life Democrat, tried to draft an amendment tightening the Capps language in the last weeks before the House vote, both sides attacked him. Planned Parenthood said the effort, which attempted to strengthen the segregation of funds and ensure that no federal dollars could ever be designated to fund abortions in the exchange, could "tip the balance away from women's access to reproductive health care." And the Catholic bishops conference issued a memo calling the amendment "not a meaningful compromise."

The one-two punch took the life out of the Ellsworth amendment and denied pro-life Democrats the opportunity to vote for something less extreme than the final Stupak amendment. According to several members who voted for the Stupak amendment, they would have supported a more moderate compromise along the lines of the Ellsworth language if they had been given the chance. As it was, 10 of the 19 Democrats who signed the initial Stupak letter to Pelosi voted against health reform even after their demands on abortion were met.

While I am shaking my fist at my computer screen, Politico lobs this bomb:

Taxpayers currently provide deep subsidies for health insurance plans that cover abortion - a little-recognized fact responsible for much of the angst over an anti-abortion amendment attached to the House health care bill.

Stupak and his allies, including every House Republican, a quarter of the chamber's Democrats and the Vatican, say that it simply extends an existing prohibition on federal funding for abortion - an annually renewed policy called the Hyde amendment - to the health care exchange that would be established for the uninsured under the health care bill making its way through Congress.

But lawmakers who support abortion rights contend that, if the Stupak amendment's logic is extended to the $250 billion in tax breaks Americans get to buy coverage through employer-based plans, it could strip abortion coverage from tens of millions of women who already have it.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said that the next step beyond Stupak for the anti-abortion movement will be to make sure that "if that federal wand has been waved over your insurance, then you don't get to get abortion coverage.

All of this calls Obama's motives into question - how does one "maintain the status quo" when we are obviously upending the status quo in favor of this craptacular amendment? Still, there are some who believe that this type of trade would have little impact on the day to day lives of women in America.

The New Republic calculates how many women would be heavily impacted by the amendment:

How many women would the Stupak amendment affect? It wouldn't immediately impinge on the roughly 60 million women ages 18-64 who presently get health insurance through their jobs or their spouses' jobs rather than Medicare. At least in the short term, nothing would change for these women because they wouldn't receive any federal funds. But most of them aren't reimbursed for abortion coverage under the current system. There's a debate about how many private health care plans cover abortion—estimates have ranged from 46 percent to nearly 87 percent. But, regardless of the number, the Guttmacher Institute found that only 13 percent of all abortions in 2001 were directly billed to private insurance companies. Some women may have filed for reimbursement on their own; others may have been reluctant to file claims because they didn't want their employers or spouses to know they had abortions; and other women were uninsured. Nevertheless, 74 percent of women who had abortions paid for them out of pocket.

That doesn't mean the Stupak amendment would maintain the status quo on abortion funding. It would restrict the choices of women who buy private health insurance on the new health-insurance exchange designed to provide affordable coverage. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, under the House bill, 21 million Americans will buy insurance through the exchange by 2019. This group will include some of the 17 million women, ages 18-64, who are currently uninsured (and, obviously, don't receive any abortion coverage) and some of the 5.7 million women currently purchasing coverage through the market rather than through employers—including self-employed and unemployed women, and those whose jobs don't offer benefits.

It's some subset of this last group—the women who switch from private plans that now cover abortion to private plans on the federal exchange—who would be most affected by the changes. The overwhelming majority of people who buy private insurance on the exchange will be receiving federal affordability credits, and the Stupak amendment says that, if you receive a federal subsidy, you can't buy insurance that covers abortion. (The amendment allows women who are farsighted enough to plan for unplanned pregnancies to buy a single-service abortion-insurance "rider," but, in practice, past experience suggests these riders won't be readily available.) "The bottom line seems to be that abortion coverage, if it exists at all on the exchange, will be rare," says Adam Sonfield of the Guttmacher Institute. This may not be a great financial burden for the majority of women who have first-trimester abortions, which are relatively cheap—in 2006, the average cost of a first-trimester abortion was $413—but it could represent a more serious burden for women who have later-term abortions, which are more expensive.

(While much has been made of the 13% statistic, it is important to note that the Guttmacher institute disagrees with any framing of the statistic that would result in reducing the availability of abortion services and coverage. In a press release, they said: "Guttmacher's 13% statistic, therefore, should not be cited as evidence that insurance coverage for abortion is not widespread or to suggest that restricting such coverage would have an impact on only a small minority of women." While the TNR piece above states some of the Guttmacher caveats, the statistic is still what gets the most play.)

The most sensible take on the whole debate comes from this week's New Yorker, where Jeffrey Toobin puts our current bout of conservative hysterics into historical context:

Abortion is almost as old as childbirth. There has always been a need for some women to end their pregnancies. In modern times, the law's attitude toward that need has varied. In the United States, at the time the Constitution was adopted, abortions before "quickening" were both legal and commonplace, often performed by midwives. In the nineteenth century, under the influence of the ascendant medical profession, which opposed abortion (and wanted to control health care), states began to outlaw the procedure, and by the turn of the twentieth century it was all but uniformly illegal. The rise of the feminist movement led to widespread efforts to decriminalize abortion, and in 1973 the Supreme Court found, in Roe v. Wade, that the Constitution prohibited the states from outlawing it.

Throughout this long legal history, the one constant has been that women have continued to have abortions. The rate has declined slightly in recent years, but, according to the Guttmacher Institute, thirty-five per cent of all women of reproductive age in America today will have had an abortion by the time they are forty-five. It might be assumed that such a common procedure would be included in a nation's plan to protect the health of its citizens. In fact, the story of abortion during the past decade has been its separation from other medical services available to women. Abortion, as the academics like to say, is being marginalized.

It is being marginalized, and the sad part is that the effort is working - instead of looking at abortion as a part of medical coverage, we have allowed all kinds of political and religious posturing that do not contribute to the ultimate goal of health care reform: to improve access to care and coverage, not to create new restrictions. Toobin continues:

Yet it's not only with regard to insurance that abortion services are being treated like a second-class form of medicine. There is, for instance, the proliferation of "conscience clauses," which allow medical professionals to refuse to conduct procedures that they disapprove of. Shortly after Roe, Congress passed the first major conscience clause, which stated that medical professionals and hospitals that receive certain federal funds did not have to provide abortions or sterilizations if they objected on "the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions." The Bush Administration sought to dramatically expand the clauses to cover not only doctors and nurses but anyone who works in a hospital, including pharmacists, and to increase the range of practices that might be rejected-a step that could potentially include such services as the dispensing of birth control. President Obama has said that he will revise or overturn the policy.

The President is pro-choice, and he has signaled some misgivings about the Stupak amendment. But, like many modern pro-choice Democrats, he has worked so hard to be respectful of his opponents on this issue that he sometimes seems to cede them the moral high ground. In his book "The Audacity of Hope," he describes the "undeniably difficult issue of abortion" and ponders "the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion." Elsewhere, he announces, "Abortion vexes." The opponents of abortion aren't vexed-they are mobilized, focused, and driven to succeed.

Toobin's conclusion is one we would all do well to remember:

Every diminished of that right diminishes women. With stakes of such magnitude, it is wise to weigh carefully the difference between compromise and surrender.

Abortion fight is excuse to kill reform, Pelosi says [Politico]
Can the Dems Overcome Their Abortion Split on Health Care? [Time]
Abortion deal spins a very tangled web [Politico]
Stupak is as Stupak Does [The New Republic]
Misuse of Guttmacher Statistic on Insurance Coverage of Abortion [Guttmacher Institute]

We have no idea if we can get riders, or what they will cost.

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.

The Republicans' crap-ass plan still covers abortion...by accident.

The Republican National Committee's health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party's own platform calls "a fundamental assault on innocent human life."

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC's policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

"The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue," Gitcho said.

While many women do opt to pay cash for their abortions, that is not the end of the story.

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."

There are issues trying to play to both sides.

Other lawmakers said, in effect, that they voted for the Stupak amendment but didn't really mean it, because they expected the amendment to be stripped out later, either in the Senate or in a conference committee.

As a result, Democratic leaders are in some danger of having the worst of both worlds: letting a compromise pass, thereby angering their liberal wing, while appearing cynical in suggesting that they now intend to drive it out of the bill, thereby angering the party's moderates and the bishops. That's a problem with consequences: The simple math in the House suggests the health bill wouldn't have passed without the votes of the moderates who came to the "yes" side after the Stupak amendment.

If we become apathetic about our right to choose, we will lose that right.

The pro-choice, pro-health reform advocates I spoke with this week remained confident that they would be able to nudge Congress to soften the Stupak-Pitts restraints in a final health care reform compromise. They took heart from the fact that a vigorous public insurance option - an idea pronounced a dead letter not so many months ago - did at last make it into the House's legislation. But there's one key difference: the American public widely supported the public option, polls showed this fall. The support for abortion rights now isn't so solid.

A Pew Research Center survey released last month showed Americans' support for abortion rights is at a striking low - down to 47 percent - after hovering consistently just above 50 percent since at least the mid-1990s. And despite the passionate outrage expressed by high-profile abortion rights supporters this week, most of the pro-choice public just doesn't appear to be all that fired up about fighting for the freedom to choose anymore. According to the Pew poll, only 15 percent of people overall say abortion is a "critical" issue today, and even among those described as liberal Democrats, that proportion has dropped 26 points, from 34 percent to 8 percent, since 2006.

Stupak-Pitts passed not just because a group of Catholic bishops bore down on Democratic lawmakers. It passed because it could.

Tough choices for women on abortion coverage [MSNBC]
RNC insurance plan covers abortion [Politico]
Abortion Upends Health-Bill Alliance [WSJ]
‘Mad Men,' Maddening Times [NY Times]

As activists continue to drum up support to keep the amendment out of the final bill, the rapid splintering of support demonstrates how deeply the worth and value of a progressive reproductive rights platform has been devalued over the years. Politicians have skillfully learned to speak to both belief systems by leaving their words intentionally vague, while knowing that those who want to believe will read into the words and assume a certain position. Politico writes:

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 restricting 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.

The Administration continues to try to hedge its bets, meeting with various groups in hopes of hashing out a compromise. Still, there is the sense that many rank-and-file Democrats feel that this trade is fair.

Kate Michelman (former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America) and Frances Kissling (former president of Catholics for Choice) outline why this is problematic in an op-ed in today's New York Times:

Many House members who support abortion rights decided reluctantly to accept this ban, which is embodied in the Stupak-Pitts amendment. They say the tradeoff was necessary to advance the right to guaranteed health care. They say they will fight another day for a woman's right to choose.

Perhaps. But they can't ignore the underlying shift that has taken place in recent years. The Democratic majority has abandoned its platform and subordinated women's health to short-term political success. In doing so, these so-called friends of women's rights have arguably done more to undermine reproductive rights than some of abortion's staunchest foes. That Senate Democrats are poised to allow similar anti-abortion language in their bill simply underscores the degree of the damage that has been done.

We are coming close to the point where we are past having faith, and rapidly approaching broken trust. Call it the Wimpy principle. J. Wellingon Wimpy was a character in the old Popeye's cartoon, whose famous line was "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." However, Wimpy was focused on hamburgers, and acquiring as many as possible. When Tuesday rolled around, Wimpy managed to vanish, having never intended to repay the debt.

A coalition fails when members start to wonder when it will be their turn to benefit. And as Democrats went out trying to acquire votes, they started making Tuesday promises. They spoke to as many constituencies as they could find, courting women, racial minorities, gay and lesbian voters by saying they cared about their issues and were willing to fight for their needs - if those people elected them.

So they did, and now they sit and wait.

The Democratic Wimpys these people vote for every few years would do well to remember they have continued to buying them hamburgers, year after year. And they will continue to do so - after the Dems pay what they owe.

'No easy way out' for Democrats on abortion [Politico]
Rahm, Liberal Women's Groups, Have 'Frank Exchange' on Anti-Abortion Amendment [ABC News]
J. Wellington Wimpy [Wikipedia]

Contender: Amy Siskind

Outlet: The Daily Beast

Known Biases: Patron Saint of the PUMAs

Best Known for: Being Pro-Palin post-HRC

Can't Stand Stupak-Pitts because:

She feels like Obama has been selling out women since the campaign trail.

Women's love affair with Obama started in 2007. Some loved the idea of him-while not questioning his ideas. So when some women leaders heard the candidate say things like "sweetie" or "you're likable enough," or saw Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau groping the breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton on Facebook (no comment), these leaders ignored the signs of subtle misogyny. The National Organization for Women (under its former leader) endorsed its first all-male ticket. And NARAL endorsed Obama over Sen. Clinton, even though she had a proven track record on reproductive rights. In January 2009, Ms. Magazine's cover featured a now-infamous image of Obama in a superman pose sporting a t-shirt that reads: This is What a Feminist Looks Like.

With these women leaders behind him, President Obama felt he could be himself. He appointed fewer women into his cabinet than President Bill Clinton. He surrounded himself with czars, more than 90% of whom are male. He appointed Larry Summers, of "girls are inferior in math and science" fame, to a key economic post. He played basketball, golfed and fished with men and men only. He had beers with Skip Gates, but ignored it when Rihanna was almost strangled to death. And so on.

The love affair started to fade with Obama's off-handed response during an MSNBC interview questioning his all-male outings: "I think this is bunk." That remark gave women a reason to take a closer look at the inner workings of Obama and his ideas. And just as Betty Friedan described the subtlety of sexism as "the problem that has no name," "bunk" revealed that the boys club was still alive and well at the White House.

Best Shot:

The sleeping giant-America's majority constituency-is awakening. Note how few men are speaking out about the fact that a major issue for women was thrown under the bus to get a deal done: That women were not valued. It is the women leaders doing the talking and the typing.

Wants to take action by:

Lesson one-we need more women in leadership roles. Women's organizations need to drop partisanship and work together to get more women into public office for both parties. Sisters, we cannot count on either party to represent our interests; we can only count on ourselves. (And when our women leaders do, on occasion, get it wrong-as Speaker Pelosi did this past weekend-we need an ample bench of women politicians surrounding her, and strong advocacy groups to steer her right).

Lesson two-with this awakening, there will be a quest to get a woman into the White House in 2012. Find us a woman leader who might have her personal beliefs, but will agree to keep them as just that, and you might just have a deal!

Contender: Kate Harding

Outlet: Salon's Broadsheet

Known Biases: Fat activism, unapologetic feminism

Best Known for: Baby flavored donuts All around awesomeness.

Best Shot:

Our supposed allies who still keep trying to convince us that one more nibble won't amount to anything much. Only this time, we're not buying it. We are ready to go there. As Smeal told Goldstein, "We didn't want to make a fuss, we agreed to a compromise that was already over-generous. And then, bango! These guys go in there like gangbusters. Pelosi was held up, like by bandits. Now the women are saying, 'That's it, it's enough.'" And it's not just the women — or just the staunchest pro-choicers — who are fed up with Democrats who act exactly like Republicans did before their party moved so far right it landed on a different planet. Kos himself (who's taken plenty of criticism over the years, including some from me quite recently, for exhorting women to ignore the nibbles for the greater good), is reminding people today that donations to the DCCC will support Democrats who "voted for the Stupak-Pitts coathanger amendment," as well as anti-healthcare reform ones. Moveon.org is also going after Democrats who voted against the bill. And gay rights activists have launched a "Don't Ask, Don't Give" campaign, encouraging progressives "to no longer donate to the DNC, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends." Suddenly, for a host of different reasons, progressives are sending the message that we will not support these people if they keep breaking their promises and acting against our interests.

It's an exciting moment, and there's a chance to make a real difference if this latest swell of righteous indignation doesn't lead directly to the same old shit: Some of us panic about losing a Democratic majority and start hollering at others to quit being so picky and oversensitive about our "single issues" and take one for the team. (Again. Still. Always.) If we can work together as a bona fide progressive movement, rather than a bunch of competing groups who will all ultimately settle for holding our noses and blocking the worst Republicans, we might actually force the Democrats to give us more than empty shout-outs on the campaign trail. But if some of us will sacrifice gay rights for a chance at advancing our own agendas, and others will sacrifice reproductive rights for a chance at advancing theirs, and a ludicrous number of self-identified progressives will sacrifice pretty much everything they claim to believe in, just because the words "Democratic majority" sound so much better than the alternative, then nothing will change.

Can't Stand Stupak Pitts because:

Since the healthcare reform bill passed the House with the Stupak-Pitts amendment intact on Saturday night, feminists have been up in arms about the latest assault on access to abortion, and so-called progressive men have been telling us to calm down and look at the big picture. In other words: same old, same old.

Wants to take action by:

Really, when those are the options, there's only one logical conclusion: This is not our party. We've known that for too long, and yet the Democrats have known too well that they could bank on our money and our votes as long as the GOP remained even more not our party. But something's changed. Sixty-four Democrats voted to block women's access to legal medical services. That may not be quite as repulsive as some Republican shenanigans, but the difference is only one of degree. If the point of women voting for "moderate" Democrats is to avoid a majority that's actively hostile to women, then those who voted for the Stupak-Pitts amendment just proved that there's no point at all. And progressive women have finally had enough. We are ready to go there. Are Democrats ready to try getting elected without us?

Judge's Call: Siskind goes for body blows, but has no artistic savoir faire. All her moves are recycled. Harding plows in with passion, wearing down her opponent before trying for the TKO.

Winner: Kate Harding, for taking the long view of both problem and solution.

Loser: The Democratic Party - because when two different factions of women are calling for blood, there's going to be some drama at election time.

How Obama Sold Women Out [Daily Beast]
Face it: The Democratic Party is not for women [Salon]

But is the bill good?

Mr. Clinton spoke to a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats as party leaders were struggling to contain a growing number of conflicting demands and ultimatums from senators.

"It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," Mr. Clinton said afterward. "And whatever they can get the votes for, I'm going to support."

Which, at this moment in time, includes the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

Luckily, there's Representative Linda Sanchez, who puts the fight in a pop culture context:

Has Congress become like an episode of Mad Men? The Stupak Amendment slams women back to a time of stenographs and unsafe abortions. It represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women's ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled.

It is truly disappointing to see women's reproductive rights on the table as a bargaining chip for health care reform. It is equally disappointing that the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was let in the room to bargain, then ended up writing the law.

Speaking of Catholics, Nancy Keenan (president of NARAL Pro-Choice America) and Jon O'Brien (president of Catholics for Choice) teamed up for an opinion piece in the Politico. Their goal? To shame the Catholic Bishops for employing a double standard concerning government funding:

[T]he U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its allies in the House distorted the facts about the health reform proposal by claiming that the proposed system would have used federal dollars to cover abortion care. They're wrong.

The original House bill included a compromise that required all plans to separate public and private dollars in the new system - ensuring that no tax dollars would ever cover abortion services.

In fact, the bishops should be familiar with this arrangement because it reflects the same principle of separation that guides their financial interaction with the federal government. The bishops have a long history of almost unlimited access to enormous quantities of federal funding. When it comes to funding for Catholic schools and hospitals or programs run by Catholic Charities, they accept federal funding with open arms. The bishops never question their own ability to lawfully manage funds from separate sources to ensure that tax dollars don't finance religious practices.

Yet they reject the idea that others could do the same. This is the very definition of hypocrisy.

However, there may be some small hope here - Majority Whip James Clyburn mentions that the Stupak-Pitts amendment may not be as influential as it seems. He claims the bill provided ten needed votes, not the 40 that were estimated.

The Politico explains:

If that is the case, it could change the dynamic of the debate and give progressives a stronger hand than many thought they had. It's easier to reverse a provision that only wins 10 votes — and angers a good chunk of the Democratic caucus — than one that makes or breaks the bill. In other words, it's easier to win four or six votes than it is to grab 38.

Reid Says Health Bill Will Be Done by Christmas [NY Times]
Bill Clinton Presses Senators to Pass Health Bill [Wall Street Journal]
The Arena [Politico]
The Catholic Bishops' Double Standard [Politico]
Clyburn Says Stupak Amendment Won 10 Votes [Politico]

This version of the necessity defense sounds like something out of Law & Order, but it has been tried before. Paul Jennings Hill, who murdered an abortion doctor and his bodyguard, attempted to use the defense, but was barred from doing so. He was later executed. Clayton Waagner, a domestic terrorist who sent hundreds of envelopes containing fake anthrax to abortion clinics, also tried to advance a necessity defense in his 2003 trial. He too was barred from doing so by a judge, and was convicted of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction. In 1993 and 2007, courts ruled that the necessity defense cannot be used in crimes against abortion providers — and for good reason. The Free Dictionary identifies three main elements of the defense:

(1) the defendant acted to avoid a significant risk of harm; (2) no adequate lawful means could have been used to escape the harm; and (3) the harm avoided was greater than that caused by breaking the law

In the 1993 case, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the "harm avoided" cannot be a legal activity like abortion. Law professor Margaret Raymond says Roeder's case is unlikely to overturn this decision. She explains,

Typically, you don't get to use that defense in murder cases. The problem with a necessity defense in this case is that it is hard to say that something that the law permits is an act that must be prohibited at the cost of death.

Though the defense is unlikely to get him acquitted, or even to be allowed by a judge, Roeder is receiving some support. His public defender seems flummoxed by his choice — he says, "I'm not sure if we've had a parting of our thoughts here or what. We'll have to talk with Scott and see what's going on in his head, I guess" — but Roeder has met with Georgia lawyer Michael Hirsh, an expert in similar defenses. Hirsh hasn't commented on Roeder's case, but he did say in a previous interview,

The fact is that there is a mountain of scientific evidence that shows the humanity of an unborn child. And Dr. Tiller was notorious, by his own designs, for specializing in late-term abortions. So there's no denying by rational people the humanity of an unborn child, and the only difference in the unborn child and you and me is size, age and location.

Roeder's goal may be less to get an acquittal and more to turn his trial into a referendum on abortion. That was Waagner's aim back in 2003. Of that trial, Salon's Frederick Clarkson wrote,

Originally, Waagner wanted to use his trial as an international media stage to put abortion on trial. [...] He was bitterly disappointed that he was not allowed to use the necessity defense, and made a point of getting the judge to reassure him that he could appeal partly on the court's denial. Acting as his own attorney, Waagner tried to raise his issues at every turn.

Dave Leach, who helped organize the short-lived eBay auction to pay Roeder's legal fees, also wants "to put abortion on trial." He says that by admitting to the murder, Roeder has shifted the focus to whether his crime was justified:

In probably all previous cases, the dog-and-pony show proceeded, the prosecutor bringing in his witnesses to prove what nobody seriously contests. That way there is an appearance of a right to trial by jury. The jury gets to weigh the facts, which the defendant does not contest. But I have proposed to Scott that he stipulate to the alleged facts, making the dog-and-pony show irrelevant to any additional information the jury needs to make its determination, and dramatically isolating the necessity defense as the sole contested issue of the case.

He adds,

Legally protecting a harm does not render it harmless. The necessity defense requires reasonable people to judge whether a harm is in fact harmless, regardless of how courts or lawmakers feel about it.

Leach thinks a jury will acquit Roeder, which is almost certainly false. His trial may spark abortion debate, but probably not in the way he wants. Yesterday a group of abortion foes, many of them jailed for crimes against abortion providers, signed a letter arguing that Tiller's murder was justified. Kathy Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation responds,

This clearly shows [Roeder's] connection to the most extremist branch of the anti-abortion movement, which has long advocated this defense, that somehow the murder of doctors is justifiable. It's a defense that should not be allowed, but it shows his deep connections. We can only hope that law enforcement is looking into those connections and any possible involvement in the murder of Dr. Tiller.

The more people in the anti-abortion movement stand up to excuse the killing of abortion doctors, the less Roeder looks like a lone gunman. And if, indeed, many in the anti-choice camp condone murder, their claims of compassion and moral uprightness lose credibility. Roeder's defense strategy may well attract attention to the anti-abortion cause — but that attention may be negative.

Murder Suspect Confesses To Killing Abortion Provider [LA Times]
Suspect Admits To Tiller Murder, Will Attempt Necessity Defense [Iowa Independent]
Des Moines Man Hopes To Free Alleged Tiller Assassin With ‘Necessity Defense' [Iowa Independent]
Suspect In George Tiller Murder Confesses; Experts Doubt Defense [Wichita Eagle]
Suspect Confesses To Killing Wichita Abortion Doctor George Tiller [American Chronicle]

Related: The Quiet Fall Of An American Terrorist [Salon]

In a new interview with ABC News, Obama explains that the wedge issues currently receiving so much attention weren't really the point of the bill:

You know, I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill. And 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.

And I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices, because one of the pledges I made in that same speech was to say that if you're happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, that it's not going to change.

So, you know, this is going to be a complex set of negotiations. I'm confident that we can actually arrive at this place where neither side feels that it's being betrayed. But it's going to take some time.

I still hate that "sneaking in funding for abortions" line: It's like the lawmakers heard the cries for affordable premiums and comprehensive coverage, and thought Yeah, but what about all those unscrupulous whores scheming to use their health care coverage to go to abortion parties and make fetus-necklaces? WTF? Doesn't the Hyde Amendment go far enough?

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville thinks Obama's milquetoast cry for unity is a crock:

There is no fucking "common ground" between people who believe in women's right to autonomy over their own bodies and people who believe that women's bodies are property of the government, or their doctors, or their husbands, or anyone else who gets a vote on whether they have to be pregnant even if they don't want to be. Either you stand on the side of women's equality and independence or you don't.

It is fucking ludicrous that our DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT refuses to take a stand on this issue.

And this mealy-mouthed bullshit-"I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill"-is contemptibly craven. I'm absolutely fucking livid that a man who had the audacity to claim to be a champion of women's right to choose would abandon women in this way.

Nancy Pelosi is cool with her decision, saying:

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that while she opposes an anti-abortion amendment to the House version of the health care bill, it was necessary for the measure to pass.

The California Democrat said the language to prohibit the new government insurance plan from covering abortions "would have been in the bill one way or another." She said backers of the far-reaching legislation to overhaul the U.S. health care system thought it was better to have the language included as an amendment to be voted on than as a provision "that could take down the whole bill."

Pelosi, please. Why didn't you launch a counter-attack explaining that certain factions want to use health care reform as a weapon for their pet issue? Put some pressure on people! They had no problem making issues out of non issues, as is made clear by these comments from Senator Kent Conrad:

"I think all of us have recognized throughout that there are three things" - abortion, illegal immigration and the public option - "that could really bring this down," said Conrad, the only Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee to vote with Republicans on amendments restricting abortion rights.

The only thing that should have conceivably been on that list is the public option. But abortion and the issues of undocumented workers and resources? It's trumped up bullshit, preventing people from paying attention to little asides like this one:

Summarizing her study of the bill over the past 10 weeks, [Senator Susan] Collins said it was "too timid" in revamping the health care system to reward high-quality care. She said the bill included "billions of dollars in new taxes and fees that will drive up the cost of health insurance premiums."

And she noted that many of the taxes would take effect before the government started providing subsidies to low- and middle-income people to help them buy insurance.

Thus, Ms. Collins said, "there will be a gap for even low-income people where the effect of these fees will be passed on to consumers and increase premiums before any subsidies are available to offset those costs."

The bill sets standards for the value of insurance policies, stipulating that they must cover at least 65 percent of medical costs, on average.

Most policies sold in the individual insurance market in Maine do not meet those standards, Ms. Collins said, so many insurers would have to raise premiums to comply with the requirements. As a result, she said, the premium for a 40-year-old buying the most popular individual insurance policy in Maine would more than double, to $455 a month.

Wait, wait, wait - what? Fuck this, let's call Angie from Politifact on this one.

In the meantime, NPR published a quick guide to the language, noting:

Government Money: In general, government money cannot be used to pay for abortion. The government-administered health plan - often called the public option - will not cover abortion, unless a doctor certifies that a woman is in danger of death without one, or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

If you get your health insurance through the government, or with help from the government in the form of a tax subsidy, your plan will not cover abortion. In this case, you would have the right to buy extra coverage - with your own money.

If you get your health insurance through your state, as in Medicaid, your state could buy supplemental abortion coverage for everyone it insures. And 17 states already do this under Medicaid.

The Exchange: The next section of the abortion amendment deals with the exchange. That's the government-administered service where people can buy insurance and join a risk pool. One of the reasons health care is so expensive for people who don't get it through their work is that they're not in a large risk pool. The bill tries to group them together and cut costs for everyone.

Private insurance companies that offer a health plan through the exchange are allowed to cover abortion. But if they're going to, the companies must also offer another plan that is identical in every way, except that it does not cover abortion.

So, say you're buying insurance with your own money, and you get it through the exchange. You can choose a policy that covers abortion, or one that doesn't. But if you're getting help from the government to buy that insurance - in the form of a tax subsidy - you may not choose a plan that covers abortion. You are still allowed to buy a supplemental policy with your own money.

Private Insurance: The Stupak amendment does not apply to private insurance bought with private money. It is also not close to becoming law. The Senate bill does not have similar language, though lawmakers on both sides of the debate are now looking at it.

Politifact goes a bit further, denying a lot of the pro-choice rhetoric surrounding Stupid-Shits, saying that there is no proof that doomsday is on the way. Taking on Representative Nita Lowey's comments, Politifact writes:

But Lowey said the amendment "puts new restrictions on women's access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market even when they would pay premiums with their own money." We believe that Lowey's formulation is, at best, misleading. The people who would truly pay all of the premium with their own money — and who would not use federal subsidies at all — are not barred in any way from obtaining abortion coverage, even if they obtain their insurance from the federally administered health exchange.

Lowey's office counters that exchange participants who get the subsidies do indeed pay a share of their premiums with their own money, maybe even a majority of the cost. But if that's what Lowey meant, she should have said abortion coverage would be prohibited "even when they pay part, or most, of their premiums with their own money." Not making that distinction, combined with her failure to specify that she was discussing only people who use the exchange, suggests that the restrictions are more severe and widespread than they actually are.

Some in the abortion-rights community do actually make a stronger case that the amendment would harm individuals who pay for their coverage without subsidies. This line of argument involves what insurance companies might do from a business perspective in response to the amendment.

Some critics say that the amendment throws up enough obstacles against offering abortion coverage on the health exchange — particularly the requirement to offer two separate plans, one of them without abortion provisions — that insurers will simply take the path of least resistance and offer a single plan that leaves out abortion coverage. Some also argue that companies will be reluctant to offer riders for abortion coverage, or that there won't be much demand for them. This could indirectly diminish the abortion coverage options for people on the exchange who don't take subsidies, even though the law doesn't limit their options directly.

There's plenty of room for debate about how the Stupak-Pitts amendment will eventually shape the availability of abortion coverage.

There is tons of room for debate, especially when the assumption is that women are the unscrupulous whores, and not the "profits over patients" philosophy of insurance companies. They're supposed to trust the same people that classified domestic violence as a pre-existing condition and denied a four month old coverage for being fat? And they're supposed to trust that what they produce won't amount to an abortion penalty? Not happening. Even if insurance companies still offer the same coverage they always have, it would amount to the middle class facing what poor women have since the 70s - when you accept government funds, you are giving the government the right to dictate the decisions you make about your life and your well being. Planned Parenthood is calling it "the middle class abortion ban," but any way you slice it, the ramifications of this amendment are far reaching.

Still, the debate promises to get more interesting. There are rumors swirling about former President Bill Clinton getting involved with health care reform, and one of the staunchest Roe foes, Senator Bob Casey, has stated "health care reform should not be used to change longstanding policies regarding federal financing of abortion which has been in place since 1976."

Curiouser and Curiouser.

TRANSCRIPT: ABC News Exclusive Interview with President Barack Obama [ABC News]
Pelosi discusses health care bill on Seattle tour [AP]
Senate faces abortion rights rift [Politico]
Obama Seeks Revision of Plan's Abortion Limits [NY Times]
Official Site [Politifact]
Breaking Down Abortion Language In Health Bill [NPR]
Lowey says Stupak amendment restricts abortion coverage even for those who pay for their own plan [Politifact]
Too Fat for Health Insurance? At Four Months? [ABC News]
"Middle-class abortion ban" [Politico]
Bill Clinton Tackles Senate Abortion Rift [CBS News]
Casey: No new abortion restrictions in bill [Politico]

Earlier:

Reproductive Rights Left Behind After Health Care Bill Passes House
Democrats Vow To Eliminate Domestic Violence As Pre-Existing Condition

Greg Sargent reports at least 41 pro-choice Democrats have signed a letter to Nancy Pelosi stating the following:

As Members of Congress we believe that women should have access to a full range of reproductive health care. Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women's access to reproductive health services.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women's ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women's right to choose any further than current law.

For those of you who (like me, initially) are confused about how this extremely complicated and at times disheartening process works, what happens now is that the Senate needs to pass its own version of the healthcare bill, and then the two houses of Congress must hash out a single version in conference committee. That version needs to be approved by the House and Senate — and 41 House Dems say they won't vote for it unless what Latoya aptly calls the Stupid-Shits Amendment, which would prohibit women who receive government subsidies from buying abortion coverage even with their own money, is removed. As Sargent points out, their language is "unequivocal, with no wiggle room." And Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (video above) pledges that the Stupak Amendment will be gone from the bill when it comes back from committee. Sargent says it will be difficult for the letter's signatories to back away from their position now. He explains,

It will be much tougher for pro-choice Dems to cave and support the bill with Stupak than it was for House progressives to cave and back the bill despite its lack of a robust public option.

Here's why: Because the public option had initially been written off for dead, the version liberals did secure allowed them to claim they had won something. By contrast, Stupak is a significant step backward for advocates of abortion rights and women's health issues. So it will be much tougher for pro-choice House Dems to back a final bill with Stupak in the end.

According to Stephanie Condon of CBS, Pelosi can only afford to lose 40 Democratic votes if she wants the health-care bill to pass, so the 41 signatories to the letter constitute a serious threat. Will that threat be enough to convince the conference committee to soften its line on abortion? Will the 41 Democrats actually kill a healthcare reform bill that would — again, as Latoya pointed out — do many good things, if it fails in this one key area? If Stupak stays in, and the Dems cave, would Obama even sign a bill with such severe abortion restrictions? White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was vague on this point, saying only that "I am not going to become a negotiator on Capitol Hill from the podium" and "We will wait to see what health care reform brings." His failure to denounce the amendment does make it seem like Obama might compromise on abortion to push healthcare reform through. The fate of the final bill is still so uncertain, however, that it's hard to begin the upsetting calculus of whether the compromise would be worth it. Only one thing's for sure — as Sargent says, "This will intensify."

Obtained: In Letter To Pelosi, 41 House Dems Pledge To Vote Against Bill With Anti-Abortion Amendment [The Plum Line]
Wasserman-Schultz: We Will Kill Stupak Amendment [The Plum Line]
Health Care Progress Report: November 9 [CBS]
White House Not Opposing Stupak Amendment [Politico]

Earlier: Reproductive Rights Left Behind After Health Care Bill Passes House

The reports from Washington are unambiguous. Health care reform was actually war on Roe:

The House passed its version of health-care legislation Saturday night by a vote of 220 to 215 after the approval of an amendment that would sharply restrict the availability of coverage for abortions, which many insurance plans now offer. The amendment goes beyond long-standing prohibitions against public funding for abortions, limiting abortion coverage even for women paying for it without government subsidies.

Wow. I suppose advocating for smaller, less intrusive government ends at womens' wombs.

Obama left the abortion issue unmentioned Sunday when he appeared in the White House Rose Garden to give brief remarks congratulating the House on its "courageous" passage of the bill. "Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people," he said. "And I'm absolutely confident that they will."

Other issues remain unresolved. The House bill's primary new revenue source to pay for the bill is an income tax surcharge on families earning more than $1 million; the Senate bill will probably rely on a proposed new excise tax on costly insurance plans. The House and Senate also differ on a government-run insurance plan to be offered on the new marketplace where small businesses and people without employer-provided coverage — about 30 million in all — would buy coverage. [...]

The bills also differ in their requirements for employers to provide coverage — the House's language is tougher — and in the subsidies for those who cannot afford coverage, which are larger in the House version. Both bills deny subsidies to illegal immigrants, but the Senate version goes further by also barring them from buying coverage on the new marketplace with their own money.

So, let's recap:

1. No public option
2. We have an exchange that assumes a relative definition of "affordable"
3. Somehow, they managed to work this so that even women who were paying for their own care got conned out of abortion coverage
4. Undocumented workers can't access this plan, even without subsidies, though they - like other human beings - get sick and need treatment like everyone else.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got hosed.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment (which I am highly tempted to rename Stupid-Shits) was considered to be the way to compromise and move the bill forward. Senator Claire McCaskill is trying to hedge on behalf of the allegedly pro-choice Dems who voted for the bill, saying:

the amendment in the House health care reform bill is narrow, barring any insurance plan that is purchased with governments subsidies from covering abortion. The vast majority of Americans would not fall into that category, she said.

Nope. Poor people, you get what you get and you will be grateful.

The right-leaning Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, doesn't mince words:

The House's 11th-hour change to its health bill removes abortion coverage from millions of insurance policies that consumers would get under the legislation, including from private insurers.

Anyone who receives a new government tax credit to buy health insurance couldn't enroll in an insurance plan that covers abortion. A proposed government insurance plan also wouldn't cover the procedure. That's a sharp reversal from the original bill, which included abortion coverage in the public plan and allowed those with a tax credit to enroll in a plan that covers the procedure.

Abortion-rights supporters say the change would likely prevent any insurer who sells policies on the new government insurance exchanges from covering abortions, regardless of whether the purchaser is using a tax credit. [...]

Private plans inside the exchange would still be able to sell policies that cover abortion to anyone who isn't getting a tax credit. But they would have to create a special policy for that group. Insurers may be reluctant to do so because it could complicate how they pool risk and force them to label policies in a way that could draw attention from abortion opponents.

Those who receive an insurance subsidy and want coverage for abortion would need to buy a separate rider policy. "What woman would buy a plan for an unplanned pregnancy?" said Ms. Rubiner of Planned Parenthood. She said only a handful of states currently allow for such a policy.

In addition, NARAL Pro-Choice America is convinced that this amendment doesn't pass the sniff test:

• The Stupak-Pitts amendment forbids any plan offering abortion coverage in the new system from accepting even one subsidized customer. Since more than 80 percent of the participants in the exchange will be subsidized, it seems certain that all health plans will seek and accept these individuals. In other words, the Stupak-Pitts amendment forces plans in the exchange to make a difficult choice: either offer their product to 80 percent of consumers in the marketplace or offer abortion services in their benefits package. It seems clear which choice they will make.
• Stupak-Pitts supporters claim that women who require subsidies to help pay for their insurance plan will have abortion access through the option of purchasing a "rider," but this is a false promise. According to the respected National Women's Law Center, the five states that require a separate rider for abortion coverage, there is no evidence that plans offer these riders. In fact, in North Dakota, which has this policy, the private plan that holds the state's overwhelming share of the health-insurance market (91 percent) does not offer such a rider. Furthermore, the state insurance department has no record of abortion riders from any of the five leading individual insurance plans from at least the past decade. Nothing in this amendment would ensure that rider policies are available or affordable to the more than 80 percent of individuals who will receive federal subsidies in order to help purchase coverage in the new exchange.

On November 6th, before the announcement of Stupak-Pitts, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend published an op-ed in Newsweek, urging Catholic leaders to re-examine their push to end access to abortion through health care reform:

The current House health-care bill expressly prohibits federal funding of abortion and excludes the procedure from the minimum benefits package. It includes provisions that existing state laws and conscience laws will be respected. The House bill makes buying private health coverage affordable by offering tax credits to families with modest incomes. Moreover, the bill proposes a common-sense solution to ensuring that federal funds are not used for paying for abortion. The bill creates a mechanism for segregating private dollars from public funds to ensure that only private dollars go toward abortion coverage. This is a common practice in negotiating the role of religion in the public square. Similarly, Catholic schools receive federal funding for nonreligious services as long as those funds are separated from the school's religious work. If this solution is good enough for Catholic schools, then it is certainly good enough for health-care reform, and it reflects well on the tolerant and pluralistic society we have created. Most importantly, the bill does what the president promised health-care reform would do-it ensures that no one loses benefits they currently have.

Unfortunately, this reasonable approach is under attack from some Roman Catholic bishops who object even to the use of private dollars for women to exercise their conscience. They are determined to make abortion illegal, even if it derails health-care reform entirely-no matter the cost to women and children-and regardless of whether it would actually have any impact on the number of abortions in this country. (In fact, comprehensive health care could well reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and subsequent abortions.) In politics, this is called using abortion as a "wedge" issue. And it's simply not right. It is not right to jeopardize health care for the millions of women and children who need it most by inserting abortion politics into the debate. As a Catholic, I admire the bishops for their dedication to social justice, but cannot understand why they would put the health of so many women and children at risk when there is not a single federal dollar being spent on abortion services. It's a view I believe many of my fellow Catholics share. I urge the bishops to recognize that the House bill contains a familiar and genuinely American solution to the challenge of weighing differing religious beliefs in the realm of public policy.

As I've said before, I consider myself "pro-conscience." Women do not make the decision to have an abortion lightly, but it is absolutely critical that they have the means to make this decision and access to the care they need, no matter what their choice. Anything less would be turning the clock back on the progress we have made on advancing women's health.

It isn't just the Catholics on this one, but I'll heartily cosign Kennedy Townsend's pragmatic, women-focused take on health care. Reducing or removing access to abortion is not an effective strategy because it doesn't work - as we've written about before, it just makes the stakes higher.

While I'm sucking on the bitter pomegranate seeds of disappointment, I will try to look on the health care bright side. For one thing, the Republicans from Louisiana are an interesting bunch to watch:

So on Saturday, [Republican Anh "Joseph"] Cao, the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, surprised Democrats and Republicans by becoming the only one of the 177 House Republicans to support the health-care bill.

"I felt last night's decision was the right decision for my district, even though it was not the popular decision for my party," Cao told CNN on Sunday.

The decision, he said, was a lifeline to the poor and uninsured in his district, rejecting the idea that it had anything to do with reelection hopes. Members of both parties privately said, however, that Cao's prospects are doomed unless a large number of Democrats in his district embrace him. [...]

"I know that voting against the health-care bill will probably be the death of my political career," Cao told the Times-Picayune this year. But he added: "I have to live with myself, and I always reflect on the phrase of the New Testament, 'How does it profit a man's life to gain the world but to lose his soul?' ''

(The bitter seeds also compel me to mention that Cao waited until the Dems had a majority and then decided to cast his vote. He also made abortion restrictions a provision of his aisle crossing.)

Bipartisanship doesn't seem like so much fun anymore. As Paul Begala points out at the Daily Beast:

Obviously, passing major laws with bipartisan support is preferable. But not always. Twenty-eight House Democrats and 12 Senate Democrats voted for the Bush tax cut in 2001. Coupled with the 2003 Bush tax cuts, which also had some Democratic support, that vote ran up $2.5 trillion in debt. And for what? They didn't create jobs or reduce poverty or raise incomes for the middle class. In fact, median income fell by about $2,000 per family. Sure, the Bush tax cuts were bipartisan. But they were disastrous policy.

So, a good thing is that bipartisanship will hopefully be used in service of the greater good for all, instead of just a nice term to trot out at press conferences.

And Ann at Feministing points out things we should love about the bill, once we finish seething over the amendment:

*Expands Medicaid "to reach a wider range of poor households up to 150% of the federal poverty level.
36M additional Americans will now be eligible for Medicaid."

*Bars discrimination in health care on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.

*Acknowledges LGBTQ Americans are a population likely to "experience significant gaps in disease, health outcomes, or access to health care." This will hopefully ensure that LGBTQ people are included in future data collection, and that grant programs will focus on their specific health needs.

*Ends the "unfair practice of taxing employer-provided domestic partner health benefits, allowing thousands upon thousands of LGBT people to obtain domestic partner health benefits for their partners and families without having to pay a tax penalty through the nose."

*Allows states to cover early HIV treatment under their Medicaid programs. (Currently, states are only allowed to use Medicaid money for patients with full-blown AIDS.)

*Funds comprehensive sex-ed programs.

So there are some silver linings to this storm cloud but I'm beginning to wonder - even with the good additions - if we should have left fucked up enough alone.

Abortion an obstacle to health-care bill [Washington Post]
McCaskill: Abortion amendment no poison pill [Politico]
Late Change Drops Abortion Coverage [Wall Street Journal]
House: Yes to Extreme Anti-Choice Politics, No to Women's Health and Privacy [NARAL]
A Call to Catholics [Newsweek]
A vote to make or break a career [Washington Post]
Forget Bipartisanship [The Daily Beast]
Good news in the health care bill [Feministing]
39 Democrats voted against the Affordable Health Care for America Act #HCR [Culture Kitchen]

Earlier:

NYT: Filipinos Fight For Reproductive Justice