Tweet
For me, one of the more frustrating aspects of organizing against the Stupak amendment has been comments I’ve heard – usually from younger, more affluent women – that they just didn’t think the Stupak amendment was that big a deal.
Surely it wasn’t enough to jeopardize the entire health care reform bill over. After all, why should the federal government be footing the bill to pay for someone else’s "poor judgment"?
If I had heard this sort of comment once or twice I could easily dismiss it, but I’ve heard it enough to give me pause, and from women I thought would, should know better. Maybe I’m naive, but it never occurred to me that otherwise well educated and socially liberal women would be so dismissive – thinking access to safe legal abortion will always be available to them because they can afford it, not a hard-won right they could eventually lose, regardless of their ability to pay.
Maybe they think this way because within their own circle of friends are women who’ve made "poor choices" and who’ve paid for abortions out of pocket. Emotionally it may have been wrenching, but financially they could handle it. They had the resources. They had a choice.
Which is the whole point. Stupak takes choice away from women who are economically vulnerable. And contrary to popular belief, it takes it away from poor women whose health may be in danger if they’re forced to carry out a full term pregnancy.
Feldman, a 41-year-old federal lawyer, and her husband had been trying for two years to have a baby. Sadly, her doctor "made it very clear I wasn’t to continue this pregnancy," she said.
An abortion was medically necessary. She had little choice.
But after the jolt of the diagnosis and the emotional pain of the procedure, Feldman was in for another shock — sticker shock. She thought her health insurance policy through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) would cover the $9,000 cost of the abortion. It didn’t.
For Feldman, unlike many women who have abortion insurance coverage through private-sector employers, abortion coverage provided through her employer — the U.S. government — is illegal. The law says that "no funds . . . shall be available to pay for an abortion" under FEHBP. Exceptions are made for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest, or that endanger the mother’s……
Feldman’s case is instructive. Congress is considering a ban, like the one in federal employee health plans, against federal funding of abortions as part of the effort to reform the nation’s porous health insurance system. After hot debate last month, the House approved the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which would prohibit abortion coverage in government-subsidized health insurance, with exceptions for rape, incest and the mother’s health.
"But wait," you say," Stupak makes an exception for the health of the mother." Sure it does, if you’re health insurer agrees that your health really is in danger. Read on.
The doctor warned that the complications for a woman of Feldman’s maternal age from giving birth to a child with anencephaly "are especially serious . . . and could be life threatening."
Despite the doctor’s plea, the Office of Personnel Management refused to make Blue Cross/Blue Shield pay.
"The fetal anomaly presented no medical danger to you, the mother," OPM wrote to Feldman. "Consequently, we cannot direct the [insurance] Plan to provide benefits for the services in dispute."
Shocking, I know. An insurance company denying coverage. Who would have thought?
This woman was lucky. She had the leverage to negotiate her bill and the financial stability to pay off the balance. Poor women have neither.
This is why we ‘re phone banking. Not just to fight the Stupak amendment, but the mountain of mis-information hiding the cold, hard truth – that the real intent is to eliminate safe and legal abortion in this country, regardless of the ability to pay, or the risk to the mother’s health.
Stupak is death by a thousand paper cuts
We need your help. Will you volunteer to call pro-choice voters and explain truth about Stupak?
Join one of the phone bank efforts already going, or if there’s not one in your area, start one of your own!
SIGN UP FOR A PHONE BANK IN YOUR AREA!
"One Voice For Choice" has phone banks set up all over California, and two in Texas. Don’t see one in your area? Sign up to host your own! Please be sure to bring your cell phone and a charger.
Click on the names of the cities below to sign up!
_______________________________________________
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5
San Francisco, CA
9AM – 2PM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6
Lubbock, TX
1pm-3pm
Redondon Beach, CA
10am-12pm
Santa Monica, CA
Noon – 5pm
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
9am-3pm
Mar Vista, CA
Noon – 3pm
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13
San Diego, CA
12pm-2pm
Fresno, CA
1pm-4pm
Austin, TX
1pm-5pm
_______________________________________________
You can follow us:
on the web at www.onevoiceforchoice.com
on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/onevoiceforchoice
on twitter @OneVoice4Choice
43 Comments
Thanks Marta!
I think it obvious that the anti choice crowd is being completely disingenuous when they claim their concerns begins and ends with the fetus. Their real goal is the subjugation of women. It’s all about power and the morally bankrupt influence of organized religion. Their religious leaders tell them that only men should be able to make decisions and that women are to obey men. If circumstances would allow these people would go just as far as the taliban.
What I find particularly disgusting are anti choice women who have been brainwashed into believing that it is men who should determine their fate.
It’s time for people to call a spade a spade. And stop unquestionably accepting the anti choice crowd’s stated reasons for wanting to take away rights from women.
Too bad we can’t kill his reproductive choices! I really think these idiots need to be called out by other Dems for turing their backs on 2 of the parties staples of legislation. Women’s rights and healthcare are signatures of the party and if these duplicitous, phony, deficit hawks are interested in feeding big business then, they should have run as Republicans. I’d strip every thing I could from them and back a challenger in their next election. I’m sick of these people. Let’s hope the idiots who keep voting for these clowns will wise up.
This is the job for women. Perhaps young women would listen. We must tell them the stories and the work we have done for so many years so see that they have rights that they now don’t appreciate.
edit not working again.
fight fight fight
here it is again girls .. fight or lose the right to control your own body .. the murkin taliban never sleeps
The only Hyde exception is LIFE, not health (remember McCain’s airquotes).
Everytime we discuss this: bashing young women for not caring enough. There was an article in nymag. No one ever has poll data.
I am not saying your experience is wrong, but all the evidence I have seen regarding age and gender differentials in abortion show that young women are not less concerned.
It is either statistical noise, or young men are the ones who are more anti choice. Looking around the blogosphere, the latter seems true.
Wow, not my experience at all that young men are anti-choice. Support for that?
And I do think young women are not particularly concerned because they have never had to worry about this issue…..and have no real concept of the fight it took to get the law out of pants in the first place.
I want to be very clear here. I’m not saying that these women are anti-choice – they just don’t believe Stupak will ever affect them. Because they have the financial means to pay for an abortion themselves. They fail to recognize that this is the start of a slippery slope that could lead to the end of safe, legal abortions for all women, regardless of their ability to pay.
Thank you for saying it much better than I did. This is really important. It’s not just about the right to have an abortion; it’s about all rights for women and we need to make that understood.
The slippery slope started with Hyde. Maybe we should play some offense and try to remove it from next year’s budget.
Marta. Thanks for pointing this out. As I say above to Aardvark, I have been seeing the same thing for really many years. I do think it is not venal but what you describe and a result of this culture of radical individualism, anti-social morality. Good people who mean well but just never learned what applies to my neighbor/sister will eventually apply to me.
Stupak.Must.Go
… and what Sharkbabe said !
I didn’t mean to imply that young men are anti-choice. What I mean is that this is always a woman’s problem and we are the ones who must push it. We would not have to worry if young people had the proper teaching in birth control but obviously they don’t. Was reading the other day that abortion is quite common in red states. The article stated that about 10,000 a year are performed in Kansas.
Jane made a similar assertion yesterday. No worries. It’s a woman’s choice, but reproductive rights affect us all.
I tried this afternoon to get some of the information that came up yesterday after I registered. How do I get back to that? Do you have to register again? I also went to the site (onevoiceforchoice.com) to say that I’d like to run a phone bank in Knoxville, TN. Is there a time frame for this action? If sooner is better, I can try to reserve the meeting room at a Knox Co public library for Sat, Dec 19. As of now, there’s nothing within 300 miles of me. My hope is that, if I can put this up, at least 2 or 3 other people will join in. Anyway, should I just register again and this time click on “host”?
HI, Knoxville,
If you registered on the OVFC website you should be getting an email shortly on how to create a phone bank. Ideally we’d like you to have one within the next couple of weeks, since after that, we’re into the holiday season and it becomes more difficult to recruit volunteers.
Excellent. Thank you! Would a Saturday afternoon, Dec 19, be ok?
emailing you now.
If the Demo Obama administration and Congress allow Stupak to hold, no self respecting woman should ever vote for any of them again. And candidates must be found to run against them in the next election. Obama could be using his power behind the scenes to kill Stupak. And so could Congressional leaders. Why aren’t they doing so?
“But wait” IS NOT WHAT I SAY.. I say – KILL THE BILL BECAUSE OF STUPAK. AND BLAME HIM FOR THE FAILURE OF HEALTH CARE REFORM – Run him out of congress in disgrace. He deserves it.
http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=88
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1212/abortion-gun-control-opinion-gender-gap
http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=55269
Not saying this is definitive. It could be statistical nose, like I said. But there is NOTHING to suggest that silly young feminists are too focused on heels and make up and don’t care about reproductive rights because they were never forced to use the coathangers.
We need to start a new category: ChINO. Choice in Name Only. These are the guys who say I’m pro choice, but we have to compromise! Its not really a big deal, etc. You know, half the posters on dailykos.
Thanks for the links. DailyKos is passe’ — not the site of choice for the forward-thinkers of the younger generation that I know.
We should never compromise on this issue. I would not vote for anyone who was not pro-choice. It has been my main issue for at least 40 years.
Amen, Twain !
I also would like to have the Catholic church out of politics and my body. With 5 on the Supremes I guess his highness, the pope, will be prattling on about women for many years to come.
I am male, and the only psychologist, insofar as I am aware, in Kansas who has publicly–for more than 25 years now–supported abortion and homosexual rights. I ask, where are all of my female colleagues on this issue? Seem to be pretty absent. Up until recently, I taught a section of human sexuality at a local community college. In seventeen years, not once could one of my female (never mind male) students quote in a reasonable facsimile, the Equal Rights Amendment; most would sit there with a blank face. In 1983, I quit the board of the local Planned Parenthood (to which I still contribute) because my concerns regarding how the anti folk were organizing were summarily dismissed by the executive director and the other board members.
So, I am having difficulty summoning much sympathy for you folk. I have done more than my part to stave off what I saw coming down the tracks many years ago. If you want to be angry, that anger ought to be directed not at the anti-folk; they are acting in good faith based on their beliefs. Who you should be angry at are the myriad of professional women, especially those in the health care professions, who have been in denial about the seriousness of the threat from the Right on this issue.
DM
Thank you for your service. My girls run with pretty progressive crowds and they’ve been outspoken. But I agree that the organizations who should have represented us properly seem to be run by women who prefer getting invites to the weenie circuit. Such a shame. But thanks for being you.
Hopefully there will be an insurgency at NARAL.
I have been seeing it coming a long time also and am glad to see you affirm the main thing I get from Marta’s article. That is the incredible apathy among young and mid aged women. That is why it is I fear likely, with the SCOTUS heavily Catholic and an uninvolved president, that the right will be the first lost of a cascade of erosion of women’s rights.
I agree that no assumptions should be that young women generally speaking do not care about abortion rights. I also agree there are people who seem to be ChINO – prochoice in name only. Or prochoice when it is politically convenient, or prochoice unless I need to compromise on something and would rather compromise on choice rather than something I care more about… And it appears we have many politicians who are ChINO.
HOw are the phone banks going?
Sadly, many women will end up like Gerri. http://www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org/about_gerri.html
Is this really the best we can do in order to satisfy the patriarchy?
Warning, the link is graphic – yet very important.
Abortion rights are tossed out the window because there is no retribution. Republicans never cross the NRA.
Plenty of Dems in safe districts voted for Stupak. Joe Baca in CA, did not even have a fucking opponent in 2008. He thinks he won’t have to pay a price. Sadly, he is probably right.
I am sure anti choice groups know this. It is going to get worse.
I see that Bob Casey has stepped back from the filibuster ledge.
I must confess that a few weeks ago (maybe a month) I sent him a very heated– almost virulent– email on this topic, concluding with my asking him about his medical degree.
Perhaps I should apologize for my lack of civility. I was pretty harsh.
I know this thread is probably done – but I just want to thank Marta and Laura Strand and Talking Stick. Laura, that photo has haunted me for 35 years, and I think of it whenever we’re in a situation like this. I did not know her name; I’ve always seen it anonymously.
For Aardvark; I’m sorry you’ve had such bad experiences with women around you being so ignorant; that’s actually part of the apathy Marta is talking about, from ignorance and from coming after the battle had been (they think) won. I could probably do a fair approximation of the ERA language, but I won’t swear to it. I campaigned for it actively, but a lot of time has passed.
Marta, I’ve been seeing a lot of this sort of thing on blog discussions about Stupak, also; 2 things bother me most. First, those posting usually don’t have a clue what the amendment would do; they buy the description of it as”just like Hyde,” (well, it also bothers me that think Hyde is fine, but that’s a separate issue). Second, How many of them comment that the purported cost of an abortion is $300-$600, and that is an amount that “anybody” could afford. I saw one post that referred to it as a “measly” amount. Aaaargh.
And people just do not realize that while they are young, healthy, making good money at a good job, it doesn’t take much to change life 180 degrees. It can happen in a split second, in an accident that destroys one’s health, ability to work, thus removing one’s access to health inurance, etc., etc.
Gloria Steinem has said that women are the only group that becomes more radical with age, and she is so right. Girls get through high school or college making good grades, playing sports (have they heard of Title IX?), feeling the playing field is level. It isn’t till they’re out in the working world that they discover there are plenty of unreconstructed anti-women, anti-feminist people out there, and they may be the ones who control the next step in the woman’s career. Suddenly, the word feminist doesn’t sound so terrible.
“Equal rights under the law shall not be abridged by these United States or any State on account of sex.”
The photo has haunted me my entire adult life as well. We must bear witness to ensure that we remember that rights not fought for will be lost so long as strangers believe that their opinions about what’s best for us is more important than what WE belive is best for us.
My 32-yr old daughter (who steered me to FDL in the first place), lost a pregnancy a few weeks ago. The embryo didn’t develop and she was sent to an abortion clinic at 12 weeks for a D&C because she had been seeing a midwife who didn’t do that procedure. Fortunately, in the midst of the emotional trauma, at least her insurance paid for it. It didn’t pay for the ultrasounds at another clinic, so she was already out several hundred dollars. If I understand it correctly, Stupak could have led her insurance company not to cover what was technically an abortion. Even for a married woman who wants a baby, Stupak adds insult to injury.
Prediction: They have finally engaged the wedge that will split the progressive wing of the party. They are going to trade away the public option in exchange for dropping the Stupak Amendment. They are going to trade away the promise of real HC reform for the status quo on abortion under Hyde with the expectation that they can get back the women’s rights true believers.
I hope the woman’s rights coalition is smart enough to recognize that if they go for this trade, they will become the pariahs responsible for killing the public option and it may be the last legislative victory they ever achieve.
Let’s see if the progressives can stick together and let this turkey of a bill become the roadkill it deserves to be. I’m not holding my breath.
Let’s see… The HC legislation with the PO, as currently constituted is, as you say, a “turkey of a bill.”
So what precisely would “the woman’s rights coalition” be trading away?
By your own calculation, it deserves to be killed, Stupak or no, PO or no…
Time to turn the conservative’s argument back on them (jujitsu?) Don’t let your congressmember come between you and your physician.
I fought and kicked and screamed for abortion rights for many long years – both in terms of community service projects, organizing groups to march in protests, organizing letter-writing campaigns, organizing for buses to take people to far-distant protests (some in Wash DC), plus for over 40 years, contibuting money annually to various groups, such as Planned Parenthood, and to politicians who supported a woman’s right to choose.
I do feel (but have no hard, factual data to back me up) that women younger than 40 (or even 45) are much less passionate about this issue, seem naive about how easily their rights could be ripped away from them, and *appear* to not really care all that much. I’ve heard commentary similar to what Marta mentions, above – eg, that the cost isn’t “that much” and so on.
It is mightily disappointing, but not all that surprising to me. These women grew up with the right to an abortion more or less guaranteed by law, but at the same time being inundated with all this rightwing pseudo-regligious nonsense about the eeeevuls of abortion. I think that brainwashing campaign, no doubt funded by groups like the C Street Family & the execrable Catholic Bishops, has had an impact even on progressives. It’s hard not to be aware of the counter-arguments to abortion and to avoid the impact of hearing “real” stories about women who end up allegedly regretting that they had one.
I will continue to fight for a woman’s right to choose and to donate my money to this cause, where I see fit. But I have to say that I think the younger generation needs to start waking up and taking up the fight, too. Because clearly this is war against women, and the men who are pushing this are not going to ever give it up. And those men have money.
We are all seeing here how much the parastitic pederasts of the “Holy” roman church now have a say in so much of our country’s legislation; that church has fought long and hard over many, many centuries to keep women down-trodden & “in their place.” The C Street Family and scum-sucking bottom-dwelling creeps like Rick Warren from megachurch Saddleback are no better.
Younger women: beware! To quote the immortal words of Bob Marley: get up, stand up, stand up for your rights; don’t give up the fight.
Thanks for the blog, Marta. It is important.