Frances Kissling: When Congress sells out women
[For over the thirty five years, Frances Kissling has been the leading international voice on women, religion and reproduction. She is currently working on a book on ethical dilemmas and abortion as a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. A prolific writer and lecturer, Kissling is the co-author of Rosie: The Investigation of a Wrongful Death (The Dial Press, 1978).]
It was just a week ago that I sat in Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s office, along with others in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, to strategize about getting pro-choice people of faith out to make sure that health insurance reform would include private and public options for women who choose abortion. It was a painful discussion. DeLauro, a pro-choice Catholic, is deeply committed to abortion choice as a matter of social justice, but she understood how important even a flawed reform bill would be to providing healthcare for low-income working people.
At one point I looked at DeLauro and both of us welled up with tears over the dilemma we knew she and others would face. About 20 antiabortion Democrats, mostly Catholics, with the full lobbying power of the Catholic bishops behind them, were very likely to force the inclusion of Rep. Bart Stupak's antiabortion amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the inaptly named House bill. I did not envy the choice DeLauro and others would have to make. I knew the likeliest, and probably the right choice, would be to vote for passage of the bill.
That is just what happened when Democrats voted Saturday night for the act, which passed with the broadest restrictions on funding for abortion since the Hyde Amendment was enacted in 1976. The Stupak amendment forces insurance companies that currently provide abortion coverage to choose between continuing that coverage, or dropping it for all women if they want to participate in health insurance exchanges, and sell their product to government-subsidized consumers. If Democrats don’t get over their lust for a majority at any cost, this health insurance reform will haunt them the rest of their lives...
... We started down this road in 1976 when the Hyde Amendment passed and when, in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the principle that the federal government had the right to enact policies that favored childbirth over abortion by restricting funding for abortion. Most Democrats saw that giving antiabortion taxpayers greater moral standing than women who choose abortion was a political power play. After all, taxpayers don't get any other say in how their taxes are used. Pacifists' dollars support war; anti-bailout Americans saw their taxes go to banks just this year. Except on the issue of abortion, if you want to be a tax resister, the only thing to do is not pay your taxes and go to jail.
Clearly, the antiabortion right was using poor and powerless women as surrogates for their inability to control all women’s access to abortion. Sadly, a few pro-choice Democrats agreed with the antiabortionists that abortion should be legal but was morally repugnant, and should not be supported with federal dollars. Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter and Al Gore (who later changed his mind) were in that camp.
While efforts to overturn Hyde from 1976 to 2004 were sporadic and unsuccessful, at least some legislators tried. Most pro-choice legislators and advocates continued to agree that it was immoral to deny public funding to poor women for a service that was legal. All that changed with the Democratic defeats in 2004, which led the Democratic Party to falter seriously in its commitment to choice. Party leaders courted antiabortion Democrats as candidates for the House and Senate in conservative districts and states...
Read entire article at Salon
It was just a week ago that I sat in Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s office, along with others in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, to strategize about getting pro-choice people of faith out to make sure that health insurance reform would include private and public options for women who choose abortion. It was a painful discussion. DeLauro, a pro-choice Catholic, is deeply committed to abortion choice as a matter of social justice, but she understood how important even a flawed reform bill would be to providing healthcare for low-income working people.
At one point I looked at DeLauro and both of us welled up with tears over the dilemma we knew she and others would face. About 20 antiabortion Democrats, mostly Catholics, with the full lobbying power of the Catholic bishops behind them, were very likely to force the inclusion of Rep. Bart Stupak's antiabortion amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the inaptly named House bill. I did not envy the choice DeLauro and others would have to make. I knew the likeliest, and probably the right choice, would be to vote for passage of the bill.
That is just what happened when Democrats voted Saturday night for the act, which passed with the broadest restrictions on funding for abortion since the Hyde Amendment was enacted in 1976. The Stupak amendment forces insurance companies that currently provide abortion coverage to choose between continuing that coverage, or dropping it for all women if they want to participate in health insurance exchanges, and sell their product to government-subsidized consumers. If Democrats don’t get over their lust for a majority at any cost, this health insurance reform will haunt them the rest of their lives...
... We started down this road in 1976 when the Hyde Amendment passed and when, in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the principle that the federal government had the right to enact policies that favored childbirth over abortion by restricting funding for abortion. Most Democrats saw that giving antiabortion taxpayers greater moral standing than women who choose abortion was a political power play. After all, taxpayers don't get any other say in how their taxes are used. Pacifists' dollars support war; anti-bailout Americans saw their taxes go to banks just this year. Except on the issue of abortion, if you want to be a tax resister, the only thing to do is not pay your taxes and go to jail.
Clearly, the antiabortion right was using poor and powerless women as surrogates for their inability to control all women’s access to abortion. Sadly, a few pro-choice Democrats agreed with the antiabortionists that abortion should be legal but was morally repugnant, and should not be supported with federal dollars. Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter and Al Gore (who later changed his mind) were in that camp.
While efforts to overturn Hyde from 1976 to 2004 were sporadic and unsuccessful, at least some legislators tried. Most pro-choice legislators and advocates continued to agree that it was immoral to deny public funding to poor women for a service that was legal. All that changed with the Democratic defeats in 2004, which led the Democratic Party to falter seriously in its commitment to choice. Party leaders courted antiabortion Democrats as candidates for the House and Senate in conservative districts and states...