I had come to terms with the fact that health care reform would not be all I wanted. I assumed that like previous major social reforms it would represent a step forward and the inadequacies would be remedied over time.
But unlike Social Security and Medicare, this legislation takes a step backward by mandating that plans included in the insurance exchange, including the public option, will not cover abortion. Some women who currently have abortion coverage would lose the right to it.
Major social reform has always been piecemeal. In order to get the votes to pass social security, FDR made a devil’s bargain with Southern Democrats to exclude domestic workers and share croppers, effectively excluding the majority of African-Americans. In many ways the New Deal was racist, but it established the principle that the elderly were entitled to financial support. In the 1950’s the laws were amended to ensure that the principle applied to all workers. (Those who had been excluded from social security or their descendants should have been compensated.)
Medicare was similarly a work in progress, with prescription drug coverage not included. Medicare established the principle that the elderly were entitled to health care, but it took forty years for prescription drug coverage to be included, and even then, the prescription drug coverage passed during the Bush administration was deeply flawed. The proposed health care reform should improve it somewhat.
I had expected similar gaps and inadequacies in the current legislation, but I didn’t expect an erosion of hard-fought rights.
Tomorrow I will be contacting my Senators. We’ve got to keep this erosion of abortion rights out of the Senate bill!
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thank you so much Lisa, that helps a lot. I know he tried to blame me for so much stuff, but like I told all of his family and mine none of that added up to a divorce. I do realize it's his needs, it just hurts so bad to think how many years he's
How funny....i only very recently (within last week) read the coconut oil articles on the web. (100 uses, 80 uses etc.) so i bouht some and ordered some from amazon. (Im a stockpiler.)
Have started trying some of the uses. I tried using it a
You are right of course. I have every confidence that it will be out. The bill as it looks today………vs how it looks at the point the vote is taken………will change dramatically with time.
They all do. But to ensure this is removed, we must all raise our voices loudly.
i already contacted mine. Let something pass, we can make changes later. Something has to be in the books to get the ball rolling.
If a woman needs an abortion because she’s been raped or there is a health issue which could mean her life if she carries the baby then by all means it should be covered by health insurance. As a means of birth control I disagree in coverage for that.
I’m with you Gabriela. I do not want my tax money to go to the death of a child, but there are certain cases where the life of the mother or in the case of rape that I feel it should be covered. We as women do not have the right to make the choice of ending a life and those that fought so hard to have that control will one day have to answer for the choices they’ve made.
I agree 110%. Like so many of the rights and baby-steps toward equality that the “over-50s” worked so hard for, the right of a woman to control her own reproductive choices are being eroded daily. My granddaughter (she’s 30) can’t understand why I get upset with some of the songs the rappers are doing that insult and degrade women. If we lose this right, we are going to be moving back 40 years and have to do this work all over again.
I agree with Gabriela, as well. A woman can have the right to choose, but she doesn’t have the right to use my money to get an abortion.
Complete access to family planning is crucial to provide a foundation for women’s equal rights. Think about it for a minute. To get a glimpse of what life was like for women before family planning options were available, read Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room.
The women who find abortion objectionable can choose not to abort. But those women (and men) have no right to limit the freedoms of the rest of us. If a woman is ready to start a family, she will. If she is in dire straights, no money, no support, abortion may be the best avenue.
I don’t understand why we never hear the politicians talk about government funded vasectomies. Hey, I wouldn’t mind my tax dollars going in that direction. Why does the burden always fall on the women?
If you are worried that abortion is ‘killing’, you should read Dr. Brian L. Weiss’s books. There is evidence that the soul ‘reserves’ a life and hovers around the developing fetus, then ‘moves in’ just before birth. It is impossible for an abortion or miscarriage to ‘kill’ a soul.