Today should be a good day. It should be a day when Democrats and decent people celebrate the passage of health care reform out of the House of Representatives. But unfortunately, the usual suspects have decided that health care can’t be reformed if said reform leads to women having control of their uteri. So Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., will be pushing — and likely passing — an amendment that would actually manage to reduce the already tenuous access Americans currently have to abortion.
The amendment likely has the votes, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has evidently decided not to stand in the way of a vote, in order to avoid any further delay in getting the bill voted off the floor. And I can understand that, and even support it as strategy; the bill passing the House today is not the final bill. It will have to be reconciled with the Senate’s bill (if one ever passes) in a conference committee, and the bill that comes out of conference could favor the language of either, both, or neither, depending. Pelosi will appoint the House conferees; presumably Bart Stupak will not be one of them.
So yeah, some bad language is okay at this stage of the game because it’s still a work in progress. But I tend to agree with Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., about the endgame here:
The Illinois Democrat said she’ll vote for passage today regardless of whether Stupak’s amendment is included, but would oppose a final bill if the amendment makes it through conference committe.
“If that language were in the final final bill, I certainly couldn’t support it,” Schakowsky said.
That, I think, is the important thing for Democrats to understand, because if that language is in the final bill, I can’t support it, either.
The Stupak Amendment is a bitter pill to swallow, but as of today, it’s a purely symbolic one. Yes, it sucks that a majority of members in the House believe that a person’s right to choose can be chucked aside at will. But the vote today won’t ultimately chuck that right aside. It’s the vote on the final bill that comes out of conference that matters.
If the Stupak language survives the conference committee, it is incumbent on those of us who support reproductive rights to pull our support, and actively campaign for defeat of the bill. For today, I’ll grit my teeth and make note of which Democrats to lean on when the vote for final passage comes. But that’s for today. Tomorrow starts the fight to make sure that the bill that ultimately is passed is a bill that supporters of reproductive rights can support.
The Stupak Amendment is a bitter pill to swallow, but as of today, it’s a purely symbolic one.
But it’s also one that, once swallowed, will make it much easier to get the “real pill” into the final bill. It still represents a ceding of real ground – it still offers real support to the idea that women’s rights to control over their bodies doesn’t matter that much. I get where you’re coming from, but I still can’t see this as a gambit rather than a loss.
The Stupak amendment is a loss for pro-choice people who have supported the Democratic Party.
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Don’t get me wrong — I’m rooting for the amendment to go down. (If the GOP was smart, they’d actually vote no on the amendment, and try to divide Dems on final passage — but they aren’t smart.) I am heartened somewhat that the Obama administration has evidently been assuring the pro-choice caucus that the language will not survive conference, and if that’s the outcome, that’s okay. But I don’t think anyone should pull any punches with regard to our stance on the bill if the language does survive. If it does, the bill should fail, and pro-choice Dems should be saying that loudly and soundly.
I think this amendment will survive and Democrats will vote for it, because they want a win for something called “health care reform” no matter what the cost or how little the final product bears resemblance to reform that is needed.
I’m still hoping voluntary sterilization will be covered. Of course, it wasn’t realistic to think that women’s reproductive health would be covered- goes against the Bible or something
This is the #1 reason that pwogs get their fat asses handed to them over and over again. They think politics is a game of poombah or something that doesn’t really affect anyone (or at least anyone they know.) Then, when they get punched in the face, pwogwessives get all surprised and shit.
Well, that’s what happens when you bring a nerf ball to a fucking knife fight. If women want control over their own bodies, they won’t get it donating $20 to Act-fucking-blue whenever some elite pwoggie bloggie dipshit says it’s time to be nice to the DNC.
There is no way on this earth you’re going to get decent, single-payer health care, just like every other fucking industrialized nation in the world, until you put down the Cheetos and Dr. Pepper, get your ass off the computer and find someone who will really represent you. ‘Cause you’ll never get rid of corporate shitbags like Pelosi, Reid and Dean any other way.
Fine. Wanna help me ban the boner candy, hon? If not, go home and sniff your oxycontin.And by the way, your prostate screening? Carry that tumor to term, baybee