The long-awaited health care reform bill that passed in the House of Representatives on Saturday night, marks a milestone for President Barack Obama’s administration push to regulate health care in the United States. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic speaker of the House, compared the bill’s historic passage to creating Social Security. However, one component of the bill remains up for grabs: the hotly contested Stupak-Pitts Amendment.
According to the bill as it currently stands, the amendment would offer no federal monies for abortion coverage8212;except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.
However, the most restrictive element of the amendment is the provision prohibiting private insurance companies from covering abortion if an individual is already receiving federal assistance.
Already, more than 40 members of the House have vowed to vote against the final version of the bill if the Stupak Amendment is retained. Democrats lobbying the president for a less-restrictive abortion clause were told that current federal limitations on funding abortion would remain intact.
Obama said, “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.”
On the floor of the Senate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, said the bill is an infringement of personal privacy. Gillibrand has dubbed the use of private riders to cover abortion discrimination, saying five states already require such actions. Finding any kind of necessary coverage would become quite impossible, endangering the overall health of women in the United States, she said.
Cecil Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said she agrees with Gillibrand.
In a statement outlining Planned Parenthood’s response to the legislation, Richards said, “The Stupak/Pitts Amendment would purportedly allow women who want comprehensive reproductive health care coverage to purchase a separate, single-service rider to cover abortion. But such abortion riders do not exist because women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. These so-called “abortion riders,’ which would be the only insurance policy through which abortion care could be covered in the “exchange,’ are discriminatory and illogical. Proposing a separate “abortion rider’ or “single-service plan’ is tantamount to banning abortion coverage since no insurance company would offer such a policy.”
Let’s be absolutely frank: The bill passed by the House still has a number of issues to hammer out, particularly the Stupak-Pitts amendment. It is the responsibility of Congress to uphold the Constitution and the rights of women to their own bodies and health in any kind of health care legislation.
It is time for the United States to pass comprehensive health care reform that covers all individuals, including women and their specific medical needs. It’s 20098212;let’s join the rest of the Western w
