Americans want Congress to create jobs and fire up the economy, so yesterday the House of Representatives passed new restrictions on abortion -- restrictions that will affect millions more women, including many who currently have insurance coverage for abortion. Can we connect these dots?!
No one plans to have an abortion just like no one plans to get sick. Yet we purchase insurance to cover us in case the unthinkable happens. And that protection is part of what H.R. 358 takes away from millions of American women.
Today, the majority of health plans include coverage of abortion. If enacted, H.R. 358 would change that. It revives the Stupak abortion ban that was rejected as draconian in the health reform debates and would force health plans to drop comprehensive health coverage in state Health Insurance Exchanges.
In order to keep the coverage they have today, millions of women would have to use their own, private funds to pay for abortion coverage. Further, H.R. 358 could bar women from even receiving information about abortion services, including whether insurance plans cover such services.
The bill's vague language also threatens to undermine recent gains made this past summer, which included coverage of contraception services without copayment under health care reform. Two-thirds of the American public supports the decision requiring health insurance plans to cover the full cost of contraception. Yet under H.R. 358, states could choose to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage. Thus women could potentially be faced with no contraceptive care and no abortion coverage.
But in case that's not enough punishment for American women, H.R. 358 endangers women's health and lives by poking a dangerous hole in longstanding state and federal laws that require hospitals to provide appropriate emergency care. Under this bill, a woman in need of emergency care during pregnancy could be denied an abortion -- even if it would save her life -- if she seeks care in a religiously affiliated hospital.
The bill further broadens the application of already-expansive federal conscience laws without providing patient protections. It also unfairly fails to include any protections against discrimination for doctors and facilities which provide abortion care. The bill goes beyond the Weldon amendment, which provides refusal clauses for religious providers by allowing health care entities to refuse to "participate in" abortion care. This could mean that hospital employees could refuse to process bills, handle medical records or even set up an examination room.
President Obama has threatened to veto the bill if it comes to his desk. Yet the numerous anti-abortion bills introduced in Congress this year indicate that the Republican majority won't let up because they just don't get it: Respect for women, respect for their decisions about their health and families, respect for their basic rights, matter. Ultimately reproductive health decisions -- like other important life decisions -- must be personal, not political ones.
I thought it was all about the economy, stupid. Apparently, it's all just about plain and stupid.
Help your senators connect the dots. Tell them to oppose H.R. 358/S.877.