Roundup: Insurance Lobby Wins Some, But Military Women Can Win Too
February 5, 2010 - 10:13am (Print)
In the field of reproductive rights, you win some battles and you lose some. The struggle does make the victories seem sweet but I wonder why it's got to be so darned hard all the time? Plus sometimes it seems for every step forward women make, someone wants to make us go back at the beginning. For example we had the happy late-breaking news last night that Department of Defense will now stock emergency contraception "at all of its hospitals and health clinics around the world." A great move that took only 8 years since the Pentagon's Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, an advisory panel, first made such a recommendation.
Meanwhile in Colorado two state legislators had a great idea, let's craft a bill that would expand insurance coverage of maternity care and contraception to those who purchase health insurance individually, a mandate that 29 other states have. Great idea, right? Well the insurance lobby managed to water down the bill.
Health insurance lobbyists shuffled their papers and gazed at one another as Reps. Jerry Frangas and Beth McCann explained that they would amend the bill to make it more friendly to the insurance industry in order to make sure it passed through committee and onto the floor of the House.
"We need to take a step," McCann told the Colorado Independent. "We can discuss further steps, but we need to get this going so that women and families can at least have an option. We felt that after speaking to members of the committee and representatives of the insurance industry that we would be able to get the ball rolling if we didn't mandate [coverage] for every policy,"
The bill would have required that all individual insurance plans in the state cover maternity care and contraception, the way group plans do, but the amendment altered the bill to demand that all insurance companies offer at least one plan for individual policyholders that includes maternity care. Contraception is not included in the present version of the bill. The new version passed out of the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee with all 11 committee votes.
Meanwhile, while Iowa is considering a bill that could expand the availability of free birth control for low-income women, there is a simultaneous movement to create a state constitutional amendment redefining "personhood" to begin at conception.
Sixteen Iowa lawmakers - 15 Republicans and one Democrat - have begun a process that could result in an amendment of the Iowa Constitution, but the focus isn't same-sex marriage. The proposed amendment calls for the state to recognize human eggs as persons worthy of legal protection, effectively ending any access to abortion and possibly to contraception.
The language introduced in Iowa reads as follows:
The right to life is the paramount and most fundamental right of every person. With respect to the fundamental and inalienable rights of all persons guaranteed in this Constitution, the word "person' applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction, whether in vivo or in vitro, from the beginning of their biological development, including the single-cell human embryo.
The statement was introduced as a joint resolution to amend the Iowa Constitution. In order for the amendment to become law it would need to be adopted in two separate sessions of the Iowa legislature before being placed on the ballot for final ratification in a public vote. The measure was introduced and sent to the House Committee on State Government, where it was further referred to a subcommittee. There is no reason to believe, given the current make-up of the Iowa legislature and the committee reviewing the bill, that this measure will find a path to the chamber floor - at least not during the current legislative session.
In Other News: Those living around Atlanta will soon be seeing giant billboards touting the "Black Genocide."
And the pro-choice groups in Virginia who are seeking at pro-choice specialty license plate to be created by an act of the General Assembly hasn't encountered any legislative resistance ... yet. Although the state's new attorney general sure isn't a fan.
February 5, 2010
Birth Control Sabotage and Coercion by Teenage Boys- What I Think EmpowHer
Abortion-rights supporters want specialty license plate Richmond Times Dispatch
Ignatieff misleads on abortion Toronto Star
Illegal Abortions Korea Times
Focus on the Family buys pre-game ad time for Super Bowl USA Today
How Sperm Swim: A Clue for Male Contraception? TIME
Pro-life Leaders Respond to Criticism for Backing 'Pro-Choice' Brown Lifesite
What about ManCrunch? New Yorker
Study: Iowa's publicly funded family planning is cost-effective Media Newswire
February 4, 2010
Plans to speed up child adoption BBC News
Mia Farrow criticizes illegal Haiti adoptions Washington Post
Molecule that controls the speed of sperm found by scientists Telegraph.co.uk
Pentagon to offer emergency contraception abroad Washington Post
Sperm sprint secrets 'may lead to new contraception' BBC News
Colorado maternity insurance bill moves out of committee The Colorado Independent
Does the Pill Affect Mood or Libido? Modern Mom
Senate Committee to Vote on Free Birth Control for Low-Income Iowans KCRG
SIMMONS: Red ribbons meet red tape Washington Times
Theo Caldwell: In search of common ground on abortion National Post
Anti-abortion group targets black women with billboards Atlanta Journal Constitution
Arizona Pro-Life Laws Limiting Abortions Receive Court Hearing on Friday LifeNews.com
Barack Obama May Have Two Supreme Court Picks Soon, Would Affect Abortion LifeNews.com
Catholic Pro-Life Group Presents President Bush Award for Opposing Abortions LifeNews.com
Costa Rican presidential candidate reveals opposition to abortion Catholic News Agency
Pentagon to stock health facilities with emergency contraception Washington Post
An Advocacy Ad Elevates Interest in All the Ads New York Times
Liberal Leader Ignatieff Responds to Firestorm of Criticism over Abortion Remarks Lifesite
ACLU threatens suit for pro-choice car plate The Virginian-Pilot
Archbishop Calls Pro-Life Movement 'Persistent Answer To Violence Of Abortion' Georgia Bulletin
Canadian Station Pulls Pro-Life Ad - Too "Graphic" Lifesite
Group Launches Petition in Support of "Censored" Canadian Pro-Life Ad Lifesite
The bill would have required that all individual insurance plans in the state cover maternity care and contraception, the way group plans do, but the amendment altered the bill to demand that all insurance companies offer at least one plan for individual policyholders that includes maternity care.
If every individual plan includes maternity care and contraception, the costs of the prenatal care and birth would be spread to everyone and the cost of the policy would be reasonable for those who do get pregnant. If only specific plans include maternity care and contraception then those who purchase those policies will pay a much higher premium to cover the extra costs likely to be incurred by the self-selecting group who foresee needing that care.
If women having babies is 'vital to the survival of society' it seems fair to spread the cost among the entire pool. If womens pregnancies are individual responsibility and society neither wishes to encourage or discourage it (or butt into the decisions), then having them individually bear the costs is fair.
It is totally illogical to simultaneously assert that women have a 'responsibility to society' to produce children and that women have a 'responsibility to the survival of the fetus' and simultaneously structure these costs in a way that makes it more expensive for women on the grounds that there's no societal obligation involved. Government and people in general need to make up their minds.
