By Jessica Arons, Center for American Progress and Center for American Progress Action Fund
October 1, 2009 - 6:00am
Abortion has become a popular sideshow in the three-ring circus of the debate over health care reform. In particular, many questions about abortion funding have arisen—some genuine and some distorted.
Since “Save America’s Insurance Companies” is hardly a winning rallying cry, conservative groups are calling on their reliable foe/political friend, abortion.
In an interview with Katie Couric last week, Obama stated that his health care reform might not fund abortion because this wouldn't fit with the "tradition."
2010 budget slashes funding for abstinence-only, leaves abortion funding restrictions in place; Will Saletan on a "safe, legal and early" compromise strategy.
Muslim women in India are caught between the strictures of family and personal law and persistent discrimination against them as women from both the Indian government and society writ large.
Opponents and supporters of women's choices in childbearing agreed early on, in theory, to maintain the “status quo” with "abortion neutral" health care legislation. The Senate bill achieves this goal; the House bill does not.
An epidemic of sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. disproportionately affects blacks, youth, gays and the poor. Talking openly about sex is the first step in prevention.
Bethany Cajúne, pregnant and in a substance abuse recovery program, was jailed for 19 days for traffic violations. But officials repeatedly denied her a drug necessary to her recovery, putting her health and the life of her fetus at risk.
No one reading this has forgotten that the House passed a healthcare “reform” bill that includes the Stupak Amendment. Here's a speech Congressman Stupak needs to hear.
In a strange twist, Nevada anti-choice groups, complaining that the wording of a "personhood" amendment to establish civil rights for fertilized eggs is too vague, are on the same side as Planned Parenthood and ACLU.
I'm a transgendered sex worker, and I want to not get killed for who I am or what I do. As our death count rises, I beg that you consider your prejudices around gender, and let us live in peace. I'm literally begging for my life.
In examining rooms, we see women in terrible pain, but their suffering doesn’t count in Stupak/Pitts world. By banishing abortion from the reform bill, the amendment punishes women who need to end unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies.
With the Stupak amendment literally and symbolically stripping women of equal status, the movie "Precious" presents, in grim detail, the way race, class and bias render a woman's body simultaneously invisible and subject to abuse.
Form-based ethics teach the Christian to ask the question “Am I allowed to do this?” Content-based ethics teach the Christian to ask “Am I truly loving the person or persons with whom I am doing this, including myself?”
I agree with Jim Wallis that the truth has become a casualty in this war--because both Jim and the Catholic Bishops have twisted it. And if Jim Wallis and his conservative allies have their way, women will become another casualty.
Two new studies show what many have already argued: Implementation of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment would likely result in the almost total loss of coverage for abortion care, including in situations where life and health are at risk.
A federal employee--barred by the Hyde Amendment from insurance coverage for abortion--incurs costs of $9000.00 to end a pregnancy in which the fetus is missing major portions of its brain, skull, and scalp.
If motherhood is "the only life sentence without chance at parole you can get without committing a crime," low-income motherhood is infinitely harder still. Still, we judge these mothers and make their lives harder, as we force them into it.
The US goes out of its way to deny poor women access to services--including abortion. Meanwhile, Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in Africa has liberalized its abortion laws and pays for abortion care for women who need it.
The Wichita Eagle reports today that Eric Rucker, former top assistant to Kansas State Attorney General Phil Kline, faces a formal ethics complaint that he made misleading comments before the Kansas Supreme Court in attempts to prosecute Dr. George Tiller for violations of Kansas law for which Tiller was repeatedly found innocent.
After vociferously denying a "necessity defense" could be mounted in the case of Scott Roeder, the man accused of shooting Kansas doctor George Tiller in May, the public defender representing Roeder is fighting prosecutors' efforts to ban the so-called necessity defense from his trial.
"When has a medical procedure exclusive to men ever been held to a vote on a floor of the United States Congress?" asks Connie Shulz. "Oh, wait, just remembered: Never."
