Today, I had the chance to sit in on an action call hosted by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The call, run by President Sarah Stoesz and Vice President of External Affairs Connie Lewis, captured much of the anger, frustration, fear and hope that many of us have been experiencing since the passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment.
In recapping the action that occurred over the weekend by the advancement of the amendment, Stoesz shared the betrayal pro-choice advocates faced on Saturday. "Health care reform was promised as not being a vehicle to advance any abortion rights agenda," she stated. Pro-choice advocates had agreed in advance not to use the opportunity to force any changes to the Hyde Amendment in exchange for anti-choice factions also agreeing not to use the bill to not attempt to errode abortion rights. "We weren't happy about it, but we thought we had this agreement. We weren't happy about it, but we did it anyway. We obviously care about abortion rights, but we also care about health care for our country."
Despite the pre-arrangement, Rep. Stupak took an abortion-neutral bill and in the last hour used it to roll back abortion rights.
"President Obama promised that no one would be worse off as a result of health care reform. The Stupak amendment makes that untrue."
The abortion restrictions applied to the insurance exchange, a public market of options for the uncovered to receive medical insurance, will initially only affect those women involved. However, the underlying fear is that the 60 million women in this country who have insurance in the private market will eventually see their own coverage decline as private insurers begin to curb their benefits to match those available on the exchange.
Of course, there are things to applaud in this reform bill, according to Stoesz. Gender ratings should be eliminated, allowing women to be charged for insurance at the same cost as men. C-sections, domestic violence, and just simply being female will no longer be considered pre-existing conditions that can cause women to pay higher premiums or be denied coverage all together. And best of all, Medicaid can now be used to pay for family planning expenses, something that has been possible in Minnesota recently but has not been available to the all states.
But still, Lewis added, it can't be seen as a victory yet. "We all imagined ourselves celebrating when health care reform passed the House. This amendment makes that much more difficult."
Pressure over the Stupak amendment has already helped to make some change in the public perception of victory in health care reform. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D - Mo.) has changed [16] from stating that Stupak wasn't that bad of a bill to now saying she will oppose the amendment. And at this time, 42 members of congress have already stated that they will oppose it.
Planned Parenthood hopes to ratchet up that public support against the Stupak amendment in the upcoming weeks. They plan to thank those senators whose pro-choice actions they feel they can count on, as well as encourage those senators like Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, both of North Dakota, who are being pressured heavily by their Catholic caucus.
But they recognize that with only 40 senators publicly declaring themselves pro-choice, it could be a battle.
"We are trying to stay very focused on the big prize - health care for all people that will be affordable and available," said Stoesz. "And that includes abortion care."