One Cheer for Stupak

Ugh.

By: JennMayf | Sun, 11/15/2009 - 13:03

Ahh yes, and how would you feel if someone felt that educating women was morally inappropriate. Should they be allowed to withhold their taxes from the public education system? Or, as another reader mentioned, should someone who is opposed to the war be able to withhold the taxes that would be spent on it? No, because taxes are part of what we pay to live in this country and receive the services our government provides us, everything from defense to public education and hopefully, someday, affordable health care.

Funny enough, now that I think about it, someone who is totally against the 2nd Amendment pretty much does get his/her tax money spent on guns... it's the military. Okay, so it's not a program that buys guns for people who can't afford them, but the right to bear arms is also not the same as the right to make your own medical decisions.

Specific to health care, would it be okay if Scientologists refused to pay for psychiatry? Should Jehovah's Witnesses be allowed to opt out of paying for any blood transfusions, surgeries, and organ transplants? They are just as committed to those religious and/or moral beliefs as you are to yours and just as free to practice them... and not impose them on others.

If that's the system you're advocating for, the whole thing is going to crumble. It would yield a monstrous bureaucracy, the likes of which would give the folks over at Fox more nightmares than Freddy Kruger gave me throughout the 80s and 90s. Or perhaps, your underlying argument is against health care reform in general? But I have a really hard time believing that someone who cares about the rights of fetuses would be at ease with the health care system that's in place now. It can't be that, can it? (Though, I suppose there are plenty of people out there that believe that. Once you're out of the womb, you literally cut the cord and put on some boots quick as you can, 'cause you better start pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps).

But, I digress. I don't drive because 1) I'm a wuss so I kinda hate it, but also 2) I'm an eco-nut who feels it's a matter of moral obligation to cut down on emissions. But I pay my taxes that build the roads that I don't drive on. And furthermore, although I wish you wouldn't, I'm not stopping you from choosing to drive as much as you feel you need or want to. Even if you're whipping an SUV around, making our roads all pot-holey and junk. You get more benefit in the present than me. And, while it might deeply offend me, for instance, to see a Hummer cruising around downtown, even as landslides take out entire villages in the Philippines and Bangladesh is just waiting to be inundated with flood waters again, I'm not legislating against that guy (even though his actions are immeasurably further-reaching than the goings-on of my uterus). I might try to convert him and in turn, he's free to try to convert me, and we might both offend each other. But that's different than forcing him, intimidating and harassing him, or passing laws that impact an under-represented group using the tyranny of the majority.

But anyway, in the long run, I get the comfort of knowing that all those roads and highway infrastructure will be there if something goes awry someday, and I, or someone I love, suddenly and desperately needs them. Even if that need is born out of actions that I don't agree with, I'm not going to begrudge or punish someone, which is what Stupak is seeking to do.

Hopefully, no one in your life will ever need to exercise or pay any more than a hypothetical thought to her right to choose. But if it does happen, how do you rationalize taxpayer spending for her flu vaccine, her grandpa's Viagra, or her aunt's Restless Leg Syndrome drugs, but not her autonomy over her reproductive organs? I can't say I've ever had RLS or ED, but I think they probably pale in comparison to the weightiness and punishment of being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Not to mention the sort of abuse that pregnancies can open some women and girls up to.

Stupak precludes abortions in instances where the woman's health is threatened except in cases where it's pretty much gonna kill her. I wouldn't make my sister, daughter, friend, a stranger in the street, or even the girl who picked on me in 8th grade, be forced to put her health on the line like that. If they want to, that's their choice. Geez, maybe DC needs to take a day off and watch Steel Magnolias.

Ugh, on one hand, I commend you for having the courage to post this kind of article on a feminist blog and starting a dialogue. But, on the other hand, declaring that you "cheered" for Stupak, tongue-in-cheek as it might have been, strikes me as someone who is just trying to provoke for the sake of provoking, especially with the gratuitous reference to the 2nd Amendment chucked in there...

Anti-Choice Myopia

By: Dawn | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 14:13

However unfair it might be that well-off women have more access to abortion than low-income women, the solution should not be to compel those who are morally opposed to abortion to pay for them with their tax dollars.

Whenever I read an argument like this, I must admit that the first thought that crosses my mind is, "How stupid do you have to be to think that, as an anti-choice person, you're in any different of a situation than anyone else who has a strong moral opposition to a practice funded by taxpayers?"

But Ms. Larimore clearly is not a stupid person. I disagree with most of what she writes, but she is clearly an intelligent and articulate woman. And also a myopic one.

So let me pose you that question, Ms. Larimore: What make you think that you're in any different of a situation than anyone else who has a strong moral opposition to a practice funded by taxpayers? What makes you think that your opposition to abortion is somehow more passionate than my loathing of factory farming? War? Torture? Most vivisection? Any number of taxpayer-funded things that I personally oppose?

Let's engage in an absurd thought experiment. PETA members flouting gruesome posters of animal experiments increase opposition to animal research to the point that, in order to pass a new bill funding research to cure an emerging deadly disease, Congress feels pressed to include an amendment barring any use of taxpayer money for research using animals. But, of course, we're not making animal research illegal! It's just not fair to compel those who are morally opposed to animal research to pay for it with their tax dollars. In fact, if some of you feel so strongly that preserving human life is worth the moral costs of animal research, then why don't you fund it privately? If those who support animal research are unwilling to pay for such research to help find a cure for this new awful hypothetical disease, why should those who are opposed be forced to pony up?

In fact, I can empathize with Ms. Larimore's myopia. I think that in the ideal world abortions would never *need* to occur because people would have adequate access to and information on how to use birth control. But, in fact, I really can't get myself into a moral lather over the thought of terminating non-sentient and non-viable "life" in a first trimester abortion either. So I suppose Ms. Larimore also can't see how those of us with passionate moral beliefs for causes other than abortion can feel just as strongly as she does.

Anti-choice folks, I don't ask you to change your opinion on abortion. I respect your right to believe that life begins at conception or whenever you choose. But, please, let's have done with the hand-wringing like expecting you to be part of a society that supports--even funds!--people's right to do things that you don't like does anything more than put you in the same boat that the rest of us with strong moral beliefs have been in for a long time now.

Insurance hardly pays for abortion anyway

By: VAdena | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 13:48

According to an article on Slate, abortions cost about 300-500 dollars during the first trimester and even people with coverage for them choose to pay out of pocket rather than submit an insurance request. Insurance companies only pay for about 13% of abortions right now - hardly seems like the end of reproductive choice. Even if that number is cut in half - assuming that half of the already-below-50% of insurance companies that now cover abortions choose to stop doing so-that only means that instead of 87% of abortions being paid out-of-pocket the number would be 93%. Hardly a death blow to planned parenthood. My insurance company, Tri-Care, for military personnel doesn't cover abortions under any circumstances except the life of the mother under emergency conditions. I have still known lots of people who have chosen to get abortions and figure out a way to do this on their own at their own expense.

I think abortion is a wrong choice, but that is between a woman and her God and don't think the state can regulate wrong choices. I also think adultery and divorce are just as sinful but don't propose criminalizing either. However, taxes are used to pay for things that are for the benefit of society as a whole. While YOU may not think you need a military or disagree with their current engagements, you can't opt out of paying for those services since it creates economic "free-loaders". You benefit from a nation that isn't being invaded, a police force and fire department even if you haven't used their services, etc. Your basic economic course should have covered this. Even capital punishment - which I am opposed too - at least can pretend to argue that it is good for society as a whole since presumably this person could escape and put society at risk. Please show me how abortions are good for society as a whole. Maybe then you can convince me that paying for them with my taxes is a good idea. In the meantime, most Roman Catholics like me would be completely opposed to any funding of abortions - even those that are pro-choice. Paying for an abortion is a mortal sin in the eyes of the church and while 51% of Catholics will not stand in the way of letting someone else have an abortion (everyone has a choice to sin or not) and therefore consider themselves to be "pro-choice" they don't want their right to NOT participate in something considered to be a mortal sin taken away from them.

Agree totally

By: JC | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 10:51

In re "(with emphasis on absurd and thought experiment), how would you feel about a program that provided guns to those who cannot afford them?"

I think that already exists, and is called the U.S. Army.......

And people? Healthcare is not a right. It is not referenced in the Bill Of Rights, nor will it ever be.

I love all this debate and yet no one focuses on WHY healthcare costs so much in the U.S.? Could it be (and don't slap me for this, because you can all do your own reserach to determine the veracity of the claim) that the illegal immigrant population places a huge drain on the system, citizens of the U.S. pay more than full market price for drugs that are sold at cheaper rates to other countries because we end up paying for all the r&d costs for drugs (compare the cost of anti depressants, statins, thyroid medicines, HIV medicines here and in other countries....although most of the medicines were developed and patented here, we have no "home field advantage". We are being gouged, and simply prop up the pharma companies.....

Why do things cost SO MUCH? I had a needle core biopsy this year. It took ten minutes, and cost SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS. My current insurance paid for it all; next years won't. Thanks!

representation

By: phpeter | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 09:58

I think what is important in this conversation, regardless of whether you agree with bill or not is to work through your Representatives. If you do like money spent on War, Abortion, Viagra etc...then work through them. Frankly, the abortion bill is popular becuase a majority of Americans are against abortion and, more specifically, these Reps have to go back to their districts and their job is to vote the needs and desires of their locale. Somebody in California might not like how somebody in Indiana votes, but you are supposed to, they system isn't setup like that.

To igartner

By: fi_burke | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 09:22

Please go read the lead up pieces linked to by Rachael. There is one by Emily and one by Meredith. They explain the problem clearly.

I quote, the amendment "will prevent health insurers from offering abortion coverage if they participate in the new exchange that’s supposed to insure people who don’t have employer-based coverage".

This is not people who are uninsured, this is people who are not covered by their employer, a number likely to increase immensely upon passage of the health care bill, since for most small to medium size companies, and 8% payroll tax is a lot less than they're paying today for insurance.
In addition, it's all the people who qualify for government subsidies who cant buy plan with abortion coverage. That's anyone in a family of 4 with an income of $88k. That's probably 65% of the country.. the part that probably can't afford a severly disabled child.

Wait...what?

By: igardner | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 08:43

So, as I understand it, the women affected by this ammendment are mostly women who don't have insurance right now (they're too poor to afford it but too rich for Medicaid) or they have insurance that most likely gives almost no coverage for it (high deductible, etc.). I'm not really sure how this ammendment really makes these women all that worse off. Yeah, it's annoying and silly, but if it's what needs to happen in order to get these women adequate health care in the other areas of their life, I don't think we've really lost anything.

My wish for you

By: lorikay4 | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 00:51

My wish for you, dear Ms. Larimore, is that in your next life (which you come closer to believing in than I do) you come back poor, dumb, and pregnant by some boorish oaf of a deadbeat boyfriend, in a miserable services-free backwater like that of the environs of Mr. Stupak's lovely district. Since you have previously expressed the considered belief that enforced childbearing is an improving experience for callow (slutty) immature young women, I wish a heaping helping of it for you. Enjoy.

To Margaret

By: june11 | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 00:17

If I have to pay for the girls in this country to be subjected to abstinence only sex education, at least give me the ability to help pay for a way out for them in the future. They're going to need it.

Yay for some sanity!

By: MargaretLH | Tue, 11/10/2009 - 00:07

Yes, I am happy to NOT be paying for this.

If you have a problem with other things that your taxes pay for, then take it up with your representative. That is what you are supposed to do, don't just complain because that you are paying for things you don't want to.