(CNN) National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neill issued a statement Sunday afternoon slamming President Obama, saying that he had broken his faith with women by agreeing to issue an executive order that prohibits federal funding for abortions.
“The National Organization for Women is incensed that President Barack Obama agreed today to issue an executive order designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women’s access to abortion. Through this order, the president has announced he will lend the weight of his office and the entire executive branch to the anti-abortion measures included in the Senate bill, which the House is now prepared to pass.
“President Obama campaigned as a pro-choice president, but his actions today suggest that his commitment to reproductive health care is shaky at best. Contrary to language in the draft of the executive order and repeated assertions in the news, the Hyde Amendment is not settled law – it is an illegitimate tack-on to an annual must-pass appropriations bill. NOW has a longstanding objection to Hyde and, in fact, was looking forward to working with this president and Congress to bring an end to these restrictions. We see now that we have our work cut out for us far beyond what we ever anticipated. The message we have received today is that it is acceptable to negotiate health care on the backs of women, and we couldn’t disagree more.”
But…but…look at the chart, with respect to the t-square here, especially w/the good ole boys of Saturn & Mars running the show. Women’s reproductive freedom took the hit for this Hindenberg debacle.
NARAL, by vascillating on the bill (ie we’re against it, but we’re for it statement by Nancy Keenan), shows just how captive the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic party is to the capitalist wing.
I believe some of these women’s organizations will pay the price in fundraising for not standing strongly against the bill. I could be dead wrong about that, but as an ardent pro-choice feminist who knows a whole lot of activist womenfolk, I think the grassroots troopers are really DEEPLY reconsidering their affiliations with and financial support of these supposedly progressive champions, who keep selling out every time the going gets tough. Not a one of my feminist friends believes NARAL should have sold out, and supported the bill as they did. Not one. Also, not one of them supported the Health Care Hindenberg BECAUSE of the anti-abortion agenda it contains.
By the way, for those of you who aren’t aware of the fact, federal funding of abortions was banned in 1976, 3 years after the passage of Roe v Wade. The fear with the passage of the Health Care Hindenberg, and Obama throwing women under the bus (again) is that this bill contains a very dangerous legal precedent that many see as the banning of all private insurance payments for abortion services, as well as federally funded payments.
Again, with this t-square and Venus/Jupiter & Saturn/Mars aspects central to it (w/Pluto hanging out there too) I have to say this is, in reality, a decisive defeat of women’s right to an abortion. What may be the legal result is, the only way a woman will be able to get abortions services will be to pay for it herself, and have it outside a hospital/clinic that receives federal funding, which is virtually all of them.
So while Roe v Wade may technically be the law of the land, the de facto reality will be the only place you will be able to obtain one is in the back alley abortionist office.
Ditto the environmental movement. That yer man Mr. 350 virtually had a nervous breakdown over the Copenhagen debacle doesn’t bode well for them either. Climate change environmentalism is viewed by further left leaning (non-Democratic party aligned) environmentalists as a virtual sellout to Big Browners (see Jeffrey St Clair’s books on the Big Green travesty). There has never been a consensus among hard line environmentalists that the global environmental movement should be focused (especially as exclusively as Bill McKibben, et al would like) on climate change, much less on working within the corrupt global political system to “stop” the global warming caused by the corrupt global political system we are establishing to “police” the environment on our behalf.
The Order [Yuval Levin] copied from National Review
Upon first hearing there was talk of an executive order yesterday, I wondered how the administration’s lawyers thought such an order could go beyond the letter of the law in restricting abortion funding. This was a question the Bush administration examined quite extensively on several occasions, and the lawyers involved always agreed that the legal precedents from the time between the Roe decision and passage of the Hyde amendment, as well as some after the Hyde amendment, are extremely clear in stating that federal funds cannot be denied to the provision of abortion except by explicit legislative prohibition. That’s why the Hyde amendment was necessary. But the Hyde amendment wouldn’t apply to this bill, since it applies only to the annual HHS appropriations bill. Hence Stupak’s concern. So what could the White House possibly give Stupak that would not be thrown out by any federal judge in a second?
Looking at the executive order, the answer is clearly nothing. The executive order quite literally does nothing that the Senate bill does not already do, and it is careful to say as much. It offers a kind of narrative of what champions of the bill claim it does with regard to abortion (claims that Rep. Stupak among others has disputed for months), and then says the executive branch will make various people aware of this understanding of what the law says. It orders no action (only the usual promulgation of regulations the law requires anyway) and offers no interpretation beyond that.
If Rep. Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats were not satisfied with the protections against taxpayer funding of abortion in the Senate bill (as they rightly were not), there is simply nothing in the text of the order that should change their minds.
One really sore issue with the passage of the “Health Reform Package”, is that ALL elected congressmen and women, do NOT share the same package of health insurance that you or I will be subject too. Their package is such an elaborate extremely well thought out medical plan, that you and I as tax payers not only pay for, we were never even given the chance to vote it into law – they did this for themselves. In their plan, there is NO preexisting medical blunder that won’t be accepted to be insured – everything is. There is NO woman’s reproductive system discrepency, including abortions, all paid for by us. Everything in their plan is first rate, top of the line and it is for their families as well, and for the rest of their lives, it cannot, or they cannot be discriminated against for any reason what so ever. Double standards here and they are allowed keep theirs, and vote us the lesser, both are paid by U.S tax dollars. They also do not pay into the “Social Security System”, like you or I are forced into if we want to receive any dollars after we retire from 40 plus years of retirement. This they also voted in for themselves, we didn’t even get asked to decide, they just voted it in. They only have to work for “term” not 40 plus years and their pensions are in the hundredths of thousand dollars per year, and their wives or husbands also receive glorious pensions each and every year – and we yell and scream about the deficit and look what they are given for the rest of their lives. There is no social security withholding from their paycheck each month. Simply put they don’t pay into it. So now is this the rich middle class that votes on our behalf and enacts them into laws for only us to abide by and they live by a different set of rules – YES!
Now what should be enacted is “we the people”, should vote each and every one of them out of office, whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Good or bad, all should be replaced with no guaranteed pension for life. Then newly elected officials will have the exact same insurance package that the rest of us have, along with no pension until 67.5 years old with social security withholdings and equal pensions. The millions that could go to the deficit immediately, we’d have a balanced budget in no time.
“…if the right-to-life folks get to stop tax payer funded abortions, then we pro-choice folks should push the President and congress to stop making US pay for tax-payer funded Abstinence Only education…the same education that makes abortions necessary!”
Carrie, what a great suggestion! Simple, logical, brilliant. Thank you.
I live in the UK and this debate about the rights and wrongs of abortion and all its replete emotional overkill is far less a live political issue here; instead having been the staple of most high school, religious studies syllabi – in the area of ethics for many years.
All the parties (to the ‘debate’) usually make sweeping emotional investments and project their horror and stigma onto the opposing parties to the wrangle. Each sub-component of the debate is equally emotive (like women’s rights) and they are all conflated together as people emote and achieve precisely nothing.
Nowhere are humans more divided in my opinion than on this ‘debate’ – and of course its being a ‘debate’ is a large part of the problem. Abortion as a social issue is insoluble. Actually, this whole arena is one in which the healing of humanity would find one of its more fruitful expression if some core consensus could be established.
It is interesting that the traditional false polarisation surrounds the debate even in terms of the legislature on reform of healthcare – the assumption is automatic that there can be no greys; each extreme position demonises the other and battles for ascendancy.
Obama missed an opportunity, perhaps? He has shown leadership in so many areas and yet he appears to have fudged on this. There is no reason why basic caveats could not have been added on the basis of emotional/mental wellbeing initially (without turning this into a stigmatising mental health issue) that would leave space for expansion and refinement later in the piece.
The basic issue is not one of rights, regardless of how passionately one may assert so. In fact such emphasis is a distortion because the culture which drives it is so individualistic – this is why ‘rights of the woman’ arguments are met with ‘rights of the unborn child’ arguments and the schism is replicated even though both camps have some basic ‘truth’.
The issue at root remains one of how adults, collectively, make decisions in full light of the facts. These issues, loaded as they are with just about every prejudice one can imagine, present us with opportunities to co-operate… that we eschew every time.
It is a great pity that where leadership was so sorely needed and with so much to gain, the main man replicated the injurious dichotomy via mere political pragmatism. He could have brokered more; yet at the end of the day the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and it can only be hoped that issues are refined in the future through the designated channels.
Thanks for the feedback Carrie and Hazel1….Yes, I think the “fake” argument over any details of the legislation is actually a cover-up for being greedy and not wanting to share. I think the white men who supposedly are ardent “Pro-Life” activists are doing the same thing-not sharing with women the same rights they have! Let’s talk about the REAL issues…..
sorry…
Meant to say, the NARAL statement says we’ll have to write two checks to our insurance co if the company continues to pay for private abortions.
Here it is:
It is with mixed emotions that I write with news that, tonight, the House of Representatives passed the health-reform bill.
I am extremely disappointed to tell you that the final package includes the insulting, unworkable Nelson restriction on abortion coverage in the new system.
As you may recall, the Nelson language requires Americans in the new system to write two separate checks if the health plan they choose includes abortion coverage. This unacceptable bureaucratic stigmatization could cause insurance carriers to stop covering abortion care. This would represent a major setback, given that more than 85 percent of private plans cover this care for women today.
Despite this totally unacceptable anti-choice provision, reform will bring more than 30 million Americans into a system that includes affordable family-planning services and maternity care for women. It also outlaws some discriminatory insurance-industry practices that make health care more expensive for women. Improving women’s access to birth control and prenatal care and making reproductive-health care more affordable are also at the core of our mission.
Here at NARAL Pro-Choice America, we struggled with the dilemma of how to respond to a bill that included both positive and disappointing provisions for reproductive health. Ultimately, we determined that we could not endorse this bill due to the abortion-coverage restrictions. But, we also could not, in good conscience, call for the bill’s outright defeat and deny millions of American women the promise of better—although imperfect—health-care services that are an important part of our pro-choice values.
That these abortion-coverage restrictions remained in the bill is terrible news for all of us who believe that American women should not have to sacrifice their right to choose in order to gain ground in other areas of health care. It is an outrage that anti-choice politicians such as Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) used women’s reproductive health as a bargaining chip.
But, believe me when I say that Congress and the White House have not heard the last from us. NARAL Pro-Choice America does not accept this bill as the final word on how abortion coverage will be defined in the new health-care system. We are committed to finding opportunities to repeal dangerous and unacceptable restrictions as the new system takes shape.
Thank you for standing with us for so many months. We will keep fighting to elect pro-choice members who share our pro-choice values.
Nancy Keenan
President, NARAL Pro-Choice America
Here’s is NARAL’s response. Interestingly, they say that the bill as it stands would mean that we would all have to write
Vicvega,
Of course the very people that profess to value the family and Christ are the GREEDIEST and most unwilling to share! They “say” they follow Christ or have family values but what they MEAN is that they value THEIR family and the ability to get rich. That is why these people so admire capitalism despite the fact that capitalism protects the rich.
I do think that if the right-to-life folks get to stop tax payer funded abortions, then we pro-choice folks should push the President and congress to stop making US pay for tax-payer funded Abstinence Only education…the same education that makes abortions necessary!
:::off to write congress and President Obama about his education reforms::::
Actually, in reference to vicvega mentioning how it seems that the opposition doesnt want to share, I had a conversation with a die hard republican lady the other day who has been in the healthcare industry for 40 or more years and she literally said “I don’t want any health care changes to pass because, frankly, I don’t like to share”. Right out of the horse’s mouth. With all due respect to horses.
What disgusts me 1000x more than Barack Obama negotiating over Abortion Funding, is the fact that 100% of Republicans voted No on this….Seriously? Not one Republican wanted to vote for Health Care Reform?
I am absolutely a Feminist who cares deeply about Women’s reproductive rights and have been pushing for the Public Option….but Abortion is not the only issue critical to this complex debate. If you are indignant about this portion of the issue, I ask that you be grateful for the enormous achievement that just happened.
What people should be indignant about is that MILLIONS of people in this country believe from the bottom of their cold hearts that it is not a Universal Right for ALL human beings to receive healthcare (especially when they live in one of the wealthiest places on Earth! And certainly not on those continents where everyone is Brown!) People out there actually believe this and it indicates how it all comes down to money and greed. I think most of the opposition just doesn’t want to share. Those who are opposed are soooo worried that “their” coverage or services might possibly be affected! Oh My! Not that! They might have to “wait long periods of time at the Doctor’s office!” Oh My! MINE MINE MINE!!!
Despite my anger at this I am very glad the worse case scenario didn’t pan out. For a while, Stupak and others wanted anyone receiving any kind of federal aid (such as food stamps and TANF and cash asistance etc) to be denied same if they paid for an abortion with any other money they made. This would have meant that if a working poor woman paid for health iunsurance through her employer and if that health insurance included abortions in their coverage, she could be cut off of food stamps, WIC or child care assistance (cash assistance is only given to families when they have NO income and the payments are so low that a person receiving cash assistance would not be able to use it for an abortion because they would need it for housng or utilities). That amendment would have been extremely invasive, intrusive and horrible for the working poor women.
This one is still bad news but I daresay there are ways around it because as the wiki article shows, states have picked up the slack; though now that so many states are strapped for income, I can see the federal government withholding funds to them until they stop doing that. Executive orders that contradict a law won’t hold up; maybe that’s why Obama signed it? I have found Obama is good at letting people hang themselves; my guess is he knows the order cannot change the law and as such, the right-to-life dems that wanted it are appeased enough to vote for the health care bill. The HC bill can be fixed via amendments, much like medicare, medicaid, and social security were fixes after the passing of the original, flkawed bills.
No matter what happens, I think that women’s groups like NOW should immediately start a fund that poor women can tap to get abortions; these can be grants they give to poor women and anyone can donate to this fund.
You’re right, divergent, that there was no federal funding available for abortions anyway. I think NOW is so mad because Obama came out and spoke oficially as the head of the executive branch to say that the federal government in effect shuns abortion.
NOW is implying that Obama has reversed course by doing this, because he was perviously on the record as pro-choice.
I have to say, I’m very dismayed that the Democrats think that women and women’s issues are expendable, and they can manipulate woman as “bargaining chips” to appease social conservatives.
Reproductive choice is a basic human right, and the Democrats are stabbing themselves in the back by ignoring the primacy of this issue for women.
Or, I could use google…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment
duh.
So, is there currently federal funding for abortion? I know planned parenthood received partial funding from government grants, will this cut that funding? I had never thought abortion was something that was generally funded by the government, or even generally covered by insurance plans. Is the reaction based more on the principle of the matter, and that this could be a first step towards attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade?
Sorry if I am coming across as naive, I am just trying to understand more clearly.
i’m incensed too. Really pissed. But you know what? This is a perfect example of power politics. Power politics is a dirty, stinking game. Anybody shocked by this has not been paying attention. We are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is how Jessie Jackson got mad at him. In power politics, nothing is in good faith. It’s whatever it takes no matter who gets sold down the river. It stinks and that’s how it gets done.