Aaron Zelinger
By Aaron Zelinger
The landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade established that women have the right to have an abortion. The Democratic Party has always supported a woman’s right to choose, and for 36 years, Democrats have worked to protect this right for the benefit of all women, young and old alike.
In a sudden swing of events, Democratic leadership in the House decided Nov. 7 to turn that policy, and their reputation, on their heads. When the Democrats came up with the health care bill now being voted on, the original intention was to provide Americans with affordable, sustainable health care. Since then, the goal has shifted.
The Democrats have become so concerned with getting votes they have forgotten what their votes are for. They have given up on their constituents, and traded in their moral values for political capital. In the attempt to gain votes for their health care bill, the Democrats have, instead, created a monster. The name of the monster is the Stupak Amendment.
The Stupak Amendment, written by Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Joe Pitts (R-PA), would forbid the use of public healthcare money towards a woman getting an abortion. This atrocious, unconstitutional amendment to an otherwise sufficient bill has pulled women back years in their fight for independence and civil rights. The amendment, specifically states, “No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act may be used to pay for any abortion.” Considering the majority of American women will switch to the less expensive public option, this means that those women will be denied a medical procedure that they are legally entitled to.
This amendment also means that high school students who may need an abortion will be denied this medical procedure. Each year, 750,000 teenagers become pregnant in America, according to a Guttmacher Institute study in 2002. Of those 750 thousand cases, 82 percent are unplanned, the study said. It’s a number too large to ignore.
Teens get abortions for a variety of reasons: many cannot afford the medical costs of a baby or the cost of raising a baby, and they do not feel mature enough to raise a child. These are real, logical reasons that often warrant an abortion. In an America where the Stupak amendment is law, the government will not support teenage girls who need abortions for those very reasons.
Following a long and controversial effort by Democrats to produce a viable health care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi permitted the inclusion of the Stupak amendment in an attempt to ease the tension among conservative Democrats, and to gain their votes. Since the amendment’s inclusion, the health care bill has passed through the House, and awaits the Senate’s vote. Hopefully the Senate members will vote to obliterate the amendment as it is, and amend it in favor of the right to choose.
Stupak and other conservatives argue that liberals are diverting the focus from health care to abortion, and therefore stalling the process. “Let’s not have an abortion debate,” Stupak said. “We should be talking about health care.” If this is true, then why did he propose the amendment? Did he do it to speed things up? It is this type of political hypocrisy that is slowing down positive change, and destroying American rights in the meantime.
Stupak argues that because the current federal employee health care program does not currently pay for abortions, neither should the public option. What Stupak and fellow supporters of his amendment fail to see is that the current program is designed for a select group of federal employees. With the public option’s implementation, the private sector of health care will cease to exist as we know it. It is likely that many major health care corporations will shut down or minimize operations. If this occurs, then there will be no “insurance companies” to pay for abortions. Women of all ages in need will be left with little-to-no hope for receiving an abortion, all because of party politics.
A woman’s body is her private property. The courts have upheld it; the government has enforced it; and the people have believed in it. The government should not tell women what to do with their bodies, and it shouldn’t be allowed to.
Stupak’s amendment did not attract a single Republican vote. If politicians really want more votes for the health care bill, they will exclude the Stupak amendment from the legislation and focus on the bill’s financial properties. This is where members of both parties can find common ground. Exclusion of the amendment will energize the liberal base while simultaneously restoring faith in the Democratic Party, the champion party of women’s rights.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party are coming to a crossroads. The question is, will they join in cohorts with the monster, or raise a shield of defiance toward politics as usual, in favor of our rights?
Published in December 2009 in “The Paly Voice – Verde,” Vol. 11, edition 2 . The Paly Voice is a student-run journalism Web site published continuously by the students in Palo Alto High School’s Web Journalism class.
Please note, this was independently written and does not reflect the opinion of the Women’s Media Center.
This is nicely written and pretty well argued. Unfortunately, the argument is based on mistaken information.
Stupak’s amendment received nearly every Republican vote. The final bill that included the amendment did not receive any Republican votes.
Poor women and teenage girls who rely on the government for health care are already denied the right to choose under the Hyde Amendment, passed in the seventies. The current health care reform act re-states this amendment. Stupak’s amendment goes much further, denying women the right to choose an insurance policy that covers abortion.
The public option will not lead to a situation where “the private sector of health care will cease to exist as we know it.” No corporations that provide health care are likely to shut down. Fewer than 3 million people would be eligible to take part in the public option. Not all of them will choose it. It is hoped that its premiums would be lower than the premiums of the other health care INSURANCE providers, creating a downward pressure on the private sectors’ premiums, but it is not at all likely to drive any company out of business.
Your analysis of the voting in Congress had the Stupak Amendment not been put to a vote is naive at best. You need to study this issue further.
Very well put. And the Senate took out the Public Option. What we need is a discussion about Single Payer and self pay. When I self pay, the dialog is between me and the doctor. With Single Payer, community health is the issue.
I’m firmly pro-choice, but the logic of this piece is flawed.
First, having a constitutional right to do something (to get an abortion) does not equal having a constitutional right to have the government pay for it. Public funding is very clearly not a constitutional right. Thus, government-funded abortion is not a constitutional right either. If such a thing were a right, then the government would also be obligated to fund all of our other rights, such as speech, assembly and religion. Nobody would argue that everyone who attends a march or protest has a constitutional right to have their cab fare to get there paid for by the federal government.
Second, public funding for abortion is arguably (though not certainly) unconstitutional in and of itself. Although I’m not a religious person, I can acknowledge that the First Amendment protects those who are from government infringement. And it’s quite difficult to build a coherent case around the notion that forcing tens of millions of people to literally pay for something which their religious beliefs hold to be sin is not exactly such an infringement. It isn’t about whether or not we agree with such beliefs — we obviously don’t. It’s about whether the religious have a right to hold and practice such beliefs without being compelled to act against them by the government.
Third, the point about teen pregnancy sounds like something a Wall Street banker might say concerning the financial meltdown; as it assumes an entitlement to have one’s self-inflicted problems bailed out by the government. While pregnant teens clearly need help, is it really in the best interests of the teen population as a whole to systemically enable those who create pregnancies (male and female) to avoid the real-world consequences of their actions? For the nation to essentially provide “bail outs” for what is more often than not the product of irresponsible behavior? It’s currently estimated that one in four teen girls has an STI/STD, which indicates both a lack of education and, more acutely, a lack of sexual responsibility by teens (responsibility and abstinence are not the same thing). So might it not be better to place the health care emphasis on education and pregnancy-reducing disincentives, rather than remedies that accomplish neither (and perhaps even act against the latter)?
Having said all that, kudos for taking the time to write the piece. I may not agree with everything you said, but it’s good to see high school students tackling major issues.
Rob-
Women with unwanted pregnancies have a medical condition that will end up costing them their time, money, and possible opportunities. When you say the government doesn’t pay for your rights, think first: do we have a public education system? Do we have public drinking water systems? Do we have an Environmental Protection Agency? Do we have public roads, public libraries, police/fire/emergency medical systems?
Those things aren’t a ‘right’ as it seems you are defining it. But they are a kind of right – we have the right to be educated, have clean water, have emergency fire/police/medical services available to us. We all pay for those things, but they are not a classical ‘right’. Think about your definition of ‘right’, and you’ll quickly see that the government already pays for many things that we all consider a right.
Your second point is laughably stupid – that we cannot force tens of millions of people to pay for things they don’t agree with. *AHEM* Separation of church and state. DONE. Apparently you know nothing about the constitution.
For the same reason we make a pacifist pay taxes that go to support
buying war machines, this argument is perhaps one of the dumbest I’ve ever heard.
Your third point – that making abortions available is a sort of ‘bailout’, and do we really want to ‘enable them to avoid the real world consequences’ of their actions? Ah, to consider if your point is valid, let us consider these ‘consequences’.
As you’ve pointed out, there are serious education gaps (in general) for those teenagers getting pregnant. Tell me: Is the real world consequence of a continued cycle of poor education and poverty, really equal to the ‘crime’ of mistakenly getting pregnant?
If I told you at 18, or 16, that your loins wouldn’t put you in jail – they would keep you poor, uneducated, and make you more of a burden on society, what would you have said? Now, as a taxpayer, tell me – do you want these people who do not want a child to be forced to have one, knowing that the lifetime cost of someone who is unwanted, generally will attain a lower education level, and will end up costing the state much more than if they did not exist (not even including lost economic/educational opportunities for the mother).
Essentially, it comes down to this: Many people in America are willing to punish women who have sex, but only poor women, and by any means necessary. They will accept decreased education levels, poor job outlook, etc., that affect poor women, because they think that the ‘greater’ crime isn’t really being pregnant – it is sex itself. Many of them are convinced their primitive imaginary friend will make everything ok, just so long as these dirty poor people
Your arguments against the author are so ridiculously ______ that I am ashamed our public education systems failed you so miserably. However, my heart sings with the thought that the author is in high school, because then not all hope is lost.
I do think logic should be a high school requirement. Perhaps this will prevent the spread of such idiocy as Rob spouts. Then again, American government was a required class, and he couldn’t piece together the separation of church and state, so all bets are off.
How does this legislation put women back in terms of rights? Its not illegal to get an abortion – just no public money will fund it, just like its not illegal to get breast implants but I doubt any public option insurance would cover it. Thats not unconstitutional either – you REALLY need to read the constitution before you throw that oft-used phrase around, ignorance is NOT bliss.
I’m pro-choice, and have gone through an abortion with a girl friend – but let me say this, abortion is 100% preventable (pregnancy by rape is such a tiny percentage its negligible) and its also very, very cheap for a surgical procedure. It cost us $300 at Planned Parenthood, and we used a payment plan. If you can’t afford that you shouldn’t be having sex, end of story.
Rob,
Tax payers already pay for a ridiculous amount of “projects” I am personally opposed to. My rights have been infringed upon since day one. Where’s my justice? We’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan? Still doing that Patriot Act stuff? Still supporting the Faith-Based Discrimination? Well, your second argument is null and void.
I also would like to debate your first argument. Abortion would certainly be a sub-item tied to health care, right? I would think quite a few people, especially every other industrialized nation, consider health care something that should be provided by the government. Americans are just greedy, disgusting pigs. And yes, some foreign countries are starting to think like us, because it makes billions from peoples lives. SPREAD AMERICAN VALUES! DESTROY HUMANITY!
Did you read your third argument? The right-wing jesus freakz won’t let us educate. When you can’t prevent, you must at least help clean up the aftermath.
DOES ANYONE IN THIS COUNTRY UNDERSTAND LOGIC ANYMORE?!
(1) The republican party’s own insurance had an abortion enabling clause in it for their own employees, they took it out after 19 yrs when that was brought up. (2) The republicans are against a womans right to choose, at least in public. (3) The health bill was not going to have anything one way or the other in it because it is covered elsewhere in other government programs and private insurance. (4) Opponents to the healthcare plan want Roe V Wade overturned and/or not supported anywhere, anyway, anyhow. (5) Proponents would not have stopped a woman from getting coverage on her own any way she could. Just a couple of points you might have missed.
It’s time to admit the truth: the war in Iraq is due to oil and government contracts to private companies, not knocking down the Towers and killing so many Americans. The White House knew these terrorists were in the country and did NOTHING! They waste time and money chasing after Mexican illigals who do us no phyiscal harm, and are doing jobs most American lazy pelple will not lower themselves to do! QUIT LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT why we are in Iraq! We have oil resources here in American we could appropriate but for the goody two shoes who are on the side of minows, the gnats, the rats and the worms on the earth and care nothing about the people. Save the Whales, sacrifice the people! This country is being led by IDIOTS who are only interested in lining their pockets. WANT TO BE RICH? BECOME A CONGRESSMAN!