Babies or Fetus?

Which ones to throw under the bus?

A number of Republican senators attacked an agreement reached between Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Senate Democratic leaders Saturday, saying it would lead to the eventual reversal of more than 30 years of federal law banning abortion funding. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oka.) said it is “absolutely fictitious” that there is an anti-abortion provision in the Senate Democrats’ reworked healthcare reform bill. “The negotiations, whoever did them, threw unborn babies under the bus,” Coburn said.

From here.

It appears that the clusterfuck mêlée unfolding in the US Senate (or is it Congress?) around legislation to reform the parameters of US healthcare has been distilled to this.

On one side, The Fetus©™ fetishists - Repubs and Dems alike - who are taking their marching orders from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lobby.

On the other, those who appear to be more concerned about the survival of babies born, the availability of medical care to pregnant women, and their families. The recent World Economic Forum analyzed a number of gender indicators in order to measure for example, differences access to healthcare differences between the sexes. Antonia Zerbesias demonstrates why this is important.

For the record, Canada ranks No. 25 on all these measures, while the US is No. 31. Tops in the world is Iceland, followed by the usual line-up of northern European countries, Finland, Norway, Sweden. As for the bottom of the list, let's just say you don't want to be a woman in Yemen.

But let's cut straight to the maternal mortality chase, which those ''pro-lifers'' focus on. Not only do "weak healthcare systems not prioritize women's health,'' there is evidence that the number of skilled healthcare workers available to support women through pregnancy, delivery and post-natal care had everything to do with women's survival. The women who die, die of "severe bleeding, infection, hypertension'' and then ''complications from unsafe abortion.'' About 20 per cent of maternal deaths are related to diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS -- and then there's women's inability to get decent nourishment.

From here.

So let's be clear on who exactly who gets thrown under the bus if healthcare is not reformed in the US. Yup, yup, you betcha! Women and children - considered by those rabidly opposed to abortions as mere "Gestational Support Units" and "Not-Fetuses".

More teabaggers', assorted rightwing religious zealots' and stupid attention-mongers' indecent repurposing and/or spoliage of respected aphorisms, check out Boris' post at The Galloping Beaver.