Abstinence Is Back

In all the hoo-haw over abortion coverage in the seemingly endless debate over healthcare reform in the US, something slipped under the radar.

Remember back in May when sensible people celebrated Obama's axing of the totally useless abstinence-only sex ed?

Well, it's baaaaaack.

A little-noticed provision of the health legislation has rescued federal support for a controversial form of sex education: teaching youths to remain virgins until marriage.

The bill restores $250 million over five years for states to sponsor programs aimed at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by focusing exclusively on encouraging children and adolescents to avoid sex. The funding provides at least a partial reprieve for the approach, which faced losing all federal support under President Obama's first two budgets.

"We're very happy to see that funding will continue so the important sexual health message of risk avoidance will reach American teens," said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, a Washington-based lobbying group. "What better place to see such an important health issue addressed than in the health legislation?"

But the funding was condemned by critics, who were stupefied by the eleventh-hour rescue.

"To spend a quarter-billion dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that have already been proven to fail is reckless and irresponsible," said James Wagoner of the Washington group Advocates for Youth. "When on top of that you add the fact that this puts the health and lives of young people at risk, this becomes outrageous."

Just one more little way that reproductive health in general and women's rights in particular suffer when the angry white men stomp their little feet and threaten to hold their breath.

Charming, isn't it?

More abortion laws! Lots more!

I can't keep up. The Merkin healthcare debate and its obsession with abortion has whipped up state legislatures all over the Excited States into frenzies of fetus fetishizing. Abortion! We need more laws on abortion!

And they're getting them. Lots more laws on abortion! Some of them quite nutty. (The people at RH Reality Check do a good job of keeping up with the fetus fetishizing lawmakers in the US.)

Where to start?

How about Georgia? You may remember that a billboard campaign there linked abortion to genocide. Yeah, yeah, you've heard that one before, but wait, the Georgia campaign specifically links abortion to black genocide.

Well, now they have a brand spanky new law enshrining that idiocy.

Last week, the Georgia Senate gave sanction to a bizarre, destructive and racially condescending conspiracy theory. By a 33-14 vote, it approved a bill that purports to outlaw the attempted genocide of black Americans through abortion.

Under the bill’s language, a health care provider could be convicted of a felony and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for performing an abortion “with the intent to prevent an unborn child from being born based upon the race, color, or gender of the unborn child or the race or color of either parent of that unborn child.”

(snip)

Until approval of SB 529, the dumbest legislation to pass the House or Senate this year had been a bill to outlaw forced implantation of microchips in human beings, which also passed the Senate. However, while it may rival the genocide-by-abortion bill in terms of weirdness, the microchip bill was at least largely harmless.

The abortion bill, on the other hand, puts the state Senate on record as endorsing the claim that black Americans are being targeted for elimination by health care providers. That’s absurd and flat-out wrong.

In Nebraska, where you might recall they are trying to outlaw abortion because of the unfounded claim of fetal pain, they've come up with another doozy.

Before an abortion, women are to be screened for 'potential post-abortion problems'. Well, what's wrong with that, you wonder?

Because the 'problems' they are concerned with are claims that abortion drives women insane.

Greg Schleppenbach of the Nebraska Catholic Conference said the bill doesn't call for drastic changes and would simply put pre-abortion medical consultation in line with normal medical practices in which patients are advised of risks.

"We're just saying that that if the abortion industry acknowledges risk factors exist, isn't it reasonable to screen people for them?" Schleppenbach said.

An official with the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights said there was no connection between psychological problems and abortions.

The measure is in fact a drastic shift in abortion policy, added Jordan Goldberg, state advocacy counsel for the center, and the real intent is to establish a "vague and unconstitutional barrier" to abortions by scaring doctors who might perform them. Goldberg, who tracks abortion laws across the country, said she'd never seen anything like the Nebraska bill.

"I think there's a serious chance it will make doctors wary of performing abortions because they just don't know if they're complying with the law," Goldberg said.

You wanna make women insane, say to them: 'Sorry, honey, I think having an abortion would drive you crazy, so, no, you won't be able to have one.'

Now, more mandatory ultrasound bullshit from Louisiana. What makes this one a little different is that it is being pushed by a Democratic woman.

Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, said the bill is designed to make a woman "think twice about having an abortion. This is such a serious decision that a woman makes, the process should be exhausted with all the medical information on the procedure" available, she said.

In the privacy-invadingest state in the union, Oklahoma, they're busy taking apart a previous anti-abortion bill that was deemed unconstitutional on the technicality that it dealt with more than one issue and turning it into four anti-abortion laws, including the privacy-invading part.

The information includes race, education level, miscarriages, induced abortions, method of abortion, reason for the abortion and method of payment.

While the woman's name would not be included, the info would be published. As critics point out, some counties in Oklahoma are so underpopulated, it would be a doddle for busy-bodies to figure out who the local slut is.

On to Missouri for another omnibus fetus fetishist bill, dealing with coerced abortion and another stunning bit of privacy invasion.

The bill would also require prosecutors to be informed when an individual under age 18 inquired about an abortion, whether or not the woman completes the procedure.

Ask a question about abortion and get reported??!!! (The specious 'reason' for this is that they want to identify cases of possible child sexual abuse.)

Barriers, lies, shame, intimidation -- all the usual weapons. It's been a grand few weeks in the Excited States for fetus fetishizers.

And a very bad time -- and future -- for American women.

But wait! There are some grown-ups down there. In Michigan, no less, Bart Stupak's state.

Legislation moving to the state Senate would require Michigan emergency rooms to provide emergency contraception to individuals who are sexual assaulted.

Four bills, originally part of a 15-bill initiative promoted by Planned Parenthood, passed the Michigan House last week and would extend access to contraception, said state Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing.

“These are reasonable and applicable methods and laws, which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies,” said Meadows, who sponsored a bill in the package that would require crisis pregnancy centers to tell patients they do not provide information about birth control or abortion.

The bills need to gain the support of the Republican-led Senate to become law.

Other bills that passed include a bill requiring the Michigan Department of Community Health to educate the public about emergency contraception and a bill requiring all school districts to teach “medically accurate sexual education.”

We shall see whether the state-level Stupaks get their knickers in knots and stop this too.

Pro-life Death Threats

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Vandalism and death threats.

Democratic lawmakers have received death threats and been the victims of vandalism because of their votes in favor of the health care bill, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said Wednesday, as the Congressional debate over the issue headed toward a bitter and divisive conclusion.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said at least 10 House members had raised concerns about their personal security since Sunday’s climactic vote, and Mr. Hoyer characterized the cases as serious.

At least two Congressional district offices were vandalized and Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a senior Democrat from New York, received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.

Ms. Slaughter also reported that a brick was thrown through a window of her office in Niagara Falls, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, said Monday that her Tucson office was vandalized after the vote.

The Associated Press reported that the authorities in Virginia were investigating a cut propane line to an outdoor grill at the home of a brother of Representative Tom Perriello of Virginia, after the address was mistakenly listed on a Tea Party Web site as the residence of the congressman. Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan and a central figure in the measure’s abortion provisions, reported receiving threatening phone calls.

And more. Read the whole litany.

Pro-choice Payback Time

Katha Pollitt has an excellent point (emphasis mine).

If healthcare reform becomes law, you can thank prochoicers. In the end, forced to decide between sacrificing abortion coverage and voting down coverage of everything else for 30 million people, abortion-rights supporters took the hit. Prochoice representatives, who had vowed to vote against any bill that restricted access to abortion more than the infamous Hyde Amendment has already done, will have reversed themselves and voted for it. (Don't kid yourselves, the Senate bill is a major blow to abortion rights. As antichoice evangelical David Gushee told followers stuck on Stupak: "Accept victory while you can get it.") NARAL, Planned Parenthood and NOW stepped back. You can call prochoice leaders hypocritical or cowardly or feeble or excessively deferential to the president's agenda. But one thing you can't call them is selfishly obsessed with their own political purity. That would be the antichoicers--the Catholic bishops, Bart Stupak, Ben Nelson. They were the big evil babies who were willing to let millions suffer and 45,000 people die every year unless they got to deprive women of their reproductive rights.

She goes on to list some proposed or stalled legislation and programs in areas like pay equity, maternal health, reproductive health for poor people, and so on that the Obama administration could get to work on to pay back the prochoice forces who saved his butt.

If I were living in the Excited States, I'd be emailing Nancy Fucking Pelosi -- first female Speaker of the House -- hourly.

And, oh, boo-hoo, Big Evil Baby Stupak has been deemed a turncoat by the fetus fetishists and they are not going to give him the coveted *cough* Defender of Life award.

Healthcare Reform Blame Game

Oy. It's not over yet. As JJ says, heads are still exploding.

The sobbing, the whining, the shrieking, the out-of-control apocalyptic hysteria over the passage of a health care reform bill so conservative that Richard Nixon would have loved it is really something to behold.

Yeah, that is fun. But the blame game is even more fun.

So, who blew it?

The Catlicks?

I can talk about the Catholic Church and its profound failure yesterday.

It is not an understatement to say that the American Catholic Church lost the abortion wars for three decades, and only began to dig in and hold ground starting with the election of the extremely Protestant George W. Bush.

The ReThuglicans?

Conservatives and Republicans on Sunday suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

$arah?

Or take your pick.

John Boehner, Mitch McConnell: Republican leadership's roadblocks slowed reform but couldn't stop it.

Harry Reid: Lost time, and his Senate super-majority, in fruitless quest for a bipartisan bill.

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party crowd: "Death panel" scaremongers and town hall meeting mobs see worst fear a reality.

Fox News: Highest-rated cable news op was the big megaphone for health care foes.

In related news, some mook named Randy Neugebauer has fessed up to shouting 'Baby killer!' at Bart Stupak.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas puts out a statement:

Last night was the climax of weeks and months of debate on a health care bill that my constituents fear and do not support. In the heat and emotion of the debate, I exclaimed the phrase ‘it’s a baby killer’ in reference to the agreement reached by the Democratic leadership. While I remain heartbroken over the passage of this bill and the tragic consequences it will have for the unborn, I deeply regret that my actions were mistakenly interpreted as a direct reference to Congressman Stupak himself.

I have apologized to Mr. Stupak and also apologize to my colleagues for the manner in which I expressed my disappointment about the bill. The House Chamber is a place of decorum and respect. The timing and tone of my comment last night was inappropriate.

His wiki page has already been updated.

Ratzy vs. the Nuns, continued

Well, the loony Merkin congresscritters are finally voting on death panel healthcare reform legislation. As someone who regularly searches 'abortion' at Google News, I am sick to death (panels) of the thousands and thousands of headlines shrieeeeking about whether the bill would allow federal funding of abortion, about daily Catlick hissy fits, about whether this or that politician can accept the 'abortion language'.

As a measure of just how nuts this story is, dig this from Maureen Dowd:

The nuns have it right

WASHINGTON - Angry nuns have been calling Congressman Bart Stupak's office to complain about his dismissive comments on their bravura decision to make a literal Hail Mary pass, break with Catholic bishops and endorse the health care bill.

As a Catholic schoolboy, the Michigan Democrat had his share of nuns who rapped his knuckles when he misbehaved, like the time he crashed a kickball through the school window.

So, of course, he's having some acid flashbacks, but he told me, "They're not printable even in The New York Times."

Like that other troublemaking Bart (Simpson), Stupak, who wants to kill the health care bill because he thinks the language on abortion funding is not restrictive enough, should have to write on the blackboard a hundred times: "I will listen closely when the nuns tell me I am wrong. I will not be an obstinate lawmaker."

Stupak got in hot holy water when he told Fox News, "When I'm drafting right-to-life language, I don't call up nuns." He followed that with more scorn for sisters, telling Chris Matthews that the nuns were not influential because they rarely try to influence - which makes no sense - and because "they're not the recognized spokesperson for the Catholic Church." He listens to the bishops, he said, and anti-abortion groups.

We might have to bang Bart's head into a blackboard a few times before he realizes that in a moral tug-of-war between the sisters and the bishops, you have to go with the gals.

The nuns are giving the Democrats cover. As Bob Casey, an abortion opponent who helped negotiate the abortion language in the Senate bill, observed, quoting Scripture: "They care for 'the least, the last and the lost.' And they know health care."

On Friday, Tim Ryan, an anti-abortion Democrat from Ohio, took to the House floor to say he had been influenced by the nuns to vote for the bill.

"You say this is pro-abortion," he said to Republicans, and yet "you have 59,000 Catholic nuns from across the country endorsing this bill, 600 Catholic hospitals, 1,400 Catholic nursing homes endorsing this bill."

Go read the whole thing.

Here's how she ends it (link mine):

Because Benedict has addressed the sex scandal belatedly and sparsely, stonewalling on the skeleton in his German closet, he has lost authority to speak about the issue consuming his church. The only internal investigation he has undertaken with alacrity, for heaven's sake, is the one bullying American nuns.

You go, grrrls.

Here is Dowd's terrific piece on Ratzy's investigation of the nuns.

Way to Go, Hawaii!

Unlike the rest of the Excited States, Hawaii seems a remarkably sensible place.

The House of Representatives yesterday paved the way for Hawaii to become the first state in the nation to repeal its abortion law.

The repeal bill passed by a 31-20 vote and is expected to breeze through the Senate on Tuesday.
(snip)
The current law says a woman may get an abortion only when her life is in danger.

The bill would repeal this and make abortion a matter of conscience between a woman and her physician.

That may have been the law, but it seems it hasn't been enforced. Here's what the respected Guttmacher Institute has to say about abortion in Hawaii:

• In 2005, there were 39 abortion providers in Hawaii. This represents a 24% decrease from 2000, when there were 51 abortion providers.

• In 2005, 20% of Hawaii counties had no abortion provider. 0% of Hawaii women lived in these counties. In the West census region, where Hawaii is located, 18% of women having abortions traveled at least 50 miles, and 5% traveled more than 100 miles.

• In Hawaii, no metropolitan area lacks an abortion provider.

* Hawaii does not have any of the major types of abortion restrictions—such as waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortions—often found in other states.

Goodness. Hawaii -- with the notable exception of the weather -- seems quite Canuck-like. It has employer-paid health insurance, even for part-time workers.

Imee Gallardo, 24, has been scooping ice cream at a Häagen-Dazs shop at Waikiki Beach for five years, and during that time the shop has done something its counterparts on the mainland rarely do: it has paid for her health care.

Ms. Gallardo cannot imagine any other system.

“I wouldn’t get coverage on the mainland?” Ms. Gallardo asked. “Even if I worked? Why?”

Since 1974, Hawaii has required all employers to provide relatively generous health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more. If health care legislation passes in Congress, the rest of the country may barely catch up.

Lawmakers working on a national health care fix have much to learn from the past 35 years in Hawaii, President Obama’s native state.

But will they? Unlikely.

Teabagger WIN!

The US Democrats are as fucked up as our Liberals.

I really really really don't understand why the The Good Gals/Guys® lose to the Liars/Homophobes/Misogynists/Racists/Fear-Mongers etc.etc.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Teabagging for profit - you betcha!

The "Tea Party Nation" (the Tea Party Patriots handle was used for awhile, which produced the unattractive acronym TPP, pronounced teapeepee) keeps shifting and changing names which makes branding the organization somewhat tricky.

Progressives like to remind them that it was their own members that came up with the teabag monniker early on which they quickly tried to jettison. Kind of like C.R.A.P. - Canadian Reform Alliance Party - anyone remember that snafu?

Anyhow, although the organizers of the Nashville convention next month are trying to control media spin, it appears that some journalists are asking uncomfortable questions.

The $549 per person price tag for the sold-out Feb. 4-6 event -- which is closed to all but a "select" group of media friendly to the movement -- has angered some activists. But they began to raise questions when it was revealed that, unlike those similar national events, the organizer of the convention registered the group behind the event - Tea Party Nation - as a “for profit” corporation.

The little-known organizer is Judson Phillips, a self-described "small-town lawyer." He is a former assistant district attorney now in private practice, specializing in driving-under-the-influence and personal-injury cases. He is organizing the convention with his wife, Sherry, his sister-in-law, and a handful of other volunteers.

A background check of various public records databases raises questions about how he has handled money in the past. The search shows that Phillips filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy in 1999 and during the past decade, he has had three federal tax liens against him, totaling more than $22,000.

In an interview with NBC News, Phillips admitted to the financial difficulties. He declined to comment on the bankruptcy, but said the federal tax liens have been paid off. “I work for myself,” he said. “Sometimes you have a good year; sometimes you have a bad year; sometimes you get a little bit behind; the government files a lien. They’ve been paid off. ” [...]

Phillips, who said he ran in a Republican primary for a seat [a Tennessee county board] in 2002, denied that his personal finances have any bearing on his ability to be a responsible steward of Tea Party funds.

“That question is so - that question is not asked about NBC with its advertisers or anything else,” Phillips charged. “We are putting on an event that is a convention. People are paying for their attendance. It’s a private event. People who are coming to it are private; people who are participating in it are all private citizens. It’s not really any of anybody else’s concern.”

Oh really? I'd bet that some of the teabaggers might be interested in knowing where their hard-earned money is going - whether to building a political party or building a business for Judson Phillips and his friends.

Some media are more worthy than others.

JJ reported in her blogpost 'Teabagging Behind Closed Doors' that the organizers of the upcoming February convention were not giving the media access to events.

Today a different story is told.

The Tea Party Convention put out a press release today announcing that they were packed and had space for just five news outlets: "Everyone from a small town newspaper in Iowa to Fox News has asked for press credentials. We have had requests from Canada, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Croatia and Japan. We have been hard pressed to accommodate all of these requests and do not have the space or resources to support the entirety of the press corp. Indeed, we have asked the hotel if they would be willing to provide a press room during the convention.

However, given these practical limitations, we have approved the following press organizations: Fox News, Breitbart.com, Townhall.com, The Wall Street Journal, World Net Daily."

From here. A Nashville news source is saying that Sarah Palin will allow other media during her speech too. And also. Unless of course it's those narsty Alaskans she had banned from her book-signing shindig last month in Wasilla, you betcha.

You have to wonder how the organizers plan to control the bloggers and exactly how TPN credentials can be determined, for those who aren't part of the establishment. Spell checks?

Yeah, that's probably the ticket in. Anyone who can prove they're grammatically challenged and can pay the $549. to attend (plus $349 for the banquet), as well as spew the standard anti-healthcare reform barking points on command will be allowed in.

On a cold cold January day in Detroit ...

Just like the ReformaTories's diehard pro-prorogation supporters (read Canadian Cynic: Just wait until they can drown it in a bathtub.) the US rightwing socons who have joined the "Tea Party" are not the most coherent or unflappable citizens around. Even when they're armed with their thousand twinkling points of sound bites and their marching orders, they tend to get all belligerent-like.

This blogger headed off to Detroit to participate in a demonstration in front of the Cobo Centre where a national Auto Show was being held. "Oh look!" he emphasized with a photograph, "We have a Black person joining us."

He posted YouTubes of his co-called interviews where he basically harangued union members and other supporters of healthcare reform by asking them the same question over and over again.

In spite of his demonstrably bullying tactics, he took great offense when he got called out as a teabagger. But he did get one positive comment from 'Anonymous' at his blogsite:

Wow, thanks for posting this. Great "on the scene" reporting. People like you amply demonstrate why the old media is irrelevant.

And while that observation should make us all stand prouder, that particular comment is, as they say, context-dependent.

More rightwingnuttiness update: Good catch by this blogger who monitors the teabaggers and their messaging. What is it about the healthcare reform in the US that lifted the rock underneath where all these mean-spirited and stupid people were hiding? Now they're in public view, basking in the glory of their wrong-headed self-righteousness.

And this is where I draw the line.

It must be that I'm one of those pacifist Canadians, still living (in my heart and mind) in that Canada that Jonathan Kay says we're best rid of, thanks to the ReformaTories.

I would not wish an untimely death upon the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

This US guy would, and explains the reasons why. He also has some astute observations about Sarah Palin.

Though Rob Kall pulls back from his punch with this conclusion:

The thing is, my wish is probably moot. Limbaugh surely has great health coverage and will, unlike the tens of millions he'd withold insurance from, get the best health care available.

And what about that pesky little thing called karma?

One could reflect on whether the judicious application of the Christian Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - might satisfy the goddess Kali.

Two exemplary & MASSIVE smack-downs.

There are times when someone writes with clarity, precision and genuine emotion about political issues that have been muddled with the truthiness, the faux-outrage and the diversionary tactics of rightwing, fundamentalist religious and so-Con zealots.

Here, for example:

Matters of social ethics, especially when tainted by religion, often finds matters of substance being sacrificed in the name of symbolism. This is nowhere more true than in the matter of abortion which is back on the public stage once again through health care reform. No one is actually "pro-abortion" though most people in the Western world believe that every woman should have the right to make decisions about her own reproductive life.

[...] if we restrict insurance coverage of abortion services then which abortions are being stopped? Obviously, the only women who lose choice are the poor who cannot pay for an abortion. Stupak returns us to the days before Roe v. Wade when the daughters of the rich and the middle class were forced to take a three-day trip to Europe when they wanted to terminate a pregnancy.

Catholic bishops join arms with conservative politicians and force upon the public legislation which, and don't kid yourself about it, it only means, "We impose a burden upon poor women which we would not dream of imposing on the middle and upper class." Otherwise, why wouldn't they be discussing making it illegal to get an abortion at all, arresting women of means in the airport when they returned from France or Spain after exercising their "choice?" Because, if they impose these standards on their own members you would find a lot of politicians, Catholic bishops and evangelical preachers working the drive-through windows at local fast food restaurants. They can be high and mighty forcing the poor to be ethical for them but they would never accept such regulation of their own family or constituency. This is the hypocrisy of choosing symbolic action over substance.

Bravo, pastor Roger Ray of Springfield, Missouri.

And then there is Boris at The Galloping Beaver, armed with an aim and a heart so true and fierce. To the ReformaTories he says: ...

the Geneva Conventions do not exist so we're nice the the enemy. They are not about the goddamned enemy. They are not 'soft' or 'weak' vestiges of some liberal ideal. They're not about the enemy. They exist to protect us. They are not about the enemy. They give legitimacy to our claims of unfair treatment when our soldiers are captured, and legitimacy to our cause when say we are better than those we fight. They protect us because they ensure that we live by our own standards. Contrary to the sadistic views of some, this is not some of unmanly deficiency on our part; this is holding ourselves to the standard our own free and peaceful society demands. ...

You cheered torture; you praised throwing out the rules when swarthy people became the national enemy . You elected politicians who felt the same, and you failed to take a stand when you saw us failing ourselves by ignoring th rules that serve to protect the members of the armed forces you claim to worship so bloody much. You said fuck-you to the fight for the very set of encoded righteousness and decency that thousands of cenotaphs and memorials across the country inscribed with "Lest we forget" are built to recall.

You forgot alright. You forgot the ONE lesson of two world wars, tens of millions of innocent dead, the standard behind the establishment of traditions of rights and democracy, and the core of most of the world's religions. If you cannot recall this lesson, get the fuck off our planet because you have no place in the world we're trying to build. We have no use for your moral cowardice here.

Amen.

Theocracy in the US, continued

In-frikkin-credible. From Politico (emphasis mine):

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson held up introducing his amendment to tighten restrictions on federal funding for abortion to give Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and the Catholic bishops more time to review it, reports CQ's Alex Wayne.

Wayne reports (subscription required):

But Nelson decided later Thursday to hold off after Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, said he thought that the measure was being rushed to the floor. Hatch had expected to be the lead sponsor of the amendment, and he said he thought it was “discourteous” that Nelson was preparing — apparently at the behest of his leadership — to call up the amendment without Hatch’s consent.

Nelson said that the amendment’s language was not finished, and that groups opposed to abortion — notably the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — needed more time to review it. Additional time, he added, might lead to greater bipartisan support.

Unless Nelson and Hatch depart significantly from Stupak’s language, their amendment has little chance of adoption. The Stupak language would prohibit the public option from covering most abortions and would forbid private insurers to offer plans covering elective abortion to people who buy them using federal subsidies.

As Sinclair Lewis is supposed to have said: 'When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.'

And there doesn't seem to be much that can done about such theocratic lobbying.

The Wedge

I am depressed but not surprised by the healthcare debate in the US.

Again, we're shown that women's rights are ALWAYS negotiable.

Some commenters like Megan McArdle take women to task for making a big deal out of nothing much really.

Most of them seem to come from feminists who blithely assume away concerns about the personhood of the fetus, and the staunch political opposition to subsidized abortion from those who lean towards the "person" side. This allows them to spend 1,000 words or so having a completely irrelevant discussion of the disparate effects of the Stupak amendment on poor women, arguing that women's reproductive health care is too real health care, and similarly unrelated side points.

Talk about irrelevant . . . Dig this:

Last time I looked, there were over 1 million abortions a year in the United States. The most methodologically shoddy, activist-induced statistics on the number who die from lack of health insurance is 44,000, and the real number is much lower. The abortion statistics, on the other hand, are carefully collected numbers from a pro-choice group. Even if you only value a fetus as 1/20th of a person, the fetuses win.

She says that only 13% of abortions are insurance-funded. So, taking her own number of one million (which is too high, by the way), that measly 13% works out to 130,000 women per year having to pony up their own dough.

And for those women too poor? Fuck 'em.

The women who genuinely can't afford $500 bucks for an abortion are the women closest to the poverty line. Those women will be covered by Medicare, and they won't get abortion coverage anyway in most states.

There's much more, but as I said, it depresses me.

McArdle is a business writer. Nancy Folbre, on the other hand, is an actual economics professor. And she gets it.

With sex (as with food and exercise) Americans don’t seem, on average, to be very good at planning. Almost one-half of all pregnancies — and about one-third of births — are described as “unintended.”

We need insurance for a reason.

Nonetheless, despite heroic lobbying and phone-banking by people like Marta Evry and Jane Hamsher, I think the misogynist Christofascists are going to win.

Because paying for other people's (ahem) abortions really really bugs people.

And here's what I find really depressing -- the anti-choice forces here in Canada will get revved by the success of this tactic and push it even harder here.

While a recent poll by Angus-Reid clearly shows that Canadians are much more liberal than Murricans in their views (support for both abortion and same-sex relationships is up significantly -- for same-sex relationships by 7 points -- over the past two years), the question that polls 'best' for the anti-choicers, even here, is 'Should government fund abortion?'

Sorry, I couldn't find another source for this Environics poll:

The disconnect between official policy and the opinions of Canadians is even more stark in the area of abortion funding. Most abortions in Canada, which now total well over 100,000 annually, are paid for by taxpayers through the publicly funded health care system. Yet when asked, 68% of Canadians polled said that abortions should be either privately funded (18%) or only tax-funded in cases of medical emergency "such as a threat to the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest." Only 26% support tax-funding of all abortions, down from 30% last year.

They're spinning of course. An Angus-Reid poll from 2008 found that '43% say the health care system should fund abortions whenever they are requested'.


But still, this is their wedge.

Cashing in on Stupak

So, what is at stake for the Christian Taliban in the attack on women's rights in the USian healthcare debate?

According to Wendy Norris at RH Reality Check, plenty.

What the Stupak-Pitts amendment does for the Catholic health care system is omit a competitive advantage secular and other religiously-affiliated hospitals without doctrinal restrictions can use to simultaneously market their services to both the expected influx of newly insured patients and the outpatient medical professionals who will treat them.

By restricting insurance coverage of women's reproductive health care, the competitive barriers faced by Catholic institutions will be eliminated — provided the amendment is not stripped out of the final bill that emerges from House-Senate health care reform conference committee. Which is why pro-choice advocates should expect nothing short of a full-frontal attack by the Vatican on conservative Senators.

Get a load of these numbers:

One in six patients are cared for in 624 Catholic hospitals scattered throughout the U.S. in 2006, according to the Catholic Health Association. The church also operates more than 800 post-acute care, senior living and skilled nursing centers across the nation. All told, $84.6 billion was spent on Catholic church-affiliated care.

But Catlick healthcare is restricted by misogyny faith in what services it can provide.

Add those restrictions and compound it with two simple facts: 73 percent of the now uninsured are of reproductive age and the leading cause of death among people aged 15-44 is accidents.

In essence, the people most likely to benefit from the proposed public option and insurance exchange will undoubtedly be seeking the type of care Catholic hospitals refuse to provide as a matter of religious principle. And these prospective patients are young and will conceivably need care for many decades to come.

For the business arm of the Catholic church it's a theological and economic two-fer.

Sniffing panties/punishing sluts PLUS raking in the dough. I'd call it not just a two-fer but a religio-cash-gasm.

Theocracy in the US

It seems there's not much that can be done in the US can do to stop a theocracy if the evil Christofascists known (creepily) as The Family continue to use the lobbying wing of the Catlick Church to achieve their common goals.

Isn't this more than a little chilling?

Tax-exempt organizations, including churches, are barred from endorsing political candidates. But they can lobby, as the USCCB* does (it even has its own government relations department, as do other religious denominations). Yet while corporations, individuals, and secular non-profits who lobby the government are required to file publicly available forms under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, a church or "its integrated auxiliary, a convention or association of churches and religious orders" are not. If they hire an outside firm to lobby on their behalf, that firm must file under the LDA, disclosing the pieces of legislation lobbied on, the names of the lobbyists, the amount of money spent on lobbying, and other details. But if the church does its own lobbying -- as with an in-house government relations department -- it is exempt from the LDA.

Moreover, the IRS rules exempting houses of worship from filing tax returns further shields them from transparency requirements. Although tax-exempt organizations may lobby, they must limit it to a certain proportion of their time and revenue, and document this on their tax returns and other documents. But because houses of worship are exempted from filing tax returns, again, exactly how many resources they devote to lobbying is shielded from public view.

*Catlick bishops gang

And, given the general religious nuttiness in the US, anybody who tried to change this bit of law would be promptly Scozzafava-ed.

Anybody know what churches can get up to in Canada?

ADDED: Here's the scoop on charities and political activity in Canada:

A registered charity can devote part of its resources to political activities provided substantially all of its resources are devoted to charitable activities. As a general rule, we consider a charity that devotes no more than 10% of its total resources a year to political activities to be operating within the substantially all requirement.

However, we recognize that this administrative guideline may have a negative impact on smaller charities. Therefore, the following thresholds will apply:

* Registered charities with less than $50,000 annual income in the previous year can devote up to 20% of their resources to political activities in the current year.
* Registered charities whose annual income in the previous year was between $50,000 and $100,000 can devote up to 15% of their resources to political activities in the current year.
* Registered charities whose annual income in the previous year was between $100,000 and $200,000 can devote up to 12% of their resources to political activities in the current year.

And at the Library of Parliament I found this.

The restrictions placed on charities engaged in political activities may also prevent otherwise deserving organizations from engaging in important public policy dialogues. During the same-sex marriage debate, for example, the Bishop of Calgary wrote an open letter that said he would consider excommunicating Prime Minister Paul Martin over his government’s plan to legalize same-sex marriage. The CRA responded, stating that the Catholic Church’s charitable status could be put in jeopardy if the Bishop continued to engage in partisan political activity.(15) The ITA was amended in 2005 by Bill C-38, to offer additional assurances that a charity would not be discriminated against for expressing its views on same-sex marriage; however, this amendment contains limitations.(16)

According to the letter of the law, the CRA’s interpretation is understandable: the ITA forbids partisan political activity, and suggesting that a party leader’s views are immoral could be seen as tacit partisan political support for his or her opponents. Critics, however, questioned why a religious figure could not have reservations about the morality of a political leader’s beliefs without risking revocation of the organization’s charitable status.(17) Religious views on morality will occasionally clash with legislated morality, as expressed, for example, through the Criminal Code. In such cases, a threat by the CRA to revoke charitable status could be seen in part as a move to shield government policy from unwanted criticism. The rule against political discourse also seems to fetter the values of freedom of expression and freedom of religion that are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, especially where charities are expected to fulfil a role as the “voice of conscience” in relation to the government of the day.

(16) Bill C-38, An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes (1st Sess., 38th Parl., 2004-2005), contained a clause that protects the right of a registered charity to engage in the same-sex marriage debate without fear of losing charitable status. Bill C-38 did not, however, change the requirement that the charity devote at least 90% of its charitable resources to its primary purpose, for example the advancement of its religion. Nor can a charity engage in partisan political debate on the same-sex marriage issue. The section simply gives an extra statutory assurance that debating the merits of same-sex marriage, if ancillary and incidental to the charity’s primary purpose, will not lead to revocation of charitable status.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, it seems that religious groups do have to disclose their lobbying efforts and do risk their tax-free status if they exceed the limit.

Obama Reacts to Healthcare Bill

ABC's exclusive interview with President Obama on the healthcare bill.

Here's the bit about abortion.

JAKE TAPPER, HOST: So, thanks so much for doing this.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you.

TAPPER: Here's a question a lot of Senate Democrats want to know. You said, when you gave your joint address to Congress, that under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. This amendment passed Saturday night which not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public option, but also prohibits women who receive subsidies from taking out plans that -- that provide abortion coverage. Does that meet the promise that you set out or does it over reach, does it go too far?

OBAMA: You know, I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill. And we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions. And I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test -- that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices, because one of the pledges I made in that same speech was to say that if you're happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, that it's not going to change. So, you know, this is going to be a complex set of negotiations. I'm confident that we can actually arrive at this place where neither side feels that it's being betrayed. But it's going to take some time.

TAPPER: Do you think that amendment is status quo or does it lean a little bit in one direction or the other?

OBAMA: I think that there are strong feelings on both sides. And what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we're not changing the status quo. And that's the goal. The goal here is to make sure that people who have health insurance have greater stability and security, people who don't have health insurance get the ability to buy it affordably and that we're driving down costs.

And, you know, I think everybody understands that there's going to be work to be done on the Senate side. It's not going to match up perfectly with the House side. But obviously, it was a historic night for the House. We've never been this far. And I'm very confident that my colleagues in the Senate are going to say to themselves that we've got to get this done.

(Lots more on other healthcare issues at the link.)

A blogger at Daily Kos says that unless the Dems fix this, it will be political suicide because they have such an advantage over Rethuglicans in women voters.

I dunno. I'm still feeling betrayed. And not at all confident that the Democrats have the guts to stand up to the shrieeeeking fetus fetishists.

Correction: It was ABC News, not CBS. Thanks, Antonia.