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.

Why I Am a Feminist: Part 4,503,071

Dr Pale informs us:

Here in Canada, The PM says Women are a left wing fringe group.

According to Texas Republican Pete Sessions, Women should pay more for health insurance, because also according to him, being a woman is a bad decision. Like smoking.

Not only is being a woman a bad decision, it is a toxic pre-existing condition.

I called it here.

So, they'll shriieeeek and stamp their tiny feet and squeal about 'our tax dollars funding the murder of baybeez' and all you medically bankrupt Americans and all you future ones can thank your local zygote zealot for crapping all over any chance for a sane healthcare system in your country.

Or, maybe in the time-honoured manner of all pols, the women and children will get thrown under the bus when the going gets politically tough and reproductive health services will be left out of any expanded coverage.

What actually happened is even worse.

To appease 39 fetus-fetishizing so-called Blue Dog Democrats, a truly evil amendment was included. Here's pro-choice Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, the co-chair of the Congressional Women's Caucus, describing its effects (caps in the original):

This amendment goes far beyond current law which already bans the use of federal funding for abortions. It goes far beyond the language already in this bill that guarantees no federal dollars are used for abortion. This amendment says that a woman CANNOT purchase coverage that includes abortion services using her own dollars; middle class women, using exclusively their own money will be prohibited from purchasing a plan including abortion coverage in every single public OR PRIVATE INSURANCE PLAN in the new health care exchange. Her only option is to buy a separate insurance policy that covers only abortion – a ridiculous and unworkable approach since no woman anticipates needing an abortion. This amendment is a radical departure from current law and will result in millions of women losing coverage they already have.

This health reform bill is about improving access to care, not further restricting a woman's right to choose. Our bill is about lowering health care costs for millions of women and their families, not further marginalizing women by forcing them to pay more for their care. This amendment is a back door way of overturning Roe v. Wade; it is a disservice and insult to millions of women throughout our country. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Unfuckingbelievable. And it is exactly what the Catlick wing of USian Christofascists wanted.

I actually agree with Rethuglican Sessions -- being female is the worst decision I ever made.

One more thing -- FUCK YOU, first female Speaker of the US House.