Showing posts with label reproductive rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reproductive rights. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The So-Called Personhood Amendment

Posted by American Forum at 12:46 PM

MISSISSIPPI FORUM
By Rims Barber

The law of unintended consequences should temper our resolve when tinkering with laws impacting people’s lives. The consequences of adopting Initiative 26 -- the proposed Personhood Amendment to the Mississippi Constitution -- are far-reaching and potentially devastating to women’s health.

In the 33 years since the first in vitro baby was born, hundreds of Mississippi couples were able to have the baby of their dreams through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Since more than one egg is harvested and fertilized to achieve a successful IVF pregnancy, making all the embryos “people” under Mississippi law will make it difficult if not impossible to continue offering IVF treatment in our state.

When embryos are created and frozen as a part of reproductive fertility treatments, these embryos will be legally persons if this initiative passes, and consequently will have all the rights due persons. The problems resulting from this change would be many.

If embryos are people, is the freezing of embryos considered child abuse? If so, what is the role of the Department of Human Services?

Will these embryos be given names (non-birth certificates)?

If one of these embryos “dies” in some part of the in vitro fertilization process, what kind of investigation will be conducted? Could the technician be tried for manslaughter? Are the county coroners equipped to do this task? What kind of death certificate will be issued?

Are the Chancery Courts ready to apply Termination of Parental Rights laws to these embryos? Adoption laws? Home visits as required by adoption law?

Does this Amendment apply only to embryos conceived in the state of Mississippi, or to any embryo entering the state (having been conceived elsewhere)? If they are transported to another state do they lose their personhood? Citizenship?

What are the property rights of these embryos? Inheritance rights? Under state law, there are many places where “person” is referenced.

If more than five unrelated embryos/persons are housed in a single building, will it have to be licensed as a child residential care home?

In Pearl, there is an ordinance limiting occupancy to two persons in a bedroom. If a pregnant woman is two people, can she be in the same bed as her husband?

Moreover, IVF is not the only medical treatment that could be prevented by passage of the Personhood Amendment. Effective treatment of tubal pregnancies, severe preeclampsia, and molar gestation could be prevented. New stem cell treatments for patients with Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and cancers like leukemia and choriocarcinoma would also be at risk.

If a physician is faced with the choice saving a woman’s life or refusing to harm an embryo/person, could he or she be sued for malpractice no matter what choice was made?

Do Mississippians really want more lawyers interfering in a family’s personal medical decisions?

I have long been convinced that anyone involved in politics should have a good sense of humor. This issue clearly requires one. Let’s not be so focused on our feelings about abortion that we do something ridiculous when voting in November.

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Barber is director of the Mississippi Human Services Agenda.
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Copyright (C) 2011 by the Mississippi Forum 9/11

**This op-ed ran in the Jackson Clarion Ledger. You can read the response to it here.**

 

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Voters Want Abortion-Neutral Health Care Reform

Posted by American Forum at 9:31 AM


By Mark Mellman

A few months ago, I warned that some folks were attempting to misuse health care reform to restrict access to abortion. They have come a long way since then, endangering the vital struggle for health care — indeed, torpedoing reform is a key goal for many involved in this effort.

Americans oppose using abortion as a means of derailing health care reform and oppose using health care reform as a means of restricting abortion. The more voters find out about what is happening on Capitol Hill with respect to this issue, the angrier they are getting, because language inserted in the House bill will take away coverage for abortion that tens of millions of women already have.

Taking away existing coverage not only violates the public will, but also does fundamental violence to Democrats’ explicit promise that if you like what you have, you will be able to keep it.

In a national survey we conducted for the Women Donors Network, nearly half (47 percent) of the electorate said, “Political differences should not prevent us from moving forward on an otherwise good health care reform plan.” Another 22 percent believe that health care reform should not move forward unless “a woman’s right to choose an abortion is protected.” Only a 26 percent minority believe that health care reform should not move forward unless “we are certain that government money will not be used for abortion.”

Voters clearly oppose the restrictions embodied in the House bill, rejecting even their underlying premise. By over a 20-point margin, voters believe that those who receive partial subsidies should be able to buy plans that cover abortion. By two-to-one, voters would feel less favorably toward a member of Congress who voted to prohibit subsidy recipients from purchasing an insurance policy with abortion coverage.

Indeed, voters’ antipathy to placing abortion restrictions in health care reform is so strong that their inclusion leads voters to oppose reform itself. By a 16-point margin, voters would oppose a health reform plan that prevented private insurance plans from covering abortion.

Debate on the issue strongly favors opponents of abortion restrictions. We presented voters with an argument against allowing coverage of abortion focused around the view that “taxpayer money should not fund abortion.” Matched against an argument in support of covering abortion that suggested, “health care — not politics — should drive” these decisions, 59 percent subscribed to the pro-choice viewpoint and just 36 percent took the anti-choice position.

At a more fundamental level, voters simply do not want Congress making these decisions. Just 14 percent favor Congress and the president making coverage decisions with respect to abortion. Indeed, despite popular disdain for insurance companies, twice as many would prefer they decide whether to cover abortion instead of having politicians make that determination. A significant plurality (43 percent) support empowering an independent commission to make coverage decisions on abortion.

Americans do not want reform to be an excuse for tightening restrictions on abortion or for taking away health coverage millions already have. Nor do they want an abortion debate to stop reform. Voters want an abortion-neutral health care reform.

The way out of this conundrum is clear to voters, if not to legislators. A compromise offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) enjoyed majority support and was fully acceptable to the small minority that favors further restrictions on abortion. What opposition there was to the Capps compromise came primarily from pro-, not anti-choice voters. Nonetheless, the House swept it away in favor of language much more drastic and deeply unpopular.

The Capps language affords an opportunity to untie the Gordian knot in favor of the anti-choice forces, but does so in a way that is at least minimally acceptable to the pro-choice majority.
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Mellman, is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the majority leaders of both the House and Senate. This column first appeared in The Hill newspaper. Mellman writes a regular column for The Hill.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the American Forum. 12/09

 

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Stupak Amendment Leaves Women with Less Coverage

Posted by American Forum at 9:42 AM


COLORADO EDITORIAL FORUM

By Emilie C. Ailts and Vicki Cowart

As national health care reform faces its next hurdle -- a conference committee bill that reconciles the House and Senate bills -- we believe it's critical to draw attention to a provision contained in the House bill. This provision, brought by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and known as the Stupak abortion coverage ban, would create barriers to women's reproductive health care far worse than any encountered since the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

This new abortion coverage ban makes insurance coverage for abortion virtually unavailable for millions of women purchasing insurance plans through the newly created health insurance exchange.

Federal law already bans use of federal funds for abortions, but the Stupak measure goes much further. It denies use of private money -- not just public money -- to cover abortions.

Six of Colorado's nine-member congressional delegation, Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet and Reps. Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, Betsy Markey and Ed Perlmutter, understood the danger posed by the Stupak abortion coverage ban and its Senate companion and voted against it. The remaining three, Reps. Doug Lamborn, Mike Coffman and John Salazar, voted for the House Stupak provision, choosing to strip women of health insurance benefits they already have and imposing further restrictions on their access to a full spectrum of reproductive health care services.

The Stupak amendment has real-life implications for all women obtaining health insurance through the new health insurance exchange. This exchange is intended to provide a source of affordable, quality health insurance coverage for Americans who are uninsured, self-employed or work for small businesses. In Colorado, small businesses vastly outnumber large employers and are a major force in the state's net increase of new jobs. Because so many women potentially will be insured through the exchange, millions of women would lose reproductive health care benefits they now have.

As the health care reform debate continues, our goal is clear -- to pass health care reform while stopping the Stupak abortion coverage ban. The Senate's health care proposal maintains the status quo, ensuring that no federal funds pay for abortion. While we fundamentally do not agree with this, as since 1976 this policy has codified discrimination against low-income women, we acknowledge a compromise is necessary to advance the health care reform package. Yet, we strongly oppose going beyond the status quo, which the Stupak abortion coverage ban does.

Since the onset of health care reform, President Obama often has articulated a central tenet that no one lose benefits she or he currently has and likes. The Stupak abortion coverage ban would break this promise.

Defenders of the House amendment say that women who purchase health insurance through the exchange will be allowed to buy a single-procedure insurance policy, sometimes called a "rider," providing abortion coverage. Such a provision is as discriminatory as it is illogical, and it contradicts a basic objective of health care reform -- to ensure that all Americans have the health insurance they need.

Insurance by definition should protect us from the unexpected. As with diabetes or prostate cancer, both unplanned pregnancies and complications late in wanted pregnancies are unexpected events. Women who need a legal medical procedure in these situations should not be denied coverage any more than individuals with other unexpected health needs.

We all have different opinions about abortion. However, the debate about health care reform shouldn't focus on those differences. And real health care reform shouldn't cause women to lose insurance coverage they already have for a legal medical procedure.

Health care reform provides an opportunity to advance women's health.

With the exception of the Stupak abortion coverage ban, federal health care reform efforts include many provisions of benefit to women.

They include banning gender discrimination of premium rates, protecting survivors of breast cancer from being denied coverage because of a "pre-existing" condition, and covering preventive care, e.g. cancer screenings.

The President and Congress have moved us closer than we've ever been to achieving affordable, quality health care for all. But health care reform won't be fair -- and will not succeed -- if it comes at such high cost to women.
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Ailts is executive director of Denver-based NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. Cowart is CEO & president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the Colorado Editorial Forum. 12/09
12/09

 

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Monday, December 7, 2009

Abortion Should Not Imperil Health Care Reform

Posted by American Forum at 9:46 AM


NORTH CAROLINA EDITORIAL FORUM
by Melissa Reed


The House vote to establish near-universal health-care coverage came at a steep cost to women. That cost, issued as an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), eliminates abortion coverage by private insurance companies even when women are paying for all or most of the premium.

Stupak’s amendment is a cynical attempt to push an anti-choice agenda that imperils badly needed reform. His amendment restricts women’s access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market as well as in a “public option,” undermining the ability of women to purchase private health plans that cover abortion. It reaches much further than the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited public funding of abortion in most instances since 1977.

Before its introduction, health-care reform measures in both House and Senate contained agreed-upon compromise language regarding abortion. Public funding for abortion would remain prohibited and women with private health insurance would continue to receive benefits they already have. Though this language satisfied neither side completely, it enabled health-care reform legislation to move forward without being derailed by abortion politics.

In addition to undermining the reform effort, the amendment would affect more than one in four American women who have at least one abortion during their reproductive years. Tens of millions of women will be required to pay for health-care coverage that expressly excludes one of their most commonly requested medical procedures.

The Stupak Amendment, like the Hyde Amendment, only allows abortion in cases of rape, incest and for medical complications that “place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed.” However, if the woman’s health is in jeopardy – if her pregnancy risks organ failure or infertility, but not death – then there is no coverage for care. The woman’s health is placed at risk.

Women’s health care should not be sacrificed on the altar of reform. President Obama has repeatedly said that under health care reform, “no one will lose the benefits they currently have.”

The House bill now embraces a lesser ideal: No man will lose the benefits he currently has.

Is this sexual discrimination or abortion politics? Frankly, the two are inseparable. The 11th-hour amendment is just the latest example of statutes, regulations, medical standards and corporate policies that have historically caused women to pay more, suffer more and receive less.

Examples abound even today. Pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for birth-control pills. The FDA imposed unwarranted and unscientific age limits on over-the-counter access to emergency contraception. Health insurance companies demand higher premiums from women employees than for men.

It’s no wonder women pay nearly 68 percent more than men – much of it resulting from the uninsured expenses of reproductive health care.

The promise of reform was supposed to remedy all that. Health-care reform sought not only to expand coverage but also to reduce gender discrimination. No longer would women have to pay more than men for the same insurance policy. No longer could pregnancy or womanhood be treated as pre-existing conditions. No longer would women be denied affordable contraceptives.

And all women’s health centers would finally be recognized as essential community providers no less than centers that cater to other segments of the population.

Because of Rep. Stupak, the House further entrenched a two-tiered health-care system that limits access to care for women.

If Congress is capable of enacting health-care reform, it is capable of treating women as equals who don’t have to settle for less. Already, members of the House and Senate pro-choice caucus are pledging to withhold their final votes unless the Stupak Amendment is removed.

Abortion politics should not scuttle health-care reform. The Stupak Amendment must be eliminated.
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Reed is the vice president for public policy at Planned Parenthood Health Systems.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the American Forum. 12/09

 

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Exclusion of Abortion Coverage is Brazenly Bare

Posted by American Forum at 11:39 AM


By Anita Kuennen, RN


A glaring absence of the Emperor’s clothing seems to be escaping our attention in the recent House health care reform proposal with the inclusion of the Stupak amendment. The Emperor is naked and while everyone is critiquing, arguing and validating the fabrics, thread and adornment of his new clothes, those of us looking at his bare bottom wonder how everyone became so deluded.

The collective blindness of the Kingdom is truly exposed in the concession of excluding abortion care to pass a House proposal that included a public option. Using women’s health and reproductive justice as the deal breaker once again demonstrates that reform is not intended to address basic issues of health care disparity in our country.

Similar to the members of the Emperor’s Kingdom, who believed there was substance to the garments, we are overcome with disillusionment. The grand solution of tweaking health insurance to magically cure the ingrained, systemic issues at the core of our health care failure is the ultimate fairytale.

Like the Tailor who spins the invisible threads of deception, Congress has focused on the interests of only the most powerful: corporate interests, singular religious dogma, the medical status quo and their distorted reflection. The Tailor’s magic is strong, and the crowd wants to be deceived, partly because any acknowledgement of their illusion is to admit their grand hypocrisy. Counteracting the filters of greed, disempowerment, marginalization and lack of compassion, would be like standing in front of the crowd naked – and for that, they have the Emperor.

Truly what this reform process has demonstrated is that our governance performs as a biased arbitrator of spending money provided by taxpayers for the infrastructure of our country, but the purpose is clear: furthering the agenda of the most powerful, wealthy and influential among us. What leverage is provided for those most impacted by gaps, omissions and downright disregard implied by a band-aid approach? People in the trenches of health care disparity understand that in order to change poor health outcomes and care spending, an emphasis on access for people to receive care that meets their needs is what we need, not a newly formulated insurance policy. Eliminating insurance coverage for access to abortion care only emphasizes that reproductive justice will once again suffer at the hands of the blinded elite.

Instead of restructuring and further segregation of who receives care, we should be looking at shifting the focus to actual health priorities and positive outcomes, not a fixation on the need to have everyone insured. As if a policy alone has anything to do with actual health or access to care. As the money allocations line up for the Emperor’s budget for prevention and new initiatives, one glaring omission stands out –support for service delivery. Another coalition, duplicative prevention planning forums, and research will not necessarily translate to real access for direct care that women can’t afford.

Reproductive health is a key determinant of women’s overall health and well documented evidence has shown that treatments and services that promote comprehensive reproductive health should be part of any national health reform. Abortion care, although not the only disparity in our current health care system, reflects the bargaining chip that is most easily traded for the invisible clothing our Emperor now sports.

For true reform, the emphasis needs to be on a system where people participate in the decisions regarding their own health, prevention opportunities are not cost prohibitive, and naked people deluding the masses are arrested for indecent exposure.
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Kuennen is executive director of the Blue Mountain Clinic.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the American Forum. 11/09

 

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Friday, November 20, 2009

Keep Religion Out of Health Care Reform

Posted by American Forum at 11:14 AM


By M. Patricia West, MSSW

Elected officials' religious views should be their own private affair, neither imposed by them upon the nation, nor imposed by the nation as condition to holding public office. This means their private religious views should not be imposed via the current debate over health care reform.

Important life decisions are responsibilities of individuals and families, not of government or religious groups. On that, most of us can agree. There is also a strong history of separation of church and state in America, and one of our founding principles is of freedom from religious intolerance. That's why I was deeply offended when Roman Catholic Church bishops lobbied Congress on health care reform in order to deny millions of women access to abortion.

As an American I am proud of our constitutionally guaranteed right to worship or not as one sees fit, and of our prohibition of government-imposed state religion. But what started out to be about health care for all has morphed into a referendum and debate on abortion unduly influenced by the church. Health care legislation passed by the House of Representatives compromises our personal choices and subverts the principle of abortion neutrality.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment potentially goes farther than any other federal law to restrict a woman's access to abortion. By prohibiting women who receive partial federal subsidies from buying insurance plans that cover abortion, the Stupak amendment bans abortion coverage by any insurer participating in the health exchange. The amendment favors one religious view of abortion and enlists the federal government as enforcer. As such, it is an egregious assault on the rights of women and an enormous step backward for those who believe in separation of church and state.

President Obama has said, "If you're happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, it's not going to change." But this House proposal potentially reduces health care coverage for the more than 80 percent of typical employer-based insurance plans that now cover abortion.

Women supposedly will be able to obtain abortion coverage by purchasing a separate, single-service "rider." However, according to the National Women's Law Center, in the five states that currently require a separate rider for abortion coverage, there is no evidence that plans offer such riders. Furthermore, women are unlikely to buy a rider to cover abortion, because they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy or one that is needed for medical or health reasons.

A number of national polls have shown that Americans strongly believe health insurance should include complete women's reproductive health services and that women have a full range of choices offered. A recent poll commissioned by Moving Forward, a values-based research initiative developed by the Women Donors Network and the Communications Consortium, found that a majority, 56 percent, believe those receiving subsidies should be able to purchase a health insurance plan that covers abortion. The House proposal does not reflect that view.

Meaningful reform has the potential to bring health care to more American women and their families than ever before. But Congress should not be in the business of restricting choices for women, particularly for religious reasons. As presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy said, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials ..."

Instead of kowtowing to Catholic bishops, Congress should stand up for what the majority of Americans want in health care reform -- and they want choices, not limitations.
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West is a public health consultant who lives in Philadelphia. She is a member of the Women Donors Network and involved with their Moving Forward initiative.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the American Forum. 11/09

 

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