My question regarding the Stupak amendment is simple. When will women be afforded a full measure of civil rights?
The Affordable Health Care for America Act -- H.R. 3962 -- is much more than just a narrowly-passed piece of legislation that provides for health care reform. It has become hijacked by right-wing anti-choice bigots and transformed into a thinly-veiled attempt to remove a woman's right to choose which medical procedures she will use.
Once again, women's civil rights are attacked because of some perceived notion that these "representatives" have that they must protect all of us from a procedure that might be chosen after private soul-searching and discussions between a patient and her physician.
I should hope that if we are fortunate to move a viable health care bill successfully through the Senate as well, these exclusions and limitations on one medical procedure from being covered by a public option insurance plan will be challenged as a First Amendment violation.
Women deserve their full civil rights now. Our right to vote was granted as recently as 1920. That's 144 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Must we wait another 89 years to be fully enfranchised citizens of the United States, empowered with the ability to make our own health care decisions, regardless of our means?
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Public domain image courtesy of randijames at Photobucket.
For two other excellent points of view on this subject, click through to
Challenging the Abortion Exclusion by Kent Pitman
and
American Theocrats Use Healthcare to Control Women by Stellaa
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armymom
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Comments
i am SO SICK of hypocritical, cheating, gay, drug-using, thieving, lying conservatives judging everyone as less than they are for all those same reasons, and then using their power to make everyone's lives harder but their own.
protect the fetus, f*ck the children and their mothers, is the attitude of the right. sickening, and i will be glad to see them all in hell.
sorry to not remain calm about this - you did very very admirably, btw - but we are just getting more and more pre-historic in this country, in so many ways.
They're weak, crooked, whorish, psychologically unsound or otherwise deformed females, who can barely be called women, but no society has ever been able to abolish or destroy women's civil rights without the help of women.
But every time I find out that a child has been murdered, then thrown out like garbage, while the messed up parents, grandparents, and druggie step parents, scramble to save their selfish hides, it makes me gag.
Rated.
It pissed me off incredibly. However imperfect the health care bill, (and I know, it's imperfect) after a century, we finally got it passed on the floor of the House.... but with a great big bruise on it.
Stupak... F*** you very much. Never descend a stone staircase ahead of me.
"Civil and political rights are a class of rights and freedoms that protect individuals from unwarranted government action and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression."
Okay, so I'll take you how you define civil rights. Now how does abortion become a right so that taxpayers have to use public funds to pay for it? Is it a civil right for me to be able to marry two women?
"Do you have to wonder whether you can obtain a medical procedure without being spit at or vilified for choosing it? "
Nope, it's legal and you can do it if that is what you chose to do. Look, while I'm anti-abortion, with limited exceptions, I'm also pro-choice. It's just your choice is not mine. I figure the deal is you don't be my moral judge and I won't be yours.
The question here is why do you feel entitled for the state to pay for it? We are not talking about you being able to have it done. I'll not argue over that one, I agree with you.
"...if a person... and must receive publicly funded health care there is no reason that that person should receive a lesser form than you or I"
If that's the case then why are we not all on the same plan as the President? He has way better health care than I do. If it all has to be equal then I want what he has.
There are levels to everything. Not everything is equal and I'm not sure that we want it to be. If the government equaled everything out then why should I get out of bed and work 70 hours a week.
Being on the public dime means you don't go and die in the ditch. How many dead bodies were laying in the road in front of your house last week? It means you can have the bottom levels on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if you want the top then you have to get it yourself.
No private insurance covers any elective surgery.
Many Americans do not support abortion an many levels. I beleive
it is more complex than the simple subjugation of women.
Perhaps a check box on your 1040 to committ X dollars to a fund to specifically support this procedure would satisfy those apposed to paying for what their moral sensitivities consider murder. Obviously we can all think of alot of checkboxes.. The right to vote
is the key to civil rights. Women must unite with men on this problem. best wishes...
Why don't we hear the same cries of murder from the so called christians on the War?
made by the state or commonwealth. My own hope is that safe legal
services are made affordable to all who need in all the land.
my own view is that parents should have life-or-death power over children right up to 18th birthday. i believe it would do wonders in promoting good manners in the young.