If the health care bill is passed by the Senate with the Stupak-Pitts amendment included, women's reproductive rights will be infringed upon.  This fact is not disputed by those who support this amendment.  The intent is to circumvent the rights protected by Roe vs. Wade and other similar judgments that grant women right to privacy and thus the right to abortions. 

As it stands, women who want an abortion cannot get one using federal funds.  Whether or not you think women should get abortions on the taxpayer's dime isn't the issue.  However, if medical plans are supported by federal funds, as in a public option or through other variations of health reform proposed by the Senate, women will not be able to get an abortion through any option.  Not only wouldn't low income women have the money to get an abortion; they would not be able to get a doctor to perform the abortion because all doctors will be subsidized by the government via the health reforms that would occur.

Basically, abortions would be an optional medical procedure similar to plastic surgery, dentistry, and some fertility treatments.  This, in the eyes of people who are against abortion, is fine.  However, this medical marginalization would encourage doctors of ill repute to get into the business of doing abortions or it would be accessible only to people who can pay the unsubsidized amounts.  However, it might have an unintended consequence as well.  There are situations where medical termination of a pregnancy is needed to protect the life of the mother, which this amendment does not address. 

For example, if you have an ectopic pregnancy and it is about to burst or has burst, surgery which terminates the fetus takes place.  The fetus is not viable in this situation under any condition.  Would this situation be not federally funded?  It isn't technically a D&C, a traditional abortive procedure, but it does involve termination to save the life of the mother.  Under this new amendment, women who terminate pregnancies to save their own life would not be able to have insurance cover this cost.  Some doctors might even refuse to do the procedure for fear of federal funding being taken away.

This might not be the intended consequence of anti-abortion advocates, but a legislative amendment such as the Stupak-Pitts version can not address the complexities of this issue.  It can only complicate the already fuzzy reproductive rights situation that every woman has to deal with.

Amendments such as these that attempt to circumvent Supreme Court judgments such as Roe vs. Wade only serve to further anti-abortionist agenda without considering the rights and well-being of women. 

(picture is of a tubal pregnancy)

Original article here