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The Nelson Amendement—the Senate's answer to Stupak,
which would limit coverage for abortion—was voted down yesterday. On
the surface, this seems like a victory for pro-choice forces in the
Senate, but Sen. Harry Reid intimates that the fight is not over, and
Sen. Ben Nelson is threatening to fillibuster unless the language on
abortion restrictions is tightened ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
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Jess, there's another dismaying element of the hand-wringing in the pro-choice movement
over Stupak and declining suport among twentysomethings and the greying
of the menopausal militia. It's that acknowledging the complicated
emotions that some women have about their own abortions may be hurting
the pro-choice side. I hate to make this point, because I've helped make the case for a while now that feminists need to own the regret and confusion that some (not all) women feel after the procedure. But Jennifer Senior does a great job
talking to abortion counselors who are very much aware of all the
emotional wrinkles. Then she poses "a very real and terrible dilemma
for those of us who are pro-choice: Engage these questions and you play
into the hands of the pro-life movement; refuse to engage in them and
you risk living in a political vaccuum." Exactly ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
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Jennifer Senior has a nuanced article about the current state of the abortion debate in this week's New York magazine, in which she says that the current generation of twentysomethings is the most anti-choice since the generation born during the Great Depression. I found this very upsetting, not just because I am pro-choice, but because the reason my peers are anti-choice is they have no sympathy or empathy for people who become pregnant accidentally. They take abortion for granted because they've always lived in a world where it was available .. (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX).
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In reading all the accounts from fellow pro-choice women—like Emily's from earlier this week—bemoaning
the Stupak abortion restrictions, I noticed that many of the women who
were outraged by the concessions of the health care bill used the terms
feminist and pro-choice almost interchangably. Over at Salon,
Kate Harding writes, "Feminists have been up in arms about the latest
assault on access to abortion," but if you take one look at the website
for the group Feminists for Life, one of the first things you see is the banner proclaiming "Women the Winners in U.S. House Amendment Vote" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
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Emily and Meredith, you’ll be completely unsurprised to hear that I greeted the passage of the Stupak amendment with more of a cheer than a groan. However unfair it might be that well-off women have more access to abortion than low-income women, the solution should not be to compel those who are morally opposed to abortion to pay for them with their tax dollars. Just because the government recognizes a right to something does not mean that the government must also provide for it. If you can indulge me for a moment in a mildly absurd thought experiment (with emphasis on absurd and thought experiment), how would you feel about a program that provided guns to those who cannot afford them?
When this topic came up in August, Meredith wrote an article for Slate proposing a private fund to cover the cost of abortion for poor women. Citing data from the Guttmacher Institute, she wrote that it would cost $311 million a year to pay for abortions for low-income women. Compared with the numbers that are getting tossed around in the House and the Senate in the health care debate, that’s not that much money ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
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Since the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which barred federally funded Medicaid from paying for abortions, the whittling-away of reproductive rights has almost always affected poor women much more than better-off women. We have in this country a right to abortion that’s relatively easy to access if 1) you can pay for it, and 2) you live outside the large mostly rural swaths of fly-over country where abortion clinics are vanishingly rare. The geographic gaps (here's a map) come back to affordability, too. If you have the money to travel hundreds of miles and stay overnight, then you can exercise your right to have an abortion mo matter where you live. If not, then not.
And now in this same dreary tradition we have the Stupak amendment in the House health care bill ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)
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