Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Women Can’t be Trusted to Make Their Own Healthcare Decisions

It’s a fact of life; women are too stupid to make decisions relating to their own healthcare or reproduction. (Well, except wealthy women, of course.) We should always be told what to do by the government or insurance companies. That is why it was so easy for Nancy Pelosi to sign away reproductive rights for women in the House version of the Healthcare Reform Bill. Society, churches, the government and insurance companies have decreed that only wealthy women have the right and the power to decide whether they will carry a pregnancy to term and bring another child into the world.

Come now, you say, that is surely over-exaggerating the situation.

Surely, it is not. What is a more fundamental fact of life than if you don’t have the money, you can’t have it?? Here is the WaPo analysis of the language in the House Bill:

The amendment would prohibit abortion coverage in the government-run plan and any private plan on the new marketplace that accepts people who are using government subsidies to buy coverage.
Under that language, abortion coverage would be unavailable not only to working-class women buying coverage with government subsidies, but probably also to women buying coverage on the new marketplace without federal assistance. The amendment suggests that women could buy separate "riders" covering abortions, but abortion-rights supporters say it is offensive to require a separate purchase for coverage of a medical procedure that for most women is unexpected.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/08/AR2009110818453.html


If women in this country can’t get abortion coverage on government insurance and they can’t get insurance that funds abortions with a government subsidy, that effectively prevents about half the women in this country from being able to afford an abortion. This is gender discrimination pure and simple. If that is not the case, then I DARE the Senate to add an amendment to their bill preventing coverage for any prescription or service that treats male sexual dysfunction or impotency. After all, if God had intended these men to be able to use their organs, they wouldn’t be having these problems. So, it’s a moral and religious outrage that science is providing these services to men.

Reps. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), elected with the class of 2006 that gave Democrats the House majority, and Dan Maffei (N.Y.), who rode to office with President Obama on a Democratic wave last year, were among the last lawmakers to make up their minds on Saturday's historic health-care vote.
Both voted yes, helping to push the count to a razor-thin majority of 220. Neither viewed the much-hyped furor over the creation of a government-run option to compete with the private insurance industry as a major factor in their decisions. For Hill -- and a couple of dozen other Democrats -- the decision came down to a last-minute compromise that paved the way for an amendment ensuring that no federal funding would go to abortions. For Maffei, it was a long series of discussions with staff, experts, his constituents and Obama.
"I've always wanted to get to yes," Hill, who was part of a conservative Democratic blockade to the legislation in July, said after voting to approve the legislation.
"It's pretty closely divided. Either way, it would have been a profile in courage or a profile in being ordinary," Maffei, a former Capitol Hill staffer, said of public opinion in his Syracuse-based district.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/08/AR2009110818056.html?wpisrc=newsletter


Pelosi sold out women everywhere. You can say whatever you want, but it is a FACT. Shame on every single woman in congress, especially Nancy Pelosi. Women are not second-class citizens. Where would this country be without women?

How would this country function if for just ONE DAY, we all stayed home and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for anyone but ourselves?

Then there is this little nugget on a blog over at Air America Radio’s site:

First things first. An expanded Medicare will do for now. And while the Stupak amendment is a sharp slap in the face for what most of us on the left deem an acceptable outcome, there is the fact that we're seeing legislative movement for the first time in years on the issue of health care reform in America.
http://airamerica.com/politics/11-10-2009/did-kos-jump-shark-tancredo/?p=3


The Stupak Amendment is SO much more than a sharp slap in the face to the women of this country. It ties women’s hands. It codifies discrimination in healthcare. It does to women EXACTLY what conservatives have been screaming about all summer; it gives power to the government to prevent women from making their own healthcare choices. It is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. It is so much more than what this writer from Air America makes it out to be as he blithely hands MY healthcare decisions to the government and insurance company bureaucrats.

If this bill denied certain healthcare choices to homosexuals, African Americans or other minorities, there would be no question that it would be a non-starter. But it seems that the left has decided that while this is not “deemed” an “acceptable outcome,” they will stand for limiting the rights of women if that is what they have to do to get healthcare reform done.

What other minority would the left sell down the river? I can’t think of one.

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7 comments:

Linda said...

As always, you say it so well I can't improve on what you've said. I should be, all women should be, outraged. Equality won't be realized in my lifetime. But, I have daughters and granddaughters I should be fighting for! I needed your reminder. I promise to write a letter and email it to every woman in Congress. In addition, I'll call Pelosi's office. Just because women have been treated as second-class citizens in my lifetime, doesn't make it right and is something I don't want future generations to face.

Linda said...

You know we can be trusted with some decisions about our bodies. We can change our face, donate a kidney, get implants, alter our entire appearance or have fat sucked out of us. We can even change our sexual orientation. We can have any objectionable object growing inside our bodies removed as long as it’s NOT in our uterus. We can have any damn surgery we want and can pay for, but god forbid if some cells grew in our uterus. Inexplicably we're suddenly supposed to have no choice about that. How ludicrous. Every sperm does not deserve a name.

I'm really sick of the world where stupid men are in control. And I'm sicker that women allow it to continue! You do know, don't you, that there are some small number of men who understand, who respect and admire women, who fight alongside us for women's rights? There numbers are too small, but that's another place we can have an affect -- we need to recruit more men to our cause.

Linda said...

"There numbers are too small"

Aarrrgggghhhhh. Their

If you use the preview, there won't be errors you would like to correct, then you get kinda cocky...

kcfoodtruckgroupie said...

Linda, I just can't believe that more women aren't raising a bigger stink about this. How non-challant we have become about the rights that women won in the past.

I know that people have said that we have to compromise in order to get this healthcare reform done. I believe in compromise. But I also believe there are some things that you NEVER compromise.

If conservatives were truly concerned about the government having power over people's healthcare decisons, they wouldn't support this amendment either. It is hypocritical.

What I want to know is: who cares about women's healthcare rights? You can't say you do and then support this amendment. You can't pretend that you do and then be willing to deal them away.

Tango daddy said...

Nice work KS all through this HCR issue the conservatives have been howling about someone coming between you and your Dr. Now it appears that someone is a "C" street screwed up on Jesus politician. Not to mention the catholic bishop lobby.
It pisses me off to no end the number of democratic enablers of this very flawed attempt at the insertion of this bill. Whatever happened to same page party solidarity?
Take some solace in the fact the last word has not been spoken.
Linda I as well am tired of stupid men in control. This as well can change

kcfoodtruckgroupie said...

Tango Daddy,
You are right on about the "C" street thing. These folks are like a cancer in our government. This dangerous mingling of religion and government is starting to come to a head. The Catholic Church is trying to dictate to the government on gay rights issues, or it is threatening to stop providng help to the poverty-stricken in the Washington DC area. Unbelievable!
And please let me clear up one thing: as angry as I am at some men for their stupidity, by no means do I believe that all men are bad. I know that there are some intelligent, secure men out there that get this whole thing. I have marched along side them for abortion rights and I am married to a wonderful man who believes in true equality for women. I know from your writings that you are also a strong, secure, intelligent man, Tango Daddy. I didn't want you to think Linda and I are man-bashing. (Just men that want to reduce women to second-class status)

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