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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Representatives MUST Represent

Recently, I wrote to my Congressman and Senators regarding the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Thanks to my Congressman, but NO THANKS to either of my obstructionist Republican Senators, the bill passed both houses and was signed into law by President Obama. My letter to my representatives appealed to them to support the Fair Pay Act which made it not easier, as the media was reporting, but POSSIBLE for someone who is being discriminated against to file for redress of grievance to the Court. Previous laws which set statutes of limitations did not address the possibility that someone might be unaware for years or decades that they were discriminated against at their place of employment. This law addresses that oversight.



That's the simple fact. Just as laws have been amended to fix the problem that arises with statutes of limitations in criminal cases where a victim is unable bring charges at the time of a crime for whatever reason, this law simply amends statutes of limitations so that people who are unaware that they are being paid less have further opportunity to file for redress. It doesn't help those that don't find out until after they leave a place of employment, though. So, it could have been even tougher.

Unfortunately, at least one of my Senators was either unable to grasp the concept of an amendment to a statute (in which case, he is not competent to hold the office) or he is being purposely obtuse. You decide. The text of his reply to me explaining his NO vote on this bill is pasted below:

Thank you for taking the time to write regarding pay discrimination. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.
In 2007, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, Inc., a case that involved questions about the timeliness of claims filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This section of the law prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Court held that the plaintiff had not filed suit in a timely manner of 180 days of her pay being set.
In response to this ruling, multiple bills were introduced in Congress to supercede the Ledbetter decision. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S. 181). This bill clarifies that every paycheck from an earlier discriminatory pay decision constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act. Under this bill, as long as an employee files his or her charge of discrimination within 180 days of any discriminatory paycheck, the charge would be considered timely.
This legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 61-36. It also passed the House and was recently signed into law by President Obama (PL 111-1). I voted against this bill because it would eliminate long standing statutes of limitations in place to ensure disputes are resolved in a timely and fair manner. As a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, I remain committed to supporting anti-discrimination and equal employment laws.
Pat Roberts

Now isn't that a typical Republican thing: to say "I support anti-discrimination and equal employment laws"--but forget to add "Only when I have to avoid looking like a heel and only if they are very WEAK and not constructive."

The question I have for Mr. Roberts is how can you solve a dispute in a timely manner when you don't even know that you have a dispute for years and years? How many years was Lilly Ledbetter paid less than her male co-workers before she found out that she was being paid less due to her gender? So, she's just out of luck because some arbitrary statute of limitation says it's okay for her employer to discriminate against her as long as she doesn't know about it? Mr. Roberts, have you ever heard the phrase "spirit of the law?"

Allow me to explain. Anti-discrimination laws protect people like me and my two daughters from employers who believe they can pay me less because I don't have a penis. That is "the spirit of the law." (Its intention is to protect me from wage discrimination.) But at every single place I have ever worked there have been policies in place that provide that workers are not allowed to discuss salary and wage information with other employees on threat of termination. So, if it is the intention of the law to protect me and my daughters from asshats who think they can get away with paying us less because they don't value the vagina, an employer can break the law with impunity by preventing us from finding out they are doing it. And that's okay with you, Mr. Roberts? You don't have a problem with that, Mr. I-sit-on-the-Committee-that-considers-and-writes-the-laws-that-are-supposed-to-protect-you?

Answer this, Senator Roberts: How is it FAIR to me that I am being paid less, in violation of the law, but I am not allowed access to the information that would reveal this information to me, and, if I do find out somehow, I can't file for redress or monetary damages unless I know about it when I take the job? WOMEN AREN'T STUPID, MR. ROBERTS. If they KNEW they were being screwed over, they wouldn't take less pay in the first place. But you believe it is unfair for me to be able to address the issue when I find out about because of some loophole like a statute of limitations?

Folks, Senator Roberts has a wife and two daughters. I guess it's okay for whoever is currently employing his wife and two daughters (assuming that they actually WORK for a living) to pay them less due to their inferior private parts as long as they don't know about it or can't find out about it in time to file for redress under the statute of limitations.

Can someone tell me why this doesn't disqualify him from sitting on the Senate Committee????



SENATOR PAT ROBERTS--Discriminatory Asshat of the Day

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