Jessica Arons recently wrote an article for The Nation that very clearly explains the Stupak anti-abortion amendment in the House health care reform bill. It explains this somewhat confusing amendment very well, and explains what it would mean if the amendment was included in the final bill.

I highly recommend reading the full article (The World According to Stupak), but, to summarize…

 It forbids insurers from selling plans that include abortion coverage to any people  who receive help from the government in paying their premiums--a restriction that  would apply to approximately 85 percent of customers in the new health insurance  exchange and thus virtually eliminate abortion coverage from the exchange.

Federal funding is already banned from going toward abortions, but that fact wasn’t enough for Congressman Stupak.

Money in Stupak's world is "fungible," or interchangeable, meaning whatever  money the government gives you frees up private money for you to use on  something else. So every dollar the government pays toward your health insurance  premium allows you and the insurer to spend private funds in that plan that you  might not otherwise have had on abortion. To Stupak, that subsidization is the  equivalent of a direct payment. 

This is where his “logic” falters.

 If everyone thought like Bart Stupak, a woman seeking an abortion:
 (1) would not be able to take a public bus or commuter train to an abortion clinic,  even if she paid her own fare;
 (2) would not be able to drive on public roads to a clinic, even if she drove her  own car and paid for her own gas;
 (3) would not be able to walk on public sidewalks to the clinic, even though she  paid property taxes;
 (4) would not be able to put her child in childcare while she was at the clinic if she  received a tax credit that offset the cost of childcare;
 (5) would not be able to take medicine at the clinic that was researched or  developed by the government, even if she paid for the medicine herself.

We have worked hard here at Amplify to let people know about this dangerous amendment and to encourage people to contact their Senators and Representatives to urge them to stand up for women’s rights and to not allow this health care reform bill to further restrict access to medical procedures. Although he's making a fuss about it, it does not look like the Stupak amendment will make it into the final bill, but we can’t forget that it did pass as part of the original House bill. There are people in Congress who voted to further restrict a women’s right to choose. They relied on the stigma of abortion to try to scare people into restricting rights.

Don’t let people, even Congressmen, scare you into ignoring the facts. If an argument sounds off to you, make the effort to learn more. Be an informed citizen. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is dangerous.

~ Samantha