Words can barely describe the sense of utter betrayal I have felt in the last couple of days. The shock of our equal rights being bargained away like a saloon girl in a wild west poker scene was pretty devastating... in a way that, had the republicans done it, could never have stung so much. And yet, also present was the realization that a) we have not exactly been well-represented in a long time, and b) we have been willing to turn a blind eye to this for the "greater good." We have dutifully elected barely-democrats for the "greater good" also, because, apparently, winning was the goal.
And now, we're forced to evaluate the quality of that win, in the form of an attempt at health care reform. So how is this "anything with a D" thing working for us, and where do we go from here?
Ironically, the same people who told us we had to vote for DINOs and assured us it was worth the win, now say we can do nothing about the lack of content in the shell of a bill we really wanted - and accept that those same DINOs can only vote like Republicans when it counts. (And hey, when can we throw out Kucinich?)
This bill would have been the kind of bad enough we're used to. It was that old simmering (rather than boiling) the frog.
Fortunately, someone turned up the heat a little too high by introducing, then passing, the Stupak Amendment. This was the tipping point. It was nothing less than the symbol of the move rightward within the Democratic Party; its deliberate marginalization of the progressive contingent, its unearned insistence on our loyalty; and its abandonment of Democratic Party principles and platform.
Last night, for the first time in my life, I felt that - as an American woman - I was a second-class citizen. I could see clearly that we are simply not represented by our party, and our right to privacy was not only undervalued, but sold to a bidder who clearly stated they weren't buying. Furthermore, who knows what would have happened if we had put a single-payer bill to a vote? We'll never know, because to ask for what we actually need, is to be dismissed as "purity trolls," even as those accusers move forward with shoving corporatist shit down our collective throats.
Enough is enough. That snake oil sales pitch has failed, and we need to never let it work again. If that's purity trolling, we need to take our chances anyway. We need to be heard; we need to be supported; we need unapologetic backing for our freedom of privacy as human beings; unapologetic backing for our civil rights in marriage and other rights for LGBT; and unapologetic protection from corporatist interests subverting our access to viable health care. Including abortion care.
There is no either/or here. There is no justification for their creating the false choice between health care and womens' equality - and therefore, no requirement to honor it. Instead, we need to make our presence and our need for representation, felt. In no uncertain terms.
The Democratic Party is a big tent - not in the diversity of our ideals, as centrists like to claim when trying to bilk us out of the changes we seek, but a big tent in that we support equality, and equality of opportunity, for a diverse population of - everyone.
From NOW:
The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry... We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.
Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose....
The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:
•Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
•Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
•Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.
From NARAL:
*House: Yes to Extreme Anti-Choice Politics, No to Women’s Health and Privacy*
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called House passage of a stunning last-minute anti-choice amendment to health reform an outrageous blow to women's freedom and privacy....
Presently, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services.
"It is unconscionable that anti-choice lawmakers would use health reform to attack women's health and privacy, but that's exactly what happened on the House floor tonight. Even though the bill already included a ban on federal funding for abortion and a requirement that only women's personal funds could pay for abortion care, Reps. Stupak and Pitts took their obsession with attacking a woman's right to choose to a whole new level. We will hold those lawmakers who sided with the extreme Stupak-Pitts amendment accountable for abandoning women and capitulating to the most extreme fringe of the anti-choice movement.
For some reason Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake on HuffPo has decided to go the derail NARAL and NOW route. I'm not exactly sure what that's about, but it's an interesting read at any rate.
I hope we join together and get involved with NOW and NARAL, to give us one voice moving forward. Or if there are other people/organizations to connect with or actions to do, let's change this dynamic. It's time to stop accepting marginalization and start moving toward real representation and real reform.