Before the Stupak Amendment, the Democrats' defense against the anti-choice reps was to cite the 1973 Hyde Amendment. Thanks to the Hyde Amendment, even if we defeat the Stupak/Pitts Amendment, a woman who chooses the public option, or is a wife on the same plan as a man who chooses the public option, or a woman who gets subsidies for a private plan, can not use her insurance if she needs an abortion. If we had gotten single-payer on the table, would they also support Hyde to deny women on single-payer choice?
Hyde has been off the radar for too long, so here's some background on Hyde, and a list of women already denied the right to choice under the Hyde Amendment, just so you know:
Poor women on Medicaid
Disabled women on Medicare
Native women in the Indian Health Service
Veteran women in the VA
If we get the Stupak Amendment, we can add women:
On the public option
On subsidies for private plans in the exchange
Federal government employees (including legislative aids!)
State employees in divisions that get federal subsidies (virtually all divisions)
So, will we just fight the Stupak Amendment, or re-ignite the demand to end to the Hyde Amendment as well? Do we only care about choice when it's a middle-class issue, and if so, is this renewed focus on limiting choice for women with federally-subsidized health plans enough to re-ignite and possibly succeed in eliminating Hyde?
A couple of days ago, in a fit of rage against my nemesis Hypocrisy, I wrote an inflammatory diary to point out our double-standard when it comes to women in poverty versus women who can buy private insurance. Here on Daily Kos, I got called a commie - often. It gave me a good laugh, but let's make it clear why this isn't a Red Call for Revolution, ok?
The rightfully much-maligned anti-choice Stupak Amendment makes it legal to discriminate against women's health and reproductive rights, despite our legal right to choice. The Stupak Amendment, however, is merely an extension of the already discriminatory Hyde Amendment that regularly gets added to every appropriations bill that the anti-choice movement can get their reps to add it to.
The Hyde Amendment is law-via-appropriations, not law as Roe v Wade/right to privacy is law. It is an amendment that has been pushed to limit choice since 1976 - and has been ratified by the Supreme Court - that prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion, with three exceptions:
Pregnancies that threaten a woman's life if carried to term (this includes mental health issues as well as physical threats to a woman's life)
Pregnancies as an outcome of rape
Pregnancies as an outcome of incest
Just as an aside, for 13 years, 1980-1993, even these three exceptions were removed. The women's movement - and its male supporters - finally got the three exceptions back.
The one version of the Stupak Amendment that I've found online specifies that the first exception - a woman's life/health - only applies to physical conditions. Stupak and anti-choice oppose anxiety and even suicidal depression as a reason to use federal funds for abortion. I expect/hope ADA advocates will challenge at least this provision.
Long before the Stupak Amendment reached the House floor for a vote, when anti-choice Democrats joined anti-choice Republicans to fight the use of tax dollars for abortion, the Democrats responded with: The Hyde Amendment is law, we include it in the health care reform bill.
At no time did any media analysis, that I've found, stop and say: The Hyde Amendment means that, if you get the public option, you can not use it if you need an abortion. You must find a clinic - sometimes in a state other than your own - or pay for it yourself. Right now, that cost runs from $300-$900 in the first trimester. Cost goes up the farther along the pregnancy. Obviously, compared to the cost of many other medical needs, that's miniscule. But in this economy, with the vast number of women added to the poverty rolls, it's meaningful, especially when it determines whether or not you can terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester, or are forced to have a later-term, more dangerous, less accessible abortion.
The media analysts never questioned Democrats' "defense" that the Hyde Amendment would prohibit use of federal funds for abortion even if you have a private insurance plan subsidized by the government. All private plans are eligible for subsidies by the government, if they are included in the exchange.
That means that all women whose private plans are subsidized are denied access to an abortion. And as we can see from that 13-year period, this can be extended even in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to a woman's physical or mental well-being.
Media analysts or activists who push for single-payer never say: If we get single-payer, women's right to choice is virtually gone, except for those who can pay for an abortion, because of the Hyde Amendment.
Democratic legislators should, imo, tell anti-choice legislators to regulate the insurance industry if they want to stop all abortions, and not demand institutionalized discrimination by the federal government. I think that would shut the Republicans up in a second, and make them swallow their own Poison Pill to kill the bill.
What say you?