During the glow of passing health insurance reform in the Senate, I've been appalled to find Democrats being blase about the very real threat posed by the Nelson "compromise" on abortion coverage.
Especially chilling because these abortion restrictions will do nothing less than rollback the intent of Roe V. Wade, threaten the health and life of American women and girls, and contribute to the elimination of all abortion coverage in private plans.
To see pieces of that bleak future now, you only need examine the damage already being done by the Hyde Amendment.
Abortion legal, if you have $9,000:
The Hyde Amendment is already endangering women with high-risk pregnancies, including this Federal Employee presented a bill for $9,000 for the unelective abortion she was forced to have to save her health.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
What will happen to the desperate women and girls who don't have a spare $9,000 (or the $500, or whatever bill presented to them, access to affordable abortion)?
We don't have to go back 40 years for the answer: Some will self-induce, such this American woman in our military:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/...
This is no small thing, this "compromise" the forced birth brigade is calling for.
This is a roll-back on Roe V. Wade, which in part was passed by the Supreme Court, because of the evidence that illegal abortion was an unequal situation: wealthy women could afford to get safe abortions by flying to Puerto Rico and countries where abortion was legal, and in those leafy, upper-class suburban hospitals where D&Cs were approved at a rate not seen in urban or lower-middle class hospitals.
Free Abortion is Every Woman's Right: Statement of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union
(circa 1970-71):
More than five times as many whites as non-whites are granted therapeutic abortions in New York City, a statistic which is inverse in relationship to the need.
Poor and black women, on the other hand, bear unwanted children or face unsafe backalley or self—induced abortions. In New York City, 80% of the women who die from illegal abortions are black or brown. There were almost 10,000 deaths from abortion, more than 4,000 of these from self-induced abortion. Those acts of desperation account for one—half of the deaths associated with pregnancy.
http://www.cwluherstory.org/...
(And yes, I'm aware all statistics from that period are funglible, precisely because abortion was illegal. For instance, "A 1979 study noted that many women who required hospitalization following self-induced abortion attempts were admitted under the pretext of having had a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
It was acknowledged in Roe V. Wade that illegal abortion was an unequal situation: more poor women, women of color, lower-middle class women died of illegal abortions, or were forced to come to term in unwanted or high-risk pregnancies.
As evidenced by the articles above, Nelson and his ilk who "just" want to make abortion expensive will be overturning the intent Roe and returning us to the days of women whose life and health will be threatened because they won't be able to afford safe, legal abortions.
And that won't just be in the red states that cozy up to this devilish "compromise:" experts agree that a domino effect also could eradicate abortion coverage in all private plans.
"the language will effectively make abortion coverage unavailable in health insurance exchanges and, ultimately, in private insurance policies as well."
http://www.politico.com/...
Abortion restriction a feature, not a bug of this legislation:
if the antiabortion legislators get their way, those subsidies would have a big string attached; they could not be used to purchase a policy that has abortion coverage. For many women, that would mean giving up a benefit they now have under their private insurance policies. And it would raise all sorts of other questions if insurers were allowed to discriminate among their customers based on whether or not they are using federal dollars to pay for their policies.
http://www.time.com/...
Which again, will be a monumental loss from the current situation in which:
Nearly 90% of insurers [now] cover abortion procedures, according to a 2002 survey by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization whose statistics are relied upon by both sides of the abortion debate.
http://www.time.com/...
Every woman in the United States losing insurance coverage for abortion means, statistically alone, more dead and maimed women.
We've had the statistics drummed into our dear little ears for months on end: 45,000 Americans a year die because they lack health insurance.
Oh, but there's more: Hospitalized Children Without Insurance Are More Likely to Die, a Study Finds http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.c...
The risk of dying from traumatic injuries is 80% higher for those without any insurance, a study says. ER physicians say they're surprised by the findings.
http://www.latimes.com/...
So please don't say you're surprised that more women will die without health insurance that covers abortion -- it's plain, bald statistically so.
When abortion was illegal in this country, more poor, lower-middle class and women of color died simply because they weren't able to afford a safe abortion.
And this bill is returning us to an all-too-similar situation.
Statiscally, more women will die if they lose insurance coverage for abortion.
And unfortunately, those deaths and that health crisis may fly under the radar for quite some time.
Over forty years ago, when abortions were illegal many hospitals still had what they privately termed their "abortion wards."
In other words, a segregated area where the women maimed or dying from illegal abortions were kept hidden away from the maternity and other cases.
But an open secret among those who had to deal with the cases, one reason why petitioners in Roe V. Wade included medical professionals, religious leaders and feminists.
A poll conducted in May of 1969 by Modern Medicine showed that 63% of the 27,000 doctors who responded favor of making abortion available upon request and 51% of them did not qualify this.
http://www.cwluherstory.org/...
Several years ago I read an newspaper article (and unfortunately didn't save the link) quoting nurses and doctors who were appalled that similar "abortion wards" of dying and maimed women were returning in states that severely restricted access to abortion.
Privacy rights hamstrung medical personnel from speaking out, as they will when the abortion wards are better-stocked, if Stupak/Nelson compromises are enacted.
Abortion restrictions have always amounted to the death and maiming of women, for that history you need only consult the online free-source publication of the book When Abortion was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 by Leslie J. Reagan (which was also my source for other material in this diary.)
http://www.escholarship.org/...
Unfortunately, we also have current chilling examples: Parental notification laws have already killed teenage girls, and I've read more than one article qouting parents lamenting those laws because their daughters died through self-induced or illegal abortions as a result.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/...
The Journal of Pediatric Health Care has also published a study on the dangers of teens using self-induced abortion attempts: Ahttp://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0891524598902450
Poor women are already self-inducing abortion, often with medications commonly used off-brand to do so in their culture:
it remains a crime in most jurisdictions for a woman to attempt to perform an abortion on herself. In May 2005, Gabriela Flores - a Mexican immigrant living in South Carolina - was charged under such a statute, which carried a maximum penalty of two years in prison. She had induced abortion by ingesting misoprostol, an ulcer medication with abortifacient potential.
http://motherjones.com/...
The more insurance coverage lost for abortion also may mean less funding for Planned Parenthood and other lower-cost abortion providers, at a time when their patient load could increase exponentially.
A Stupak/Nelson "compromise" sends us back to a day when more desperate American women won't be able afford a safe, legal abortion, which history tells us drives some to dangerously self-induce, or search for other low-cost illegal abortions.
A day of more dead and maimed women and girls.
Some may be able to live with that deadly compromise, but I can't, in good conscience.
And I don't understand how Democratic politicians or voters can either.
Please contact your Senators and Represetatives to protest the dangerous Nelson "compromises" on women's reproductive health:
https://writerep.house.gov/...
Thanks to Phoenix Rising for this clarification:
Push to have the provision revised in conference. Obama has stated an objection to additional abortion restrictions, a quick count of Democratic Senators shows a majority will support health care reform without the new restrictions, and a recount of Democratic Representatives seems to show the same.
Some abortion language will be present in the bill, since it's in both the House and Senate versions. But what exactly that language is can be changed, as the two bills don't match. The original House or Senate abortion language can be restored, which keeps things at "Hyde" levels - and which wouldn't prevent the exchanges from offering plans with abortion coverage.
http://www.senate.gov/...