Until he starts being a more responsible legislator and targeting what really works – reducing the number of unintended pregnancies by advocating for age-appropriate reproductive health education in public schools, affordable contraception for all, or some other useful public policy – he needs to just stop.

And where is he on Tennessee’s abysmal infant mortality rate?

Aunt B. has more.

“Health reform would simply not have passed without the Stupak Amendment. The Speaker of the House made this deal, and she is one of the strongest Pro-Choice members of the House. I think this just underscores how important this issue was to the passage of the bill. The health care bill only passed by two votes. Going forward, we need to better define the status quo regarding the Hyde Amendment because that is what most members support.

The reform bill does contain the most important health improvements for women in history, including bringing more women into a heath care system that includes reproductive health benefits. I continue to support affordable birth control and a woman’s freedom to choose, and I hope that we can make progress on these issues in the future with the Senate version of health reform.”

Thanks, Coop (He lets us call him that. OK, no he doesn’t.) for both your “Yes” vote for H.R. 3962, the health insurance reform legislation, and for the explanation of your Stupak Amendment vote.

Now, I’m satisfied with Congressman Cooper’s answers regarding his Stupak Amendment vote. I understand, however, that some are not. I understand that some still take issue with the way in which this vote went down.

Not me.

Instead, I take issue with those who were on the front line of this debate decades ago – when the term “pro-life” was first used – for scrambling to find a different term to describe their position instead of standing up and screaming, “How dare you! The definition of ‘pro-life’ doesn’t begin and end where you say it does, buster. I’m ‘pro-life.’ You’re ‘pro-life.’ We’re ALL ‘pro-life.’ Now stop being a dumbass and let’s work on ways in which we can eliminate the underlying reasons why women seek to have abortions in the first place. Hello? Lack of age-appropriate public school sex education? Hello? Lack of affordable contraception? Hello? Poverty? Hello? Lack of affordable child-care options? Hello? Hello? Hello?”

The Stupak Amendment and the strangle-hold it had over the health insurance reform debate is a direct result of elected officials giving up the practical moral high-ground on this issue a long, long, LONG time ago. We reap what we sow.

One question remains...

Eloquently worded below by Goldni is the question for Congressman Jim Cooper that’s on everyone’s lips. So, when you call to thank him today for his “yes” vote on the health insurance reform bill (Nashville Office: 736-5295 DC Office: 202-225-4311), you also might want to ask him,”Why yes on the Stupak Amendment?”

Congressman, I know you’re very smart and have an excellent command of legislative history. I know that you know about the Hyde Amendment of 1976, which forbids federal funding of abortion, and which is the established law in this country. I know you know that there was already a provision in the bill specifically stating that nothing in the bill could be construed as mandating or allowing for federal funding for abortion. I know you know that the Stupak amendment was unnecessary, and that even if you wanted it passed so that a few more people would vote for the final bill, your vote was not needed to make that happen. I know that you know that the whole thing would ultimately be unenforceable and would almost certainly get tangled up in legal challenges. And I know you’re generally not a fan of telling insurance companies what they can or cannot offer.

So why vote to tell them they can’t offer this one thing, especially when 85% of them offer it now with no issues and when it wouldn’t cost the government any money to allow them to continue to do so?

It’s not because you have some great love for fetuses. Your record is mostly pro-choice, but you have never demonstrated that you even particularly care about it all that much as an issue. The budgetary issues are much more salient with you, obviously. But it’s for that reason that I know that your vote for the final bill was not contingent upon this amendment passing. It wouldn’t have mattered to you one way or the other.

Are you trying to build up some “pro-life”* (a ridiculous term, I don’t know of anyone who is anti-life) credentials for your re-election bid next year in the Fifth District? That might work in Lincoln Davis’ district. I personally think that Lincoln Davis is a great representative for his district. But that’s not you anymore, and you need to remember that.

Is there a budget issue in here that I’m missing? This does not amount to taxpayer money going to fund abortion, it would still be private insurance companies offering coverage at their expense, and private individuals purchasing insurance through the exchange would still be using their own money. However, at this time I’d like to renew my objection to the provision in the Senate bill that DOES allow for federal funding for Christian Science prayer treatments.

So, why?

And, might I add, the Stupak Amendment will do absolutely nothing to reduce the number of abortions in the United States. It will, however, take away a potential life-saving treatment for more than half the population of the country. If legislators truly wanted to curtail the number of abortions in the US, they would work on curtailing the number of unintended pregnancies by increasing federal funding for comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education in the classroom and through public and private health agencies.

*We’re all pro-life.

UPDATE from the comments: Ruth Marcus writing in the Washington Post:

Going into Saturday’s debate on the House health-care bill, the measure included provisions designed to maintain the status quo against federal funding for most abortions. It took steps to ensure that federal subsidies to purchase insurance wouldn’t be used to pay for abortion coverage. It required that every exchange include one plan that did not cover abortions, so that no one would be forced to subscribe to a plan that violated anti-abortion beliefs. That wasn’t enough for the anti-abortion crowd, including the Catholic bishops. So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was backed into a corner, facing the loss of anti-abortion Democrats unless she acceded to an amendment offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that effectively prevents insurance companies participating in the new insurance exchanges from covering abortions. It passed, 240 to 197, with 64 Democrats voting in favor.

Under the Stupak amendment, no plan that accepts people eligible for federal subsidies is permitted to cover abortions. It’s hard to imagine a plan participating in the exchange that refuses to accept people with subsidies, since the vast majority of people in the exchanges will receive subsidies. Therefore, no abortion coverage in the exchange — except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. If you are a woman whose health is endangered by a pregnancy, you’ll have to pay for an abortion out of pocket. Same if you are carrying a fetus with severe birth defects.

Stupak supporters argue that women will still be able to obtain abortion coverage by purchasing a separate rider to the policies. As if people plan ahead to have abortions. As if insurance companies will go to the trouble — and risk the controversy — of providing such riders.

According to Cooper’s office, and confirmed by Marcus’s analysis, it was either the Stupak amendment or no passage of the bill. Cooper’s choice is understandable. What’s sad – and what I most hate about this game – is that he was forced to make it.

Ewwwwwwww.

Here’s a new one for the Urban Dictionary:

The Coburn: Invoking privilege or any other tool in your profession’s arsenal to protect your buddy from exposing additional hot and steamy details about his embarrassing extra-marital affair.

Freddie brought this Post Politics (not that one, the other one) “The Fix” chat to my attention this morning and my exasperated response was one he has heard frequently before, oh good night nurse.

I’m just speculating here but my guess is that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-NOT OK) is on the wrong side of most women’s health issues. You know, the kind of issues where certain decisions about a women’s health and reproductive health should be “cloaked by patient-doctor confidentiality.”

Oh yes. Here we go. These are Senator Coburn’s positions on issues that apply to the health and reproductive well-being of half the population:

1) He opposes abortion even in cases of rape. For instance, he voted no to an amendment to a bill that would “strike the provisions in the bill which would permit individual states to determine whether to use Medicaid funds to pay for abortions in cases of rape or incest.”
2) He sponsored a bill to limit access to RU-486.
3) He infamously said: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life.”
4) He voted no on to “expand access to preventive health care services that reduce unintended pregnancy (including teen pregnancy), reduce the number of abortions, and improve access to women’s health care.”

So let’s recap.

Decisions made between a man and his doctor that would reveal torrid details about said man’s extra-marital affair should remain private but decisions made between a woman and her doctor about medically necessary reproductive health procedures should be open to any old white man sitting up in Congress?

Oh, I so do not think so.

Today, we’ll ask it specifically of Rep. Tony Shipley (R-Kingsport), who, as Jeff Woods reports, believes that it’s a good idea to jeopardize the millions of dollars Tennessee receives from the federal government for family planning services:

A House subcommittee has adopted a bill by our right-wing hero Tony “Wrath of God” Shipley to make it illegal for health-care providers to deny parents immediate access to the medical records of their children. An incestuous father could demand and receive his pregnant daughter’s records. Not surprisingly, this imperils the $6.5 million in federal family planning money that Tennessee receives.

So, Rep. Shipley, if your goal is to eliminate abortion, wouldn’t it be better if you sponsored legislation that would help do that by encouraging organizations such as Planned Parenthood to provide more family planning services and education to individuals who don’t normally have access to them?

And if Rep. Shipley doesn’t have the imagination to think of all the scenarios in which a child’s doctor might need – for the child’s safety – to keep medical records private, then I suggest he go and start talking to the women and doctors of his district.

All of you?

So wouldn’t it be better if you sponsored legislation that would do something to help lower the frighteningly high infant mortality rate in Tennessee?

(*SJR127 opens a door to amending the State Constitution so that a women seeking an abortion would no longer have privacy protection. The Senate passed SJR0127 24 to 8 on 3/23/09. The House Finance Budget Committee will hear it on Wednesday, 4/29/09, at 11:00 am. Contact your legislator and members of the committee.)

All of you?

So wouldn’t it be better if you sponsored legislation with the intent to reduce and eventually eliminate the number of abortions in the state by allowing organizations such as Planned Parenthood to provide more family planning services and education to individuals who don’t normally have access to them?*

(*HB1756 would take away federal funds from non-profit health care clinics in Tennessee, such as Planned Parenthood, leaving an estimated 12,000 women and men in Tennessee without access to reproductive health education and services. It will be considered on Tuesday, 4/28, in the House Public Health and Family Assistance Subcommittee at 4:00 p.m.. Contact your legislator and members of the committee.)

All of you?

So wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t make it more difficult for a 14-year-old girl, pregnant by the stepfather who raped her, to end her nightmare?

If you’re anti-abortion then don’t have one. No one would ask you to go against your beliefs. But in the meantime, wouldn’t it be better if we worked together towards a solution to unwanted pregnancies?

(*SJR127 opens a door to amending the State Constitution so that a women seeking an abortion would no longer have privacy protection. The Senate passed SJR0127 24 to 8 on 3/23/09. The House Finance Budget Committee will hear it on Wednesday, 4/29/09, at 11:00 am. Contact your legislator and members of the committee.)

Because the big yellow buttons have already been made (and Rep. Curtiss is a Democrat), I’m going to go out on a limb and say that HJR 0127 is the one that will, unfortunately, make it out of committee tomorrow.

As previously discussed, these resolutions are the first step toward amending the Tennessee State Constitution to take away the limited privacy protections women still have to control their own reproductive health. If the State Constitution is successfully amended, and Roe v. Wade overturned, women here would no longer have the constitutionally protected right to privacy.

Even worse is that all three of the bills state that “the people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.” In other words, if the Constitution is amended in the way in which these three legislators hope, then the decision as to what would be best for the 9-year-old girl carrying twins that are the result of being raped by her stepfather, would be solely in their hands. And so would the decision of the Tennessee mother (who wrote an open letter to Rep. Maggart) with a daughter diagnosed in utero with a fatal chromosomal disorder, a cystic hygroma, a clubbed foot, very little brain matter, and kidney malformations, and who wasn’t expected to live any longer than the gestation period – or less.

And if you saw this afternoon’s discussion of a certain gun bill, your only reaction to this should be, oh s**t.

In other news, Did you know that although Tennessee is ranked 20th in providing family planning public funding (publicly supported contraceptive services and supplies), we’re ranked 42nd in family planning laws and policies (whether laws and policies are likely to facilitate access to contraceptive services and information), 30th in family planning service availability (how well states meet existing need for subsidized contraceptive services and supplies), and 40th in births to teen mothers ages 15-19.

If the members of the Tennessee legislature wanted real solutions, they would do two things. First, they’d be honest and admit that there are already a number of Tennessee laws which regulate abortion – including parental consent, a ban on late-term abortions and patient informed consent. Then, they would focus on researching and providing the most effective education and resources that would actually, you know, reduce – or completely eliminate – unintended pregnancies.

Senators voting aye were: Beavers, Black, Bunch, Burchett, Burks, Crowe, Faulk, Finney L, Gresham, Henry, Jackson, Johnson, Ketron, McNally, Norris, Overbey, Southerland, Stanley, Stewart, Tracy, Watson, Woodson, Yager, Mr. Speaker Ramsey — 24.

Senators voting no were: Barnes, Berke, Ford, Harper, Haynes, Herron, Marrero, Tate — 8.

An amendment [pdf] introduced by Senator Doug Jackson (D-Dickson) that would have given a sick woman the option to end her pregnancy in order to save her life, failed. The vote:

Senators voting aye were: Beavers, Black, Bunch, Burchett, Crowe, Faulk, Gresham, Johnson, Ketron, McNally, Norris, Overbey, Southerland, Stanley, Tracy, Watson, Woodson, Yager, Mr. Speaker Ramsey — 19.

Senators voting no were: Barnes, Berke, Burks, Finney L, Ford, Harper, Haynes, Herron, Jackson, Marrero, Stewart, Tate — 12.

Senators present and not voting were: Henry — 1.

The resolution now goes to the House where Senator Black says it will pass. She may be right. Since the GOP took control of the House in November, there are more legislators like Senator Black who as doctors and health care providers, feel they know better than the women of Tennessee what’s best for their reproductive health.