I agree. Washington promises are as solid as a cookie dipped in coffee...

I disagree, and expect that in the end the female Democrats will not capitulate and cave, nor is it intended that they should do so.

To me it seems more likely that the intent is to divert the attention on this bill away from the single-payer argument by creating a rukus about a woman's right to chose and the inequality of access to abortion by the poor if the bill should pass as currently amended. Later, when the Democrats "see the light" and capitulate and cave to the popular (female) will, the revised bill will be held up as an example of the Democrats listening to the people. It will be used as evidence that the system works if you make sufficient noise. It will be used as evidence that we have a democracy where the will of the people counts because the legislators listened to the people and changed the bill. They may even try to use it to make the Democrats look somewhat progressive. There will be no time to discuss the single-payer option. Nothing like a good abortion debate brawl to keep people from hearing the discussion of other issues that you do not want discussed.

More concisely I think the Democratic party's current allowing of the amendment is a ruse that they are using in an attempt to shutdown discussion of the single-payer option.

"MOREOVER, THE DEMS ARE PENALIZING POOR WOMEN WHO CANNOT AFFORD ADEQUATE HEALTHCARE AND THEIR RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR BODIES, UNDER THE LAW!!!!!" -- EastCoastLefty101

I agree!

About three or four years ago, the film VERA DRAKE was released. The issues in the film are poor women and abortion. It's worth seeing.

matthew loughran

having this amendment is just another reason not to support this non reform crap.
when you have corporate dims and fanatic republicans in this congress its no wonder this non reform crap comes out and everyone is fooled into thinking its a government takeover of healthcare ahhhh!!!!! could not be further from the truth. this is a massive gift to the insurance and drug companies.

i hope the colorado rep is able to block this amendment or stop the bill altogether because preventing a woman from having the right to choose has no business being in this bill at all.

single payer is the only way to go.

matt loughran
harris county green party
houston tx

I am sure there are many clever ways to rationally justify the murder of an infant. After all, the fundamental fact that there is no way to rationally conclude that infants are equal to self-aware fully functioning adults is never mentioned in congressional debates. Is it not a toxic, sinister idea that forces parents to provide subsistence for unwanted infants? I am not an expert on infant cognitive development, but I am sure there is a period of time where they have exited the womb but have less cognitive ability(by some arbitrarily chosen, yet objective metric) than a dog. People are free to bring their dog to a shelter if they don't want to take care of it anymore, where it will more than likely be euthanized. Should I rationally conclude that we should be able to do something akin to this with our unwanted infants? I mean, think about the children!

Po Thead November 9th, 2009 3:37 pm -- It may be an argument, but it's been effectively critiqued at http://www.cwfa.org/articles/10360/BLI/life/index.htm.

I've long held the view that if the individual (presumably a fetus) can make and recall memories, it deserves to be protected. This is because without memories, our individual identity doesn't exist. For the same reason, absence of brain activity signifies death, whereas cessation of heartbeats or breathing doesn't. And Alzheimer's victims die a slow death.

Many people claim to recall things from their time in the womb, but no one has been able to prove that such "memories" are more than illusions. To prove it one would have to recall something susceptible to independent verification. One possibility would be that a person might recall being injured in the womb; but such a recollection would be persuasive only if the person was never told about the injury or otherwise given clues concerning what to say about it.

See my reply above to "Happyjon", about the proposal put forth to consider that life begins at the point that brain activity begins.

By contrast HR-676 is only about 90 pages.

You said it.

I'm in complete agreement with you. This bill is a sellout to the insurance industry. We'll know that for sure if Max Baucus backs it without any changes.

Women don't want people like you deciding when they should become mothers. That shouldn't be up to you or the government.

In one word: IGNORANCE

A) Not everyone uses birth control pills, for various reasons. You have to put condoms on and rapists don't always use them.

B) Women don't have the choice of deciding when they are going to be raped, so they can take birth control for a month ahead of the moment.

C) Sometimes accidents happen in the heat of the moment.

D) No birth control is 100% effective ... not even the IGNORANT right-wing notion of "ABSTINENCE ONLY". Because we have been saddled with that STUPIDITY for the past eight years, the rate of unwanted pregnancies has gone UP, because our teens are NOT getting REAL information that they need in order to make intelligent decisions. (And the decision to abstain doesn't necessarily qualify as an intelligent choice.)

E) Most abortions occur BEFORE the zygote advances to the fetus stage. I once saw two photos placed side by side. One photo was of a human fetus and the other was a pig fetus. I'm thinking that the age was about five weeks, but can't really remember. Anyway, at that stage in development, you couldn't tell them apart.

Twenty-some years ago a doctor suggested a compromise between the occasional need to abort and the right-wing insistence that life starts at conception. What he proposed was, that since life is considered to end at the point at which brainwaves cease, we should consider that life begins when brainwaves are first detected ... at about three months, if I recall correctly. That still would leave a "window" of about three months during which an abortion could be performed, before life begins. Life would begin in the womb at three months, before the point of viability.

His idea was shot down by both sides.

Y'know, Jon, you and I are virtually the same age, so I'm fairly sure your way of thinking as expressed here is not a function of declining cognitive ability.

So I really have to ask: you say you give thanks that your Mum didn't abort you. But if your Mum *had* aborted you, how would you have known? Where would 'you' be, now?

Those not born don't exist and therefore cannot suffer. Do you really not realise that?

Birth control doesn't always work. Chemical means are often contraindicated, medically. Physical means are often refused by men. All means sometimes fail. Abortions are stressful and expensive; women don't have them just to have them. They're a last resort, not a cup of coffee and a danish on the way to work. So there are probably not many more abortions being performed today than in the past. The 'huge numbers' almost certainly reflect a mix of flawed perception on your part and the fact that abortions are now nominally legal and therefore need not be performed with the aid of a coathanger or a 2x4.

Interesting point, jon. For those of us who do have children, you cannot help but ask yourself: would your life have been richer had they not been born? As for myself, I'd have to answer with a resounding: "No!!" This does not mean I think abortion should be illegal, only sad if women are driven to it because of desperation. The present society we live in is exceedingly cruel and ugly. Though many would deny it, in one way or another, it's every man for himself, rather than for the harmony of the whole. Even civility where it exists if often only a cover for selfish motives. I agree with you that the wise use of birth control is a much better option than abortion--and cheaper too. As to the argument of it 'not always working,' I'd say that's the exception rather than the rule, unless, of course, it's the 'rhythm method.'

Not so.

The big difference is that, to the anti-Choicers, the foetus and the actual living human have, or should have, the same civil status: human. But they nevertheless treat them completely differently. That's hypocrisy.

Whereas to the pro-Choicers, a foetus and a quasi-independent, thinking human have vastly different social and biological statuses, and therefore need not be accorded the same treatment. Their *only* similarity is in their chromosomes, and that's true of a mere egg or sperm as well as the foetus. We don't give human standing to a sperm or egg, so there's no hypocrisy in not giving it to a foetus either.

A foetus is not even humanoid until quite far along in the gestational process.