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Dems Sell Women’s Rights Down River Of Health Care Denial
A few thoughts on last night’s health care reform vote and the Stupak Amendment. First of all, 21 out of the 64 Democrats who voted for Stupak then proceeded to vote against the health care reform bill. In other words, women’s reproductive rights were severely compromised to appease 41 members of Congress. The final vote on the health care bill was 220-215, so only a few of those votes were needed in the first place to secure the vote. For this, in the 11th hour, Nancy Pelosi made a deal with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Many reproductive justice advocates watched the final train wreck on C Span last night in stunned anger, trying to understand how this happened. Jodi Jacobson, who has covered this issue very thoroughly on RH Reality Check wrote,
Why when millions of women need basic sexual and reproductive health care is it important for the USCCB to be "working out" any plan? What does Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi or any other member of Congress owe the Catholic Bishops that they do not owe the majority of women in this country? What does Obama owe the Bishops that he does not owe you and me, for example, most of those of us who gave money and time and our lives to his campaign?Do we live in a theocracy?
Honestly: I would like an answer. From the White House. From the House Leadership. And you should want one too.
One reaction that I do take issue with is Jane Hamsher's assertion that NARAL and Planned Parenthood shoulder part of the blame for what happened. As much as I generally respect Hamsher, her reasoning is baffling.
But let's be clear about this. The only reason that we are in the position where the price of passing health care reform is allowing even liberal Marcy Kaptur to sneeringly dismiss choice activists as narrow class warriors who don't care about working women is because Planned Parenthood and NARAL have allowed it to happen. They collect millions of dollars in revenue each year. They've exacted no price from the Marcy Kapturs of the world, who actually have to care what liberals think of them, and focused instead on anti-choice Republicans who are only empowered by their ire. They have no scalps. There is no price for bucking Planned Parenthood and NARAL. It isn't a fight that the Democrats want to spend "political capital" on, and these groups insure that they don't have to.
Forget about the fact that more Americans are now anti-choice than pro-choice for the first time since Gallup has been polling the issue. More and more Democrats in Congress each year are anti-choice, despite the fact that the party is . It's acceptable now. These groups have the lobbyists, the money, the access, and their leadership uses it for their own personal advancement while the cause they purport to defend withers on the vine.
The national Planned Parenthood organization listed $126 million in assets in 2007. Cecile Richards made $385,163 . The state chapters whose employees put their lives on the line so women can have the right to choose deserve support and protection within the Democratic party that she is not providing.
NARAL paid Nancy Keenan $145,538 from the Foundation in 2007, which listed total assets of $4,119,329. But the NARAL PAC reports $87,125 cash on hand as of September 30, 2009.
And that kind of money was a match for the Catholic Church, Big Pharma and the Insurance companies? I don't think so. No question there are things over the years both organizations could, in hindsight have done better. But their accomplishments speak for themselves and victim blaming is just not acceptable here.
As @mikkipedia on Twitter said, "Had a nightmare that extremists took healthcare hostage and the Dems bargained away women's rights to get it back. Wait..." Imagine if instead we had a dream where our elected officials stood up against the few in defense of our human rights. Imagine.
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31 Comments so far
Show AllIt's unfortunate this patriarchal system will continue the de-evolution of humans in this country. What's worse, is that women are showing up to work for these yahoos!
These reptiles know that if you can control the root chakra, the reproductive organs, the "muladhara" you have your control mechanism. Any COMPLIANCE you may see is after the fact. The "church" has known this forever.
The elites consider us to be livestock at best, we are to be manipulated and managed by the richer, wiser class.
Welcome to the dark ages, resistance is feudal. The revolution came and went and guess who lost?? You did.
The Democratic Party has just said screw you to women who believe in choice. Thanks to the Democrats, they aid and abet the right wing radicals and Christian zealots who oppose abortion rights and women’s rights. You know in Nazi Germany, they came into power because the opposition caved and appeased the Hitler faction. The Democrats are WEAK!!!!! The Democratic Party stand for NOTHING!!!!! The Democrats have CORPORATE Led solutions and we all know what CORPRATIONS REALLY THINK of Women and their “rights.”
The Democrats have also just become the Bitches of the Catholic Bishops and sold out to their Feminist women base. You can have Nancy Pelosi and all the other phony-ass "Feminists" in the Pathetic Democratic Party. The Democratic Party doesn't give a rat's ass about any of their "liberal-progressive" base or the issues which matter the most to these constituencies. The DNC's no-show and Obama's silence ensured that gay marriage would be defeated in Maine last week. Obama opposes GAY Marriage and is PROUD/Happy to say it all the time.
I am an unabashedly Leftist Here and DO NOT LIKE THE DEMOCRATS appeasement, equivocation and sellout of leftist/progressive policies to the right wing Repukes. Unlike the spineless Democrats, I am not afraid to say that I am a Proud Leftist and not afraid to stand up for these values. The country has moved so far to the right that too many "liberals-progressives" think that conservative to moderate Democrats who oppose the far right Fascists of the GOP believe in liberalism or progressivism. NOT!!!!
The "liberal-progressive" rhetoric the Democratic Party uses on the talk shows and even that is less frequent that you all realize should tell you things which you are all intelligent enough to figure out.
It is the Democratic Leadership Council Runs the Dem Party's Agenda, and not the "liberal-progressive" base. It is time that you all understand this. The Democratic Party has diminished the values and voices of its "liberal-progressive" base ever since it formed the Democratic Leadership Council. The Democratic Party takes it leftist/progressive base for granted and when push comes to shove, goes with the Democratic Leadership Council agenda which is GOP-Lite, corporate centered, and favors a militarized foreign policy agenda built on “bipartisanship.”
Liberal and Feminist Women have fell victim to the male-inspired Democratic Leadership Council. The sooner you all understand these realities and deal with it after confronting the facts, then you see why being a "liberal/progressive" Democrats now means very little. The Democrats may as well go on FOX News and bash women for what they did yesterday, The Democratic Party have become liabilities on social and civil rights issues!!!!!!
From Gay Rights to Wage Earning/Jobs to Women’s Reproductive Health Issues, the Democrats now look to maintain their grip on power while compromising the core values of its leftist/progressive base. Obama and the Democratic Party today are closer to the Catholic Church and Christian Fundamentalists on issues of:
1. Women’s right to choose –Yes a WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHAT SHE DOES WITH HER OWN BODY!!!!!!
2. Gay Rights – DADT, Gay Marriage – which Obama and the Democratic National Committee did nothing about in Maine last week, and supports the Defense of Marriage Act.
3. Democrats continue the big Spending on Defense Budgets and endless war funding.
Barack Obama will soon be sending over 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, yet, the leftist/progressive base still fail to see the president as a center-right corporate-militarist leader of which he has proven to be. Obama will not be looking into signing any real international agreements to curb emissions. Obama is turning into a failure on environmental issues as well.
Before you bash Jane Hamsher too much, understand how power structures and hierarchies operate...
Try not to fall into that naive-gullible trap which so many "liberal-progressives" have been in ever since Obama won the election....
Investigate Jane Hamsher's assertions before you claim she is "wrong" as well.
For example, many gay activists have harshly criticized the Human Rights Campaign for being too close to the Obama administration and by extension too cozy with the power players at the top and settling just be near those people at the top. And settling for crap and scraps the LGBT Community is still being promised all kinds of things YET NO DELIVERY BY THE MIGHTY DEMOCRATS!!!!! THE LGBT COMMUNITY IS BEING MANIPULATED AND TOLD LIE AFTER LIE BY BARACK OBAMA WHO THINKS HE CAN KEEP KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD WHILE PROMISING THE LGBT COMMUNITY THINGS HE HAS NO INTENTION ON DELIVERING....THAT THE HRC ALLOWS THIS CRAP TO GO ON IS WHY MANY GAY ACTIVISTS CRITICIZE JOE SOLMONESE....MICHAELANGELO SIGNORILE ON HIS RADIO SHOW HAS EXPOSED THE DUPLICITY OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN AND MR. SOLOMONESE FOR BEING TOO CLOSE TO THE POWER STRUCTURE KNOWN AS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION!!!!!
Yes, the powerful like to be near one another.
So, before you go off half-baked and criticize Jane Hamsher make sure that you are not being compromised in your views or with reality.....
Power is power and the powerful want to run with the powerful and organizations will silently go along if it means better standing for themselves in the long-run....
It's called Power Relationships!!! Seduction to Power!
May I add also that ---Jane Hamsher is actually REFRESHING!!!!
EastCoastLefty101 -- I agree with you. I also find Jane Hamsher refreshing!
Women's rights would be restored if government would get out of the way. How many of you who trust big government like it that this same government is abolishing women's rights and meddling for the insurance giants to deny more Americans health care? HR 676 should have been passed unmodified because it would have meant real reform and no government meddling with health or business affairs. I'll take the Green or Libertarian parties any day over the Republicans and Democrats. Either we get a good government or government needs to be ABOLISHED !!
"Women's rights would be restored if government would get out of the way."
No it wouldn't.
"Either we get a good government or government needs to be ABOLISHED !!"
You seriously think that if you abolish the government, nothing is going to step into the vacuum and replace? You think the Christianist aren't dreaming up of theocracy?
So let me get this straight. This same big government meddles with business and personal affairs on denying coverage to women who can't afford abortions and you want to keep this government and expect it to change its mind? I know for a fact that abolishing this government and replacing it with a new one who doesn't meddle with private and business affairs would protect women's rights. Corporations and Christo-theocrats wouldn't be alive without this government. Keeping the same government that takes away women's rights is like keeping an abusive spouse when you could just ditch 'em and find a new one who will treat you better. It's common sense, not rocket science !
I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!
Except that I'm not.
But... but... the Democrats have a PLAN! Dontcha SEE, Lucinda?
They're gonna FIX all this in Obama's second term!
This so-called "first term" is REALLY just a campaign for the SECOND term. The SECOND term is the "money term"!
During the FIRST term, or "pre-term", Obama and his crew have to take two steps backwards, keep their powder dry, and most of all not make the perfect the enemy of the good!
But once's Obama's elected to a SECOND term, the Fix is in and the Fixing begins! Unless the time isn't right, of course, and the Dems realize that the Fixing won't happen unless Obama's (Democratic) SUCCESSOR gets a MANDATE.
OK, the successor won't be able to do much in their FIRST term, but...
[Cue: Sonny & Cher, "The Beat Goes On"]
· Yr Obd't Servant
Studies done by a number of researchers found that when womans rights "rolled back" it inevitably followed by a long period of Warfare and Militarism.
This has been true throughout History. Countries will know times of peace wherein women will start to gain in the way of rights, then the reactionaries take over, roll back the same rights and pursue the course of war.
These erosions of liberties are linked to the "warfare State" and the embrace of VIOLENCE as solutions to ills. Women joining the military does NOT show equality has been achieved. It merely shows they have been co-opted and work against their own best interests.
That so many do this merely for SURVIVALS sake demonstrates how the Control of the distribution of wealth and power being locked into the hands of a few Elites ensures a society can never truly progress.
Eglatarianism and forms of Socialism wherein the wealth and power equitably distributed are essential to our EVOLUTION as a species. A true progressive can NOT embrace Capitalism as it is practiced. Any politicians that claim to be progressives yet wish to see Capitalism remain as THE economic system are not progressives at all.
The underlying reason these "compromises" are being made, is that both parties wish to preserve the Health Insurance Industry as a profit generating enterprise.
The author wrote:
"What does Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi or any other member of Congress owe the Catholic Bishops that they do not owe the majority of women in this country? What does Obama owe the Bishops that he does not owe you and me, for example, most of those of us who gave money and time and our lives to his campaign?"
He and they owe these people for putting Obama over the top, vote-wise. Obama, with his unqualified, character-less self, should have lost, and he almost did. But, thanks to Republicans hating John McCain and Catholics and others voting against their best interests, this corporate puppet was slime-iley slid into office.
Way to go, people who didn't do their homework on his equally slimey background! Do you think Hillary would have sold this health care bill down the river? I'll give you a hint: NO!
If it cheers you up to fantasize that the Gorgon Clinton would've been other than an equivalent neoliberal ally of the banksters and corporations, you go right ahead.
Our Founders had no way of anticipating the eventual rise of a criminal class of "corporate lawyers", or they would've written the Constitution to prevent government by corporate lawyer-- our present form of government, and manifestly as corrupt and parasitic as any monarchy.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Good comment! It's always so funny to call Hillary a Gorgon! It works for any feminazi as Rush knows! HAAAhaaahaaahaaa! Can't stop guffawing! :D
Bennifer, I'm happy to be a big, fat bullseye hosting your little gadfly shtick.
If it cheers you up to fancy yourself as a heroic popper of overinflated, pompous, irritating rhetorical balloons with a single meta-comment thrust of a tiny, passive-aggressive pin, knock yourself out!
This was a common approach during the campaign, typically from commenters who simply lacked the intellectual and rhetorical chops to engage on the merits.
They sometimes achieved a fleeting success in numbers, and may even have prompted sympathetic administrators to delete and ban contributors. Again: knock yourself out!
With luck, you'll at least be rewarded with the virtual high-fives from your peers that's the point of your exercise.
· Yr Obd't Servant
You're the most fun commenter for all of us to learn from, with all the big words and stuff. Debaters who want to win an argument often demand that others speak only to an identified point, and insist that any other issues are peripheral and wrong-headed. But thanks for your kind advice and permission! ;)
Alex01 I disagree with you about Clinton. What's the difference between Obama and Clinton? A skirt and white skin. Nothing else. Don't you know that she's bought off from the insurance and pharma just like Obama?
So the insurance companies will be in charge of more people's deaths, meanwhile the bishops celebrate by being put in charge of the insurance companies' coverage of women's health, thus celebrating their culture of 'life'.
The O in Obama is a digit not a letter.
And if I hear 'the perfect is the enemy of the good' one more time . . .
why do you folks continue to refer to washington as our
government? this is not government. is is a entity that has
constructed to let all those with money and power to do
whatever it likes. if men could become pregnant this would
never have happened and abortion would become a miracle.
those of you here find someone that you can vote for and
just don't give money- volunteer. this is just the first
thing that will go many more are about to follow!
Perhaps it's because kleptocracy is still a form of government.
"Dems Sell Women’s Rights Down River Of Health Care Denial"
Let's get this straight. It was CONSERVATIVE Dems that sold womens rights down that river. The libs had to deal, or lose the entire bill to conservative Dems and Repugs.
It's that ALL of DEM are being blackmailed by whatever Bush learned on DEM by his illegal wiretapping, now shared with all his reactionary support groups to insure these continued DEM cave-ins, now going on three years since the Bushists took "a Whuppin'" McSame; McDeferent. Can't you SEE the CHANGE? It's BLACK from WHITE!
The Democrats have become sadistic misogynists like the Christo-Corporate Republicans.
It's sure getting easier to be Green!
Maybe the new healthcare plan should cut both ways: no care for pregnant women with unwanted babies. To make it fair, let's cut men's benefits equally: no coverage for accidents men get involved in as well as no coverage for prostate cancer. Wonder how the bishops would react to that?
A recent science study concluded that most prostate cancers are due to prior STD's like gonorrhea. Another reason to deny men coverage.
If the Catholic Bishops, guardians of public morality and fans of little boys want to be fair, how about denying coverage to the guy that got the girl pregnant also?
The USCCB has spoken eloquently and often in defense of those least able to speak for themselves. They will never support federal funding of genocide by a group that considers pregnancy a bothersome disease. Americans, especially our youth, are realizing that a child deserves our love and compassion in all stages of life. The hardened hearts of pro-abortion advocates would change if allowed to see our littlest citizens through ultra-sound, moving happily in the secure and nurturing womb they themselves once experienced as ultimate ....
Peace
Translation; we need more cannon fodder. Women do your duty!
and under the new system men should be denied viagra and these types of drugs.
where is hillary when you need her. she would not take this shit lying down.
if nothing else she would have fought tooth and ail over this! if they want to restrict
women's rights they should restrict men's ability to be able to make babies!
these old bastards in washington would flip over these restrictions.
next up will be birth control watch.we are a fourth world nation on a keel
with pakistan and their cave dwelling neighbors! i'm a man and i'm severely disturbed
over the way its going with this. these neo cons are effectively trying to force
woman back into the 18th century!
Marian Cole
The people who sold Women's Health Care down the drain make me sick.
They have no idea of the degree of human suffering they are pushing. SHAME!! SHAME!!
I worked in an era when desperate women resorted to knitting needles, lye douches and wire coat hangars in alleys and dirty back rooms and in the dirty hands of charlatans with little or no anesthesia to seek care that they could not get in the daylight, in a safe clinic with Psychological Assistance and support. Anyone responsible for sending women back to that needs to look in the mirror and say "Gee whiz I maimed and maybe killed another worthless woman". This is how this Legislation feels to me.
the forces of good have won the day. It was a fair and bipartisan decision. I salute the good Democrats that did this. They deserve to be commended. If you don't want to get pregnant, there are ways to avoid that you know? I double salute the pro-lifers in the Democrat party.