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House Passes HR 358, the "Let Women Die" Act of 2011
On Thursday, the GOP-led House of Representatives, with the blessings and encouragement of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops and extremist religious groups such as the Family Research Council, passed a bill in a vote of 251 to 172 that would, among other things, allow doctors and hospitals to "exercise their conscience" by letting pregnant women facing emergency medical conditions die.
Yes. Die.
This is what the Republicans called the "Protect Life Act." And no, I am not kidding.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called it what it is... "a savage assault on women's health."
Fifteen Democrats voted for what women's groups are calling the "Let Women Die" Act. These include anti-choice Congressmen Jason Altmire (PA), Sanford Bishop (GA), Dan Boren (OK), Jerry Costello (IL), Mark Critz (PA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Joe Donnelly (IN), Tim Holden (PA), Dan Lipinski (IL), Jim Matheson (UT), Mike McIntyre (NC), Nick Rahall (WVA), Mike Ross (AR), Collin Petersen (MN), and Heath Shuler (D-NC).
"Extremists prevailed today in the House of Representatives," said Debra Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families, "proving again that they are badly out-of-touch with the majority of Americans who want lawmakers to focus on economic recovery, jobs and promoting, rather than restricting, affordable, quality health care -- not [on] an extreme, anti-woman agenda."
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called passage of the bill yet another reminder of how playing politics with women’s health and privacy is a priority for Speaker John Boehner.
“Americans are facing real challenges, yet House Speaker John Boehner is ignoring the public’s call for Congress to focus on jobs, “said Keenan. “Instead, he is coming up with new ways to give politicians more control over our personal, private decisions. The House’s attacks on women’s freedom and privacy are out of touch with our nation’s values and priorities.”
The bill, H.R. 358, about which we have written extensively, revives the earlier failed Stupak amendment, which would force health plans to drop comprehensive coverage in state health insurance exchanges, cutting off millions of women from the benefits they receive today and prevent women from paying for health insurance with abortion coverage with their own money.
H.R. 358 contains other provisions revealing complete disregard for women's health and lives. It permits states to enact sweeping refusal laws that would allow health plans to refuse to cover women’s preventive services, including birth control, without cost-sharing — undoing a new protection under health reform supported by 66 percent of Americans. It also codifies and significantly expands an already expansive refusal clause (also known as the Weldon amendment) without any regard for patient rights or protections. Under current law (through the 2004 Weldon amendment), hospitals, health care facilities, and insurance plans can refuse to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions. The Weldon amendment has no protections for patients to ensure they have access to care and information in a timely manner. H.R. 358 codifies this unfair and discriminatory provision. H.R. 358 further allows health care entities--hospitals, clinics--to refuse to "participate in" abortion care. This could mean that a hospital employee with no medical training or role in a patient’s treatment decisions could refuse to process bills, handle medical records, or even set up an examination room for a patient seeking abortion care.
And finally, it overrides protections for pregnant women under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. EMTALA was enacted in 1986 to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay, including women in active labor. Under EMTALA, hospitals must stabilize a pregnant patient who, for example, is facing an emergency obstetric condition or life-threatening pregnancy and either treat her--including an emergency abortion--or if the hospital or staff objects, to transfer her to another facility that will treat her.
H.R. 358 overturns decades of precedent guaranteeing people access to lifesaving emergency care, including abortion care and says its ok that a pregnant woman fighting for her life be left to die.
Read it again. It is that breathtaking.
As Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) stated during floor debate, had this law been in effect 20 years ago she might not be here, because she was one of those women who needed an emergency abortion to save her life.
But the real lives of real women don't seem to be of great concern to the predominantly white male Congress.
“This bill is a collection of dangerous ideas that will undermine women’s health,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Most devastating, the bill eliminates protections for patients seeking care in emergency circumstances, and would allow a hospital to deny lifesaving abortion care to a woman, even if a doctor deems it necessary.”
President Obama has said he would veto the bill if it were to reach his desk. "The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 358," said the statement of policy put out by the White House, "because, as previously stated in the Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 3, the legislation intrudes on women's reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today."
"America’s women and families are counting on the Senate to reject this measure," said Ness of the National Partnership, "and, if necessary, for President Obama to make good on his promise to veto it.”
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91 Comments so far
Show AllIt has become urgently necessary to send Ms. Liberty back to France. What are you waiting for Mr. President?
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If any of these 'moral' medical doctors accepts even a single cent of my federal, state, or local tax he/she is obliged to help these women which is what I demand. You 'moral' doctors cannot have it both ways namely accepting money from atheists like me to make a living and then turn around and betray our contributions to your income.
So, just how much do Americans hate women?
Nice Deflection/Distraction! Why don't you go down to the South or Midwest and find out Blockhead! You know that the REpubs in Kansas, etc, completely removed all social programs for the poor, especially poor women? What alternate reality are you living in?!??!
Well said!
Wow, Mobius, you sure read a lot into my one line! First of all, I'm not American. I do not live in the United States. I live in a country where, as a woman, I have equal rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Perhaps that's my alternate reality. American women do not even have the guarantee of equality under the law with the failure of ERA. Only a country that hates women could pass such a law as this. Will Obama save you? Who knows?
This is nothing but a blatant attempt to fund raise. Do you REALLY think that the republicans have ANY interest in actually outlawing abortion? NOT A CHANCE. They get more money off of that one topic than any other weapon in their arsenal, they don't WANT to kill it off. If they had EVER been serious about it, they would have done so when they held the house, senate AND the presidency. NOT a word about it then, was there? now when they KNOW they won't get it passed in either the senate or the presidency, they pass a dozen things about it. This is nothing but a charade to steal even more money from the FOOLS who give them money over this.
This is message from the hard right christians. In essence it states "We believe so much in the rights of the unborn that we are willing to kill their mothers. Which will also kill the fetoe-American... I mean, we support the unborn American's right to life, libert.... umm, I mean, well, I guess I'm trying to say it that dumb slut's fault for getting knocked up in the first place. Ummmm.... oh, JEBUS SAVES!"
You've fallen into a trap.
You should get out. ;)
If women and young men would just stop having sex with lawmakers, things would change quickly.
I doubt if the Lysistrata solution would work today. The lawmakers can always find alcohol.
Or Rohypnol (sp) if they're even more evil than usual.
"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called it what it is... "a savage assault on women's health."
Don't think because she said this, she's "a liberal". "A conservative", a real conservative, would say the same. That's how fascist-extreme this bill really is.
Didn't Obama already sell out women and limit/negate abortion in high-risk pools that provide coverage for sick people who can't get insurance?
I found the following on the Kaiser News website -- July 2010 -- directly from their news report at:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2010/July/16/Abortion-politics.aspx
"Elective abortion services will not be covered in state high-risk pools set up to provide coverage for sick people who can't get insurance, according to Obama administration officials," CQ HealthBeat reports. "The statement came following reports that abortion could be permitted in some states under proposals submitted for the pools." An HHS spokeswoman offered the statement "after anti-abortion groups said earlier this week that an executive order by President Obama banning federal financing of most abortions under the new health care law was being subverted in states such as Pennsylvania. The president's promise to issue the order was key to obtaining the support of anti-abortion Democrats such as Bart Stupak of Michigan for passage of the health care law" (Norman, 7/15/2010).
From The Hill: Planned Parenthood "is slamming" the administration for the restriction. Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the group is "deeply disappointed" with the decision. "'The very women who need to purchase private health insurance in the new high-risk pools are likely to be more vulnerable to medically complicated pregnancies,' Richards added. 'It is truly harmful to these women that the administration may impose limits on how they use their own private dollars, limiting their health care options at a time when they need them most. This decision has no basis in the law and flies in the face of the intent of the high-risk pools that were meant to meet the medical needs of some of the most vulnerable women in this country'" (Pecquet, 7/15/2010).
Remember Bart Stupak, Democrat from Michigan?
The new bill just takes this issue further -- they just keep chipping away!
Its not gonna pass the Senate.
And if it does, Obama is going to veto it.
No "chipping away" at anything here other than citizen's genuine democratic will.
The fact that it's not going to pass the senate doesn't detract from the point that the suggestion of the law is contemptuous. It is rather a nasty thing to tell someone that a group of old folks who run the hospital is going to have the final say on your survival. Especially when it's a minor and inexpensive treatment; and not say cancer.
HR 358 - the "Boycott Sex" Act.
"Obama vows to veto this bill"
Just another reason Progressives and Democrats who claim they are progressive to vote for Obama, see he's not as bad as those hateful Republicans
When election time comes around they will all line up and do their duty and vote Democrat. Cynical? Take a poll yourself of every self described liberal-progressive you know and ask them if they would vote for Obama in 2012
"a savage assault on women's health.".........a savage assault on Social Security..........a savage assault on Medicare & Medicaid.........basically, a savage assault on anything and everything that's not attached to some form of financial predatory interest. ......
Let's say for a hypothetical moment that the Senate and Obama were to let this filthy shit masquerading as a bona fide resolution for potential legislation pass.
I for one will lend my support in any way imaginable, to the overthrow of the legislation and of the white male misogynist, racist, anti-human, anti-intellectual scum masquerading as members of Congress. You fucking betcha.
What is truly incredible is how, while the Occupy movement is growing and galvanizing people around the kind of shit that matters - which, in a real country where the 'lawmakers' gave a goddamn about the people, as opposed to the excuse for a country that the U.S. has become, would be producing ACTION TO SAVE THE U.S. FROM ITSELF - these pieces of right wing shit in the House are focussed on killing women and ramping up their feudal agenda.
Simply fucking incredible. They should all be arrested, in a Peoples' Action.
I have had a goddamn bellyful of these parasitic arseholes and their mediaeval ideas, and if this shit that they put forth as a resolution passes the Senate by some remote chance, to say that I'll be pissed off and ready to mobilize will be putting it mildly. I do not propose to put up with this assault on women and humanity for another fucking minute.
There will yet be full-scale civil war over this kind of thing in What's left Of The United States, and if that's what it takes to eradicate this pseudo-religious, pseudo-christian fascist element, THEN BRING IT THE FUCK ON.
There are alternatives you know, it takes more that a law to make women stupid.
DITTO TIMES A THOUSAND!
Sorta depressing to see the majority of commenters duped by this crap. ;(
If women are going to use hospital to deliver a baby, they should check the policies of the hospital in question.(especially catholic hospitals and it has been that way for a long time even if you didn't know it) There are alternatives (and much better alternatives) birthing centers that support and celebrate women. Those pukes in congress make me feel sick just having to consider their patriarchal interests in a woman's uterus.
The author states that "H.R. 358 overturns decades of precedent guaranteeing people access to lifesaving emergency care, including abortion care and says its ok that a pregnant woman fighting for her life be left to die.", but the bill, if I understand its abstruse legal language correctly, allows federal funding of abortions under the following circumstances:
(A) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or
(B) in the case where a pregnant female suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the female in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.
The author's claim does not seem to be justified. The bill also forbids the federal government from requiring health care plans to cover abortion services, but the older bill that it modifies alread did that. The current bill adds a phrase forbidding "the Secretary or any other Federal or non-Federal person or entity in implementing this Act" to require coverage of abortion services.
Whatever one thinks of the bill and abortion issues in general, the author's description of the bill doesn't seem to be accurate. If I've misinterpreted the language of the bill (which is quite possible - I only read select portions of it, and the legal language makes my head spin), perhaps someone can clarify it.
My sources:
H.R. 358: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-358
H.R. 3509 (which is modified by H.R. 358): http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-3590
If Congress were run by women instead of a bunch of old farts with their shorts in a wad it would be 'turn-about is fair play' to waste time discussing manadory vasectomies for all males. When choices are eliminated from Democracy we no longer live in a free environment. If the evangelicals feel this strongly about abortion then that is their free choice, do not have an abortion no matter what the cost, but do not impose your freedom of choice on the rest of us who may feel differently and do not impose your free will on our legislature. Many of us have different values for different reasons but we do not try to legislate our values to be forced onto others who do not agree with us. It is just fine if you do not believe in abortion. That it your choice. However, your convictions do not correspond with the whole world. In your world of 'our God is better than all of the other Gods in the whole world' you place yourself in a very small world that is isolated from the idea that there just might be only one God and that he might just be more benevolent than you give him credit for.
There isn't just a class war going on in this country. There is also a SEX war going on here, with the male sex declaring war on us. So, I suggest that we take a leaf from LYSISTRATA, where women withheld sex until a war ended in a male-dominated world.
Why not the same thing for women's rights and women's health???
I am of the male sex and I promise I haven't declared war on anyone. ;)
As for withholding relations...
What about homosexuality?
No good the women holding out if the men are getting it on with the men -as many are.
Why are you idiot-bombing this thread?
The anti-choice bill HR 358 is an abomination for all women everywhere and shows the true colors of the RIGHT which does not in any way represent my views on this most personal decision.
Those who support these ugly views have no place in the public domain except to showcase their truly ugly views both on the Right to Choice or Human Rights in general.
HR 358 needs to be shredded in all its ugly form and those who voted for it should lose their jobs including Health Care.
These are the same elected politicians who have health care insurance but are willing to deny coverage to those citizens who have no health insurance. Remember they want to axe Obamacare. This is really hypocrisy at its absolute worse.
Do you shout "Murderers! Arrest them!" during Act III of Julius Caeser as well? ;)
Too, too much bordering on Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I keep looking at my credit cards and debit card wondering if they DO contain a code to say this card belongs to a female and can be canceled at any time.
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of dystopy, of thee I grieve.
Many good points here to be sure but what's just important to look at is the agenda...you know, T he N ew W orld O rder....Daddy Bush spoke of. So what is the agenda the front group, Pr oject for a N ew A mericun C entury has in store for us here in the us? That life as we know it is changing rapidly all around us is proof positive it's proceeding as planned...but what is planned?
The thinning out of the herd.
What's with this author's implication that this legislation is the fault of "white male" congressional domination? This has nothing to do with white men. This is the result of political deference to a multiracial/multi gender evangelical and Catholic fundamentalism that is trying to drive us back to the 17th century. Pleanty of white men oppose this reactionary religious force but dividing the left by race and gender - racialism and genderism - is a good way to ensure its ultimate success. When are feminists going to learn who their real enemies are?
Well said!
Once again, it's a *class* issue - the rich will always be able to get decent gynaecological services.
Women *and* men can, and must, fight this reactionary barbarism together!
Let's give proper attention to women's health - as part of the struggle for free quality health care for *all*!
I have always lived in areas where there were a lot of Catholics, and from my experience, most Catholics don't take certain dictums by the church seriously. I don't know too many Catholics who would stand pat and not save a woman's life due to their religious conscience. Living where I do now, in the buckle of the bible belt, I think it is Protestant fundamentalists who would be more likely to take a self-righteous attitude and stand by their "Christian conscience."
I can't imagine anyone in their right mind thinking it is better to kill a live human being, who may have other children, rather than abort a blob of protoplasm that will die with the mother anyway. I don't believe in heaven and hell, but if I did, I'm quite sure that people who would stand by and allow a person to die would find themselves on the "down" elevator after their own demise.