"How is it that judicial approval is required when the United States decides to target a U.S. citizen overseas for electronic surveillance, but ... judicial scrutiny is prohibited when the United States decides to target a U.S. citizen overseas for death?"
That's just one of many intriguing questions raised -- but not answered -- by the D.C. District Court today in its decision dismissing the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, a challenge to the government's authorization to kill a U.S. citizen allegedly tied to Al Qaeda overseas. Ultimately, the court won't answer any of these critical questions because it decided that Al-Awlaki's father lacks standing to sue, since he's not directly harmed by the U.S. action.
Significantly, though, Judge John Bates did not dismiss the case on the merits. Instead, he went out of his way to write that the case raises important legal questions regarding whether the government can target its own citizen for death in a foreign country without so much as a hearing to determine that he's done anything wrong.
When the Stupak language didn't make it into the health insurance reform bill, it was presented as a great victory for reproductive rights. Though really, the Nelson amendment from the Senate bill is no better, and is just as brutal to the reproductive rights of women to an abortion as the Stupak amendment.
Insurance companies will respond to the Nelson amendment the same way they would have reacted to the Stupak amendment. Operationally they are the same. Maybe more, it sets the stage for the anti-choice forces to vigorously campaign against women on a state by state basis.
Secondly I need to make it clearer because Monday night on TV there were 2 women I admire - Rachel Maddow and Rep Jan Schakowsky underplaying the actual impact of what the passage of the Nelson amendment would mean to women. I understand and I sympathize. Sailing between Scylla and Charybdis is a hard and dangerous place to be.
Jan Schakowsky and Diana De Gette, chair of the House Pro-choice Caucus were stalwart in doing as much as they could to minimize the impact of the President's offer of an Executive Order to Bart Stupak. An offer that was initiated by the White House to Bart Stupak so the White House would be certain that there would be more than enough votes to pass the health care bill. Cong. De Gette made it clear to the WH that the Order must not codify the odious Hyde Amendment. Negotiating with the White House, they tried to limit its reach and its scope. It they hadn't been in the mix, the Executive Order that Bart Stupal proposed was much broader and it could have stood.
The Executive order is in 2 parts. First is the iteration of Hyde, however in addition there is an extensive process by which HHS nails down the actual implementation of the Nelson amendment. Ameliorating the huge impact of Nelson becomes a very big rock to roll up the hill and may be next to impossible.
The White House's press release proudly admits that it goes further in terms of "safeguards". "Safeguards" for making sure that Nelson is so effective that women will have next to no access to abortion coverage in insurance. A very odd choice of words to be coming from a supposedly pro-choice President. Safeguarding anti-choice measures instead of safeguarding women's legal and moral right to an abortion.
So some say the executive order is only symbolic. As though that is such a paltry, trivial matter. A contretemps, much ado about nothing...Even if it was only symbolic, (which it is not) symbols matter. Electing the first African American man was also symbolic ---a meaningful and motivating symbol.
Saying the Nelson amendment observes Hyde while Stupak went beyond Hyde is just not the point. The theory behind Stupak always went beyond Hyde. The theory behind Nelson just goes around Hyde but make no bones about it- it is as JUST DESTRUCTIVE TO ABORTION COVERAGE UNDER PRIVATE INSURANCE AS STUPAK.
Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a decision that made a pregnant woman's life and health worth as much as a farm animal's, and put her autonomy in the law equal with the respect paid to the wishes a dead organ donor. How's that working out on the ground? Frederick Clarkson writes to tell us from RH Reality Check:
... In addition to the silence in the political arena, Zurek points to the silence in the health care system in which abortion is not integrated into the training of health care professionals; "because it is so stigmatized," she says. This same culture of stigmatization causes many patients to avoid even talking with their regular physicians about it, preferring instead "specialized settings" like Planned
Parenthood.
As a result, access to abortion care is a significant problem of health care delivery in the U.S. A major study by the Guttmacher Institute found that some 87% of counties in the U.S. lack a single abortion provider. ...
As Clarkson points out, increased access to abortion services isn't part of any of the healthcare plans floating around DC. It isn't in the Religious Industrial Complex's policy agenda. Thirty-six years later, women's right to comprehensive reproductive healthcare is the elephant. Either the white elephant it's clear some Democrats would love to get rid of, or the pink elephant they pretend not to see.
And that's a shame. Literally. It reinforces the idea that reproductive healthcare is shameful, something we should be afraid to talk about unless we're saying something negative. Whereas, all aspects of reproductive healthcare need to be recognized as necessary and normal. Even if some procedures are more like a triple bypass surgery or hip replacement, in that you hope they aren't needed but recognize that they must be available for those who require them.
On January 22, 2001, one of former President Bush's first acts of office, on one of his first full days in office, was to institute the global gag rule. This prohibited federal funds being used to support organizations that provided or spoke about abortion services, cutting off access to reproductive healthcare to some of the poorest women in the world. This reversal of Clinton's policy, itself a reversal of George H.W. Bush's policy, was a big news event in the Bush White House. They were proud of it and they wanted everyone to know.
Here's hoping, on this fine, anniversary morning, that when Obama signs the reversal of Bush's order, he's just as proud of that stance as his predecessor was of his.
STATE BLOGS
