Going after the Hyde Amendment

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 20:00


In my diary "Congresswoman Diana DeGette Talks About Her Letter & Blocking The Stupak Amendment", Michele Kelly noted:

Just for the record

There is a coalition working on Hyde.

http://www.hyde30years.nnaf.org/

That's their banner up above.  You can click on it to go to their website (in a new window). In one of their flyers, they explain:

Today, women forgo food, risk eviction, and pawn their possessions as they attempt to raise money for an abortion. Some are forced to continue the pregnancy, abandon their education and stay trapped in poverty.

Women face these difficult situations because the government denies abortion funding to women in need.

  • In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding for abortion. The only exceptions are in cases of rape, incest, and danger to the life of the woman. Most states have also banned state Medicaid funding for abortion.
  • Before the Hyde Amendment, federal Medicaid covered over one-third of all abortions. Since 1977 it has paid for virtually none.
  • Congress also denies abortion coverage to military personnel and their families, women receiving care from Indian Health Services, and people on disability insurance.

If the fight over the Stupak Amendment is to have any positive effect, then surely the most significant form that could take would be to further invigorate the struggle to repeal the Hyde Amendment, whose message is quite clear: if you're a woman, you can be so poor, that you don't even own your own body.  And, really, most women didn't need the Hyde Amendment to tell them that.

It's a barbarous law and it's time to repeal it.
Paul Rosenberg :: Going after the Hyde Amendment

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Going after the Hyde Amendment | 22 comments
back to the future (4.00 / 2)
It's been so long since either systemic poverty or the people who have to endure it has been taken seriously in America it's hard to imagine a successful campaign to overturn Hyde. To be poor in America is to be forgotten. To be a poor woman is to be nearly invisible. Spend some time watching The Wire [or the 2008 presidential campaigns] and you'll see just how insurrmountable this particular mountain is. And with the Democratic leadership increasingly at the beck and call of the DLC/Bilderberg agenda, it's almost unimaginable that change [let alone audacious change] will come from these folks.

The sad fact is that real change must come from below. Sad because change here is simply not being organized. At least not at the level it needs to be. At 60 years of age I was deeply embedded in the street movements that prevailed in the 60s and 70s. And as a child I watched the Civil Rights movement give birth to them all.

Where is that today? How much worse do things have to get? And why are the few mass movements that are gaining traction coming from the right? Why are they still able to dupe the "bitter" Archie Bunker working class dittoheads to join them instead?

Add D.C. residents, federal employees and inmates of federal prisons (4.00 / 1)
to the groups who are denied funding for abortion.

From an article on the Hyde campaign site - accessed through a link on the right hand side titled "Media about the Campaign"
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs...

Currently, FEHBP [Federal Employees Health Benefits Program]funds cannot be used to pay for insurance coverage of abortion, except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest.

Poor Women in the District of Colombia
• Some 27,000 women in the District of Colombia depend on Medicaid for their health care. To qualify for Medicaid, women who are working parents must have an income below 207% of the federal poverty level (roughly $35,540 for a family of three in 2007).

• Because Congress has ultimate authority over all District government spending and operations, Congress has been able to bar the District from using locally raised revenues for abortion, except in cases involving life, rape or incest, a policy which has been in place since 1989.

Talk about perpetuating cycles of poverty! It is truly mind boggling that our national policy breeds poor people.

And the Supreme Court upheld Hyde:

In June 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of congressional restrictions on abortion funding in Harris v. McRae. The court ruled that the Hyde Amendment did not violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution, declaring that "a woman's freedom of choice [does not carry] with it a constitutional entitlement to the financial resources to avail herself of the full range of protected choices."

It's by no means a sure thing that Stupak will be stripped from the final version of the health care reform bill. It is a significant expansion of Hyde - that companies participating on the health insurance exchange created by the legislation would not be permitted to offer abortion coverage.

Here is a statement by Planned Parenthood that appeared in the Hill newspaper.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-...

"The Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all. In fact, this amendment would create a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and middle incomes, the very people this bill is intended to assist. The majority of private health insurance plans currently offer abortion coverage, and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the 'exchange,' the new insurance market created under health care reform, as well as in the public option, if one is created.

The Susan B. Anthony List - founded in 1992 and reformed in 1997 is the anti-choice counterpart to Emily's List, which supports pro-choice women candidates running for office.

The SBA List had this to say in the same Hill article:

The Susan B. Anthony List urges the Senate to follow suit:

"Tonight the House of Representatives made a principled and politically sound decision to continue our nation's longstanding policy of protecting taxpayers' conscience in the area of abortion funding.   We urge the Senate to follow suit.  We will remain vigilant, and shift our efforts to the Senate to ensure that these same pro-life protections are added to the Senate bill.

People will be working to keep Stupak in the final health care bill.

I hate to say defeat the stupid bill over this, but what else to do!

IF Stu-Pid-Pak Cleans Out Deadwood "Leadership" (4.00 / 1)
of the progressives who got their political asses handed to them on this crap,

that would at least be a win.

I PROMISE that over 80% of Americans do NOT want:

1. YOUR minister, priest, guru, rabbi, reverand, deacon, iman, yogi ... in their bedroom dictating anything,
2. YOUR minister, priest, guru, rabbi, reverand, deacon, iman, yogi ... in their doctor's office dictating procedures or drugs,
3. YOUR minister, priest, guru, rabbi, reverand, deacon, iman, yogi ... in their kid's school room dictating curriculum,

WHY are the Stu-Pid-Paks so successful with their 13th century proposals - cuz the "Leaders" on ha ha ha

"our" side are politically pathetic, on their best day.

rmm.  

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

Politically pathetic (4.00 / 2)
and and, I can't think of a better way to say it.
[ Parent ]
I'm not so sure (0.00 / 0)
The polling data is skimpy, but I suspect that 2/3 of Americans probably support the Hyde Amendment.

I would really like to see a reputable polling agency ask about the Hyde Amendment.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
Who gives a damn if they do? (4.00 / 2)
Two-thirds of Americans supported slavery at one point, too, that doesn't make it right.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
In Fact (4.00 / 2)
That's pretty much the point.

If all you do is fight the "winnable" fights, you're never taking on the really big ones.  

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
My point is (0.00 / 0)
That anyone who thinks this is something that will cause a revolt at the polls is greatly mis-reading the shape of public opinion.  If you want to support policy positions that probably go against the wishes of a super-majority of Americans, you should be interested in having an accurate picture of what you are up against rather than taking a Bush-like stance of believing in your own righteousness and not caring what anyone else thinks.

I strongly suspect that the Stupak amendment is nowhere near the straw that breaks the camel's back that some people online suggest it is and that this won't create some sort of progressive revolution at the polls.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
A super majority is pro-choice. (0.00 / 0)
The Stupak amendment means nothing to you because you are pro-forced childbirth. Of course you're not going to be able to understand what it means to normal people.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Actually-sadly- recent polls point to that no longer being the case, (4.00 / 1)
but, of course, that keys into just what Paul is making the case for here- that the repeated ceding of "moral" ground by Dems has had disastrous consequences. That shift didn't happen by accident. Our "side" completely lost message control and rolled over all to often.
[ Parent ]
But it depends on how the question is asked. (0.00 / 0)
Yeah, I know there have been some recent polls that asked the questions in a mushy, unclear way, allowing the results to be spun in a negative way, but that doesn't make them true.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Probably that's the case. But just the fact that there's been no pushback (4.00 / 1)
there- no major polls commissioned by pro-choice group with better phrasing- says something in of itself, I tend to think.  
[ Parent ]
True. (0.00 / 0)
Stupid veal pen.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Don't be an idiot (0.00 / 0)
If you look at the polls, it's fairly clear that most Americans believe that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances while at the same time a majority of Americans believe that abortion should be more restricted than it is now.  

My analysis is that that there exists a middle ground in public opinion that supports abortions that are "medically necessary" but oppose abortions for non-medical reasons.  This middle section has generally supported Roe v Wade (which holds that there is a legitimate state interest in protecting prenatal life and that a right to an abortion is not absolute).  The moderate stance has generally stood with the pro-choice rather than pro-life side when given a forced choice of all-or-none (or almost none) on the legality of abortion.

I'm confident that I am better than you in describing the shape of public opinion.  Don't shoot the messenger just because I'm telling you something you don't want to hear.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
And I'm confident (0.00 / 0)
that you are full of it.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
Possibly a relevant number would be that 48% are against providing (0.00 / 0)
abortion funding in the health care bill. That's not two thirds.
[ Parent ]
Can you point me in the direction of that poll? (0.00 / 0)
I've been having problems finding polling on abortion funding and I don't think I have seen that number yet.  The only data point I have is a questionable 2008 Zogby poll which claims that 69% of Americans (and a majority of Democrats).  I haven't seen any progressive groups commissioning polls to examine this issue; I don't know if it is because it is too soon or I haven't looked enough or because they know it will be bad news for the pro-choice side.  You'll notice that, in any public debate, a side seems to cite poll numbers when they have the support of the majority of the public and phrase things in terms of rights when in the minority (or just outright lie about the polls if you are Republicans).

Considering that apparently only 35% of Americans approved of Obama's executive order lifting the prohibition on federal funds going to family planning groups overseas that offer abortion or abortion-counseling, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a similar minority that actively wants to lift the Hyde Amendment.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
There's another benefit, as well. (4.00 / 3)
Seems like our biggest problem is that fact that a sinking GOP has left the rats of the corporatocracy scrambling to board the Democratic Party. Isn't that the real story of healthcare reform? It is an attempt by the Democratic party elites to take campaign donations from insurance and pharma away from Republicans and secure them for themselves.

But sacrificing a few blue dogs keeps that from happening. The corporations will have to continue splitting their gifts, keeping the two elites focussed on each other, and giving us a chance to pick them off from the rear.

Blue dogs depend on the Democratic base to watch their backs in a general election -- this time we don't do it.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
What would a "Medicare For All" plan (0.00 / 0)
Look like with the Hyde Amendment entrenched?  (I suspect Stupak actually would have preferred to allow people to buy into Medicare rather than the current bill.)

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
Like evil. (4.00 / 1)
Forced childbirth is wrong. Always.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
When we repeal the Hyde Amendment, (4.00 / 1)
is there a Congressman Jekyll we can name the repeal amendment after?

Join the fight to give students a real voice on campus: Forstudentpower.org.
We Can Start Looking For One Right Now! (0.00 / 0)
Never too early!

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent ]
Going after the Hyde Amendment | 22 comments
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