Last Call

Yet another episode of What Digby Said on the matter of US Catholic Bishops trying to get 60 votes in the Senate to put Bart Stupak's final amendment in the reconciliation part of the health care bill.  It would take 60 votes in the Senate in order to waive the point of order that the Stupak language is not germane to the budget part of reconciliation.

Reconciliation for me but not for thee ...

It looks to me as if the play is to force all the Senate Democrats, along with just a couple of Republicans, to accept the Stupak language. The pro-choice senators know that at this late stage, if they even utter a peep of protest they will be excoriated for being selfish, obstructionist divas, unlike the deeply principled forced childbirth zealots who are only following their consciences. They must do this to themselves, as a sort of ritual self-sacrifice, for it to be meaningful.

I would expect to see every Democrat in the Senate acquiesce to this only to have whichever Republican had previously agreed to vote for it back out at the last minute. After all, after forcing these pro-choice Senators to cave on their principles time and time again, if the bill is defeated anyway, it will be the sweetest conservative victory ever.

Dday is right that this is a massive power play on the part of the Catholic bishops who, last I heard, were elected to nothing. But in the larger narrative, it serves the purpose that members of the ruling class all agree must be served: liberals must eat shit at every single step of this process or it cannot be seen as legitimate by Real Americans who, by definition, are against anything godless liberal freaks believe in.

This is something we should keep in mind going forward. Next time, they should be sure to put in some items for the sole purpose of having them stripped out. We'll all agree in advance to howl and scream when they remove our beloved subsidies for oral sex instruction and mandatory jail terms for global warming deniers. Maybe that will satisfy them enough that the Democrats won't feel the need to further sacrifice our true principles.

If that doesn't happen, though, next time it's the fella's turn to give up some of their bodily integrity for the greater good. I'm thinking maybe they will agree to a law that requires them to seek permission from their wives and/or mothers before they have a vasectomy. Seems only fair.

To sum up, we're looking at the end of elective abortion coverage in health insurance because it would be priced out of the market.  Any plan that had elective coverage for the procedure would not be eligible for any subsidies, most of which are provided right now by employers.  That would end under the Stupak language.

The problem is the Senate version of the bill already does this.

Never mind that the federal government already subsidizes abortions through the employer deduction for coverage that almost always includes reproductive choice. Never mind that the Nelson compromise in the Senate bill would probably do exactly what the Stupak amendment does, because the requirement of two separate payments – one for your health insurance and one for the portion that covers abortion services – “would be cumbersome for insurers and objectionable to customers.” Never mind that Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst for the Urban Institute, said that “There will not be abortion coverage in the exchanges. There just won’t be.” Never mind that the design of two separate payments singles out insurers who offer abortion coverage, opening them up to anti-choice protests. Never mind that under the bill, employer-based coverage is meant to move to the exchanges over time, as the eligibility for the exchanges expand, meaning that this restriction in the individual and small-group markets will eventually be brought to everyone. And never mind even that Ben Nelson, who authored the Senate version, “tried to figure out language that would be as close to Stupak as you could be without repeating the language,” according to his spokesman.

The plan here is to effectively end abortion as a medical reproductive health procedure and classify it completely in the elective surgery category.  The goal here is to make abortions so impossible to get that they simply don't happen...unless you can afford one.

Abortion is not a choice I would personally make.  Then again, I'm not a pregnant woman, and the right isn't trying to criminalize my reproductive system either.  It amazes me that the same people that scream Obama is the most criminally fascist President of all time ever are completely fine with the government telling their daughters, sisters, mothers, nieces, wives and themselves that if you get pregnant, you no longer have control over your body, and that if you behave in a manner that "threatens your unborn" you are a criminal who can be prosecuted.

We slaughter civilians in the Middle East, and at the same time, Utah is looking to criminalize a miscarriage as a felony.

Our country is broken.