Pro-Choice Activists May Need to Compromise on Senate Health Care Bill

The Senate Health Care Refom bill (the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," H.R. 3590), which begins debate on November 30, 2009, thankfully stripped away the pro-life abortion language found in the House's controversial Stupak Amendment.

Instead, the Senate health care bill, which was unanimously supported by Senate Democrats for discussion and debate, replaced onerous Stupak Amendment prohibitions with mandates consistent with the Hyde Amendment, which has promulgated simply since 1976 about the use of federal funds:

"None of the funds... shall be expended for any abortion except when it is made known to the federal entity or official to which funds are appropriated under this Act that such procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother or that the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest."

The House's Stupak Amendment rightfully riled up pro-choice activists by expanding the pool of funds that may not be expended on abortions, to, in the future, cover all plans, both private and public, included on the insurance exchange established by both the House and Senate health care bills. Explains Jill of Feministe:

"What the Stupak amendment does is block funds not only from federally-funded health care programs, but from private programs as well. While it doesn't outlaw private insurance companies from covering abortion, it does block them from offering abortion coverage to people participating in the health care exchange; those numbers are expected to be fairly large, creating an incentive for companies to cut abortion coverage over time."

My colleague, Tom Head, About.com Guide to Civil Liberties, crows that "... this was a pro-choice victory bolstered by one of the largest grassroots lobbying efforts in the history of the movement. We flooded our senators with calls, emails, and letters--and so far, it appears to be working."

Tom then urges, "Now let's continue to push our senators to make sure that the Senate language, rather than the House language, appears in the final bill."

I agree with Tom, of course: Hyde Amendment language is far preferable to the more restrictive Stupak Amendment wording if federal funds will, indeed, continue to be barred from payments for abortions.

But abortion rights extremists need to remember that this is health care legislation, not abortion legislation. Debate of the Senate health care refom bill will be a long, hard, often bitter slog, and will necessarily require difficult compromises by all participants. And some of those compromises might be about the use of federal funds and federally-offered plans to perform abortion procedures.

To deprive 31 million uninsured Americans of all health care services because a vocal minority refused to compromise on one issue that would affect a tiny fraction of Americans would be both cruel and immoral in my common sense view.

And while my colleague, whom I greatly admire, doesn't like it when I label such actions as a "self-absorbed overreaction" riddled with "selfish dramatics," that's precisely what it would be.

For the full text of what my colleague takes issue with, read Pro-Choice Advocates Are Wrong to Block House Health Care Bill .

Essential Reading

• Key Provisions of the Senate Health Care Reform Bill
• Full Text of Stupak Amendment to Prohibit Government-Funded Abortions

(Photo taken on November 19, 2009: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)