Hannah-Beth Jackson, Speak Out California

This past week, America’s women were, yet again, thrown under the bus. Make no mistake about it; this healthcare bill eradicates years of effort, blood and lives lost by brave physicians and healthcare providers, to take this nation back to the dark ages of back alleys, dead mothers and orphaned children. At the very last hour, the House leadership acquiesced in a provision to the great Healthcare Reform bill that takes away access to abortion coverage for millions of women, despite the fact that the majority of health insurance policies currently provide that coverage.

While the spin machines are hailing this as a great victory for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, it is a black day for America’s hard-fought battle for reproductive freedom.

While politics is a nasty game, on a good day, there are certain principles that those who believe in equality cannot sacrifice. Reproductive choice is one of them. Those who oppose the use of public funds to pay for abortion services had already won a victory in June when pro-choice representative Lois Capps agreed to introduce, as a stop-gap measure the Hyde amendment which has, for years, prohibited federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services. Representative Capps believed that this would be the line in the sand against further erosion of abortion rights in America.

The Stupak amendment (and I will refrain from the obvious here) goes much further than this: It denies poor and middle-class women access to abortion services when they purchase their own insurance with their own money yet qualify for a partial subsidy. Stupak also denies abortion services to women who seek (now mandatory) coverage through the “public option” (such as that is).

While the pundits and democratic leadership celebrate their great victory, we must rally every woman and man in this state and nation who believe that our daughters, sisters and mothers deserve the ultimate freedom of deciding whether, when and with whom to have children. We have fought long and hard to exercise our constitutionally protected right to reproductive choice to lose it now to the hands of political expediency and lunatic fringe politics.

The fight moves to the Senate where Senate leader Harry Reid and other anti-choice men hold the key to the future of every woman of child-bearing years. Without the option of insurance coverage for abortions, women will effectively be denied their fundamental right to control their own destinies. Of course, what good is a right without the ability to exercise it?

Will we be back to the butchers and back alleys because women can’t afford to pay for the right to exercise their fundamental freedoms and even if they can’t, those freedoms have been denied to them? Well, that’s what the “Stupak” amendment does.

The bottom line here is that we cannot allow this to stand. President Obama has committed to removing this blatant violation of women’s fundamental rights from the final bill that he plans to sign. It is incumbent upon every person who believes in freedom of choice, women’s equal rights and the Constitution of this country to step up and do something.

What to do? Write a letter to the President of the United States and demand that he fight for us; send a letter to your Senators and demand that they do the same.

What is it we want, we demand?

WE DEMAND THAT THE SENATE PASS A BILL FREE OF THESE UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION AND THAT THE FINAL BILL PROTECT A WOMAN”S RIGHT TO SAFELY ACCESS THIS LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE.

What else can we do?

Write a check to an organization that will bring the battle to the hallowed and hollow walls of Congress, should this measure remain in the Senate version. There is a way to beat this, and we must all stand together to do so.

We’ll be doing an action-alert on this shortly. In the meantime, contact your Senators and Congressmembers and tell them your vote for them is dependent upon their protecting reproductive freedom. Too many lives depend upon it.

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