November 9, 2009

• A response to a response to my last post

  A Xangan apparently read my last post and my comment on Paul_Partisan’s recent entry and posted a response.  I received the response in my email however it disappeared from the post in question, suggesting that either Xanga had an error or the user deleted it.

  Perhaps I should simply let it go, however, I thought what the person said was important and deserved as clear and honest an answer as I can give.

  Here’s what the user wrote:
  
  

  “It doesnt say abortion is illegal. My opinion is the same exact one that Paul presented.

  My additional comment/question Is “Why in the world would I pay for someone who gets pregnant and wants an abortion for personal reasons, not medical.

  Other than family, paying for someone else is not my responsibility  For the record before abortion was legal I went with a friend to TiJuana so she could go to a clinic there where it was legal. So I definitely believe in legalizing abortions. Your ideas angered me so that I can barely speak. You want everything for free with no responsibility. GROW UP! “

  And here is my response to that.

  Yes. You’re correct that the Stupak amendment does not make abortion illegal. However, it is a large step in the direction of making it effectively illegal.

  Recall, before abortion was legal here, it was not the rich or the well to do who suffered most. They COULD get abortions. They could go to Tijuana like your friend did, or somewhere else. When they needed an abortion they shelled out the money to find safe and effective ways to get an abortion. It was a lot of trouble but they could do it.

  However, the poor had no such luxury. To get an abortion they could not afford to go to Tijuana without charitable help. So they would have to get an abortion by going to some possibly dangerous, clearly illegal backwater shop and take their word for it that they have a safe method to perform an abortion. Either that or they’d have to find a way to do it on their own by doing something like hitting their stomach with a baseball bat in the hopes that it induces a miscarriage.  That or have a child they don’t want and probably can’t support. This is not safe. This is not fair. This is not humane.

  The Stupak amendment puts us significantly closer to returning to that.

  Every person in the individual and small group market will not have any insurance coverage for abortion. They can’t GET insurance coverage for abortion EVEN IF THEY SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY! That’s what the Stupak Amendment does. It makes it so insurance companies will not offer abortion coverage. Period.

  Now it may be that insurance companies will include provisions in their plans to cover abortions if and only if they are in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. The law will allow that. But it does not seem to require it. Insurance companies might not cover that. OK, they might be required to, depending on how you read the legislation, since this amendment contradicts other portions of the legislation.

  But if they do, it’s still bad.  A woman who wants an abortion and can’t afford to pay the entire medical cost out of pocket (read most women) will now be subject to an interrogation. They will have to “prove” that their abortion is for a case of rape, incest, or to preserve the life of the mother. Whether or not it sufficiently meets that criteria will be determined not by Doctors, not by the woman, and not by lawyers, but by some insurance company bureaucrat sitting behind a telephone whose JOB is to DENY as many people as much coverage as possible to maximize insurance company profits.

  Now the question you asked is why you should have to pay?  The basic answer to that is that as things stood  in many cases you WOULDN’T have had to pay. Women would have been paying for their insurance with THEIR money. Not yours. That insurance would cover abortions.  If this passes, they won’t be able to.

  But perhaps there IS two senses in which you would have been paying for other people to have abortion coverage.  One is that your tax money would go toward subsidies to help poor people pay for healthcare. That could include buying if they chose coverage that offered abortion coverage.  The second is the general sense in which any insurance is a pooled risk. Every time you pay your premiums it’s going to the insurance companies pool where it pays not just for your medical procedures but everyone’s medical procedures.

  Think about that last point though. EVERY dime of your insurance coverage is going to help people not you or your family get medical coverage. By your own logic you should hate ALL insurance. You should demand instead of insurance to have to pay for all medical treatments in cash for you and your family. Everyone else be damned. Not just for health insurance, but automobile insurance, flood insurance, home insurance, everything.

  Similarly the question of tax money going toward subsidies. Right now your tax money is going to help lots and lots and lots of people who are NOT you and your family. It’s giving them access to public schools, to roads, to police, to firefighters, to electricity, to safe drinking water, to postal services, and a host of other things. If you really believe what you say, you should stop paying taxes right now. And at the same time you should opt out of all those systems. Refuse to use public highways, refuse all assistance from the police, not take part in any of the technological innovations resulting from government funded research, not get vacccines, not get social security. The list goes on and on.

  And then if someone robs you, tough luck. If someone murders a family member, don’t expect Justice. The judicial system depends on your taxes. It exists to help everyone, including other people who are not you or your family.

  But there’s something even more basic that is wrong with what you said.

  “paying for someone else is not my responsibility”

  “You want everything for free with no responsibility. “

  Can’t you see the inherent contradiction here?  You’re the one asking for LESS responsibility. I’m asking for everyone to take on MORE responsibility. I want people to care. I want them to do things to help people who are NOT just them and their family or their friends.  I want people to take responsibility for the health and well being of everyone. Not NO Responsibility. TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY.

  I want it to be your responsibility whenever anyone suffers in this country because they aren’t given the health care they need. I want it to be my responsibility. I want it to be ALL of our responsibility.

  If you see a man about to be hit by a Bus and you have the power to pull them out of the way and save their life at no risk to yourself, wouldn’t you do that? Even if it’s a stranger. Even if you think the person is an idiot for being out in the middle of the street. Even if it could be a horrible person.  Wouldn’t you do it just because it’s the right thing to do?

  Well there are millions of people in the country about to be hit by a Bus that is being uninsured. Many die every day from that Bus. That’s why I presume you support Health Care reform. Not just because it might help you and your family but because it will help save people  from medical bankruptcy and death because they did not have health insurance.

  So now what makes the abortion case any different? This amendment clearly throws many women under the bus. Already hard decisions are made into impossible decisions. Women, mostly low income women, will simply have worse lives than they otherwise would have had. Either they will be forced to raise children they don’t want or they’ll be forced to pay for expensive unplanned procedures entirely out of pocket.

  What I’m asking for is not complicated. I’m asking for you and everyone to extend the same compassion and courtesy you exhibited when you helped your friend who needed to go to Tijuana to everyone else who needs your help. I want that same spirit of compassion to be a part of all our lives.

  And you know what? When ALL of us do it, it’s not that expensive. Sometimes you have hiccups along the way but overall it’s not hard. The power of the collective is immense. We can provide health care AND abortion services to every single person who needs it at very little cost to ourselves. All we need is the WILL to do it. We have to stop vilifying groups we don’t like, like women who get abortions, and start seeing them as human beings deserving as consideration as we are. We’re ALL in this together. They’re ALL part of our big human family. It’s our duty, our responsibility to help make them and us, better.

  That’s what I believe in. Those are my “ideas” that angered you to speechlessness.  The idea that we’re all people. The idea that we all matter. The idea that we should all care.

  Believe it or not, THAT’S what liberalism is about.

  • 8:18 pm
  • 6 Comments