Today is a truly historic day for the American people who have long demanded affordable, quality health care coverage.(HT: Jill Stanek)
For more than a year, Planned Parenthood has worked tirelessly for a health care reform bill that would fix our broken health care system, strengthen women’s health, and achieve quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Today, monumental progress was made toward achieving these goals with the passage of historic health care reform legislation by the U.S. House of Representatives, despite a symbolic gesture, in the form of an Executive Order, to anti-choice Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI), which has diverted attention from the central goal of health care reform — controlling costs and extending coverage.
As a trusted health care provider to millions of women and families across the country, Planned Parenthood applauds the fact that this legislation would extend health care coverage, including family planning, to tens of millions of women and families, guarantee access to affordable life-saving screenings for cervical and breast cancer and other serious health problems, protect women against gender discrimination by private insurers, end the practice of dropping coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and significantly increase access to reproductive health care. The proposal also includes a commonsense provision to expand family planning under Medicaid, which would significantly increase access to essential preventive health care for millions of women.
As a result of this historic expansion of health care coverage to more than 30 million Americans, the doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals who work for Planned Parenthood health centers will be providing care to many more women, men, and families who will be seeking primary and preventive care.
Planned Parenthood is also extremely pleased that members of the House listened to the millions of women and men who expressed their strong opposition to the Stupak abortion ban. Stopping the Stupak ban was a high priority for women across the country who rejected the notion that they would not be able to even use their own money to obtain private insurance coverage for abortion. It was a tough fight, but we salute Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D- CA), Congressman Rosa DeLauro (D–CT) , members of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, and all others who stood up for women’s health and women’s rights.
Nonetheless, we regret that a pro-choice president of a pro-choice nation was forced to sign an Executive Order that further codifies the proposed anti-choice language in the health care reform bill, originally proposed by Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. What the president’s executive order did not do is include the complete and total ban on private health insurance coverage for abortion that Congressman Bart Stupak (D–MI) had insisted upon. So while we regret that this proposed Executive Order has given the imprimatur of the president to Senator Nelson’s language, it is critically important to note that it does not include the Stupak abortion ban.
This is a historic day for American people. We regret that a gesture to Congressman Stupak has diverted the nation’s focus from this bill’s accomplishments, including the extension of family planning to millions of women.
I still can't figure out why all my Christian friends who voted for Obama kept telling me that "presidents can't do anything about abortion anyway". Seems like presidents CAN do quite a bit about abortion evidenced by the fact that one of the largest abortion providers in the world in the world is very excited about these new changes.
4 comments:
It's because they are liberals first and Christians second.
It's simple, really. College students, people in their 20s, and the less well off want others to pay for their stuff. If getting others to pay for that stuff requires that group to overlook minor things like abortion coverage, or for them to work out a long, contrived, explanation why this abortion stuff really doesn't matter, they'll do so.
It's about getting other people to pay for their stuff. When it comes down to it, that's really all that it is.
To the larger point, the inability (or simply willful refusal) of the left to distinguish between the biblical command of charity and good works between individuals and the forced redistribution of wealth under threat of jail to those who refuse to provide for themselves (2 Th 3:10-12, 1 Ti 5:8) is, perhaps, the most interesting religious/political phenomenon of our time.
It's quite Christian for me to help you, voluntarily using my own resources when the need is there. It is absolutely not Christian for me to force my neighbor to help you under the threat of jail to make myself feel good.
In this case, it's even worse, because I'm not even making my neighbor pay for it. I'm making his unborn grandchild pay for it.
Make no mistake, assuaging your guilt by forcing someone else to make the sacrifice is not Christian. What it is is being a liberal first, and a Christian second.
And no fan of Beck am I, but it's posts like these that he's referring to when he discussed "Social justice" as code in the church.
Z,
I for one want to thank you for your tireless advocacy for the unborn. In the last election, I was one whom you persuaded with your consistent rhetoric. Though it made no difference in the final outcome, I thank you for changing my one vote--and my perspective on the issue.
Jason
I have to admit that I was one of those who naively thought a president couldn't do anything about abortion. I wish I was right.
I witnessed Mr. Stupak speak before the vote on the Reconciliation Bill (which, as I understood it, was an amendment to the just-passed Health Care bill that including no-abortion language). Sadly, Mr. Stupak and his pro-life democratic constituents seemed utterly convinced that the Executive Order promised by Obama was equal to his amendment passed last year. I can't imagine what kind of pressure was placed on him so that he couldn't see what everyone else saw, namely, that Obama's EO isn't anywhere close to an equal to an actual legislative anti-abortion amendment. Let's continue to pray for our nation's leaders, that they would have courage to stand for what is right.
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