Stupak-ifying

The good news is that we appear to be closer than ever before to "something" in the way of reform of our abysmal health care system. Statistics on various matters (infant death, etc.) suggest that we are currently keeping company with nations with no proper health care at all - or possibly we are an empire going down.

But recent news may suggest faint hope (at least for those of us with a Pollanna-ish streak), despite the despicable backroom horse-trading and what amounts to medical industry bribery of congress. The latest word is that the pharmaceutical industry has been goosing the price of drugs at an obscene rate, presumably to assure that the supposed $80B they were going to "save" us (truly a pittance to them - and what a sordid non-accomplishment for this administration this is) will not cost them a dime in terms of profit.

The compromises along the way are enough to break your heart. No consideration of a single-payer plan. Appalling concession to the pharmaceutical industry (which we must hope will be overturned - Merck et. al. are home to enough multi-millionaires already, from what I hear).

And, most recently, this stupefyingly obnoxious Stupak amendment. I can't claim to be familiar with the arcane details. It seems to be the case that it forbids anyone receiving Federal Government funding for health insurance from signing up for an insurance program that could fund abortions. I.e., accepting assistance from the folks who bring us Medicare and Social Security means surrendering your right to choose how to deal with a pregnancy, wanted or otherwise.

That seems to have the makings of a firestorm to it. And it would be easy to become overwhelmed with the words addressing this very issue. I'm going to settle here, just to reassure you, with merely one link, from Digby's great Hullabaloo site.

Tristero has a great reminder that we dasn't cede the language-framing to those who would foreclose on women's rights:

From Think Progress:

Stupak is an attempt by the pro-life movement to use health reform as a vessel to ration access to reproductive health services.

No.


Stupak is an attempt by the pro-coathanger movement to use health reform as a vessel to ration access to reproductive health services.


As long as we provide the foes of women's reproductive rights the opportunity to cast themselves as being "for life," and do so voluntarily, we will continue to lose ground on a fundamentally moral issue in which we, supporters of unrestricted health care for women, hold the high ground.


Do you think "pro-coathanger" is needlessly confrontational, even if true? Ok, Digby's formulation, "coerced birth," is a more than reasonable substitute. Or if you insist, "anti abortion rights" is fine.


But an important note about that last one: the issue is one of rights, not whether we think a specific set of procedures agrees with our abstract moral code. We can't leave the word "rights" out of the phrase without rhetorically handing the opposition - which is headed by people that genuinely hate women, especially poor women - a powerful concession.



Words matter. And the rightwing would never, ever, make the mistake of calling us anything milder than "pro-abortion," despite the fact that is not our position, nor what this is about. It is about rights, rights to healthcare without restrictions for about half the people in this country.


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