What Does Abortion Have To Do With The Health Care Reform?

13 Responses to “What Does Abortion Have To Do With The Health Care Reform?”

1. not guilty writes
   November 9th, 2009 8:27 pm

   I wonder. Do the most vocal opponents of abortion funding boycott insurance companies who cover abortion for insureds who pay their own premiums? Insurance is about spreading risk, and insurors are–like it or not–rational economic actors. Paying for abortion is much cheaper than paying for prenatal care plus childbirth.

   How much does a first trimester abortion cost? About $350 to $500? And of course, condoms cost less that $1.00 each. My own preference–which I do not urge as a basis for governmental policies–is that women (and their partners) who cannot “self-insure” the predictable (and small) risk of an unwanted pregnancy should stick to masturbating and/or oral sex. The gene pool would hardly miss them.

2. martin kennedy writes
   November 9th, 2009 11:10 pm

   Not Guilty makes plausible points. GoldnI likewise makes sense considering her perspective.

   As for opponents of abortion boycotting this or that for how it relates to abortion, there are degrees of involvement. There is a difference for example, for healthcare workers, between assisting at an actual abortion procedure and helping with recovery. If we’re creative enough we can find connections between almost any activity and abortion.

   It strikes me that even a person who favors abortion rights can have philosophical problems with health insurance paying for abortion. The vast majority of abortions are elective in nature. They don’t, medically speaking, need to be done. Typically a pregnancy is not a great threat to health.

   Perhaps this is just another way of saying, as NG did above, that a $300 to $500 procedure should not be part of a health insurance package for other reasons. It is not a large loss.

3. black community writes
   November 9th, 2009 11:37 pm

   Its not REALY about abortion, its about defeating the President. And abortion is just a CONVIENIENT EXCUSE to save face for the GOP claiming they want reform but having NO serious platform for their own type of reform agenda. So predictable!

4. Donna Locke writes
   November 10th, 2009 1:44 am

   Martin, pregnancy and childbirth are always serious risks to the health and life of the girl or woman. A woman’s body is permanently altered by pregnancy and always suffers damage of some kind. Always. Sometimes this damage to internal organs does not become a significant problem until the woman is older, as with bladder damage during childbirth, etc. Things get pushed out of position and don’t always spring back, meaning surgery later on.

   Some women fare better than others.

   I’ve told this story before, so I won’t go into it, but I almost died getting my first child into the world. I was a very healthy, athletic young woman going into it, so there was no indication I would have any problems. As it was, both the baby and I almost died, and my body systems were altered adversely in ways that continue to this day, decades later.

   Four weeks ago, my daughter had a very, very difficult time giving birth. She was determined not to have a Caesarean; I’ve had two of them and had to have subsequent surgery to remove scar tissue and other stuff that was cutting off circulation to my legs, none of which surgery was a picnic, as I react adversely to anesthetics.

   My daughter suffered. The baby suffered. Both are healing, but we still are watching for any lingering damage to the child.

   Neither you nor anyone else has any right to dictate what risk I will take upon myself. And not for ourselves alone. Most of us have others besides ourselves to think of.

5. Mack writes
   November 10th, 2009 3:47 am

   Donna is right on the money, Martin. Pregnancy is always risky, and sometimes the damage isn’t noticed until years later. The idea that anyone but the woman in question gets to make a medical decision for her is completely foreign to me. Of course, I’m not a craven politician.

6. martin kennedy writes
   November 10th, 2009 8:16 am

   Thank you very much Donna and Mack. This is what I wrote:

   The vast majority of abortions are elective in nature. They don’t, medically speaking, need to be done. Typically a pregnancy is not a great threat to health.

   I didn’t say any threat. I didn’t say it. I said “not a great threat.” Happy to respond to things I say, not happy to respond to things I didn’t say.

7. pat csh writes
   November 10th, 2009 8:20 am

   donna and mac are right. health ins and health care much include prenatal care,bith and post natal care and MUST Include the right to an abortion ,no man ever has the right to make a decision for a woman.

   this is like a war on women ,takes me back to the time of when we won the first on ERA,even then it was the republican men ,honestly the SEC republican who fought against womens rights. do southern men have a self worth problem?

8. martin kennedy writes
   November 10th, 2009 11:01 am

   Mack wrote: The idea that anyone but the woman in question gets to make a medical decision for her is completely foreign to me.

   Really? You’ve never considered the perspective of those with whom you disagree? But the issue I was making had nothing to do with the morality of abortion. We can accept that there are differences. The notion that abortion, or other elective procedures, should be covered is what I challenge.

9. Mack writes
   November 10th, 2009 11:09 am

   Really? You’ve never considered the perspective of those with whom you disagree?

   What I wrote: “The idea that anyone but the woman in question gets to make a medical decision for her is completely foreign to me. ”

   I’ve often considered the perspective of those I’ve disagreed with, but that is beside the point. There is a woman, and her doctor. The circle is closed after that.

   happy to respond to what I said, not so happy to respond to things I didn’t say….

10. Mack writes
    November 10th, 2009 11:14 am

    Oh, and what, exactly, constitutes a “great threat”?
    If it were me, I’d demand that I get to make that determination, with the advice of a competant medical professional. A 20 yr old woman may not be in the same risk category as a 40 yr old, but as many of us have stated above, every pregnancy carries risk. People die giving birth, Martin. As someone who has witnessed a 23 hour labor cycle, I can tell you that there is stress and strain on the body involved in ways most men won’t ever know.

11. martin kennedy writes
    November 10th, 2009 11:37 am

    The circle is closed after that? Isn’t that what is at issue? Isn’t that the heart of the disagreement, about whether or not the life of fetus has any weight? That’s not really considering the opposing perspective.

    And, what exactly constitutes a “great threat?” Well “great” is not precise is it. Let me say this though. Babies are born every week. Many of them. In well over 50% of the births the mother does not die.

    People drive every week. About 800 per week die in traffic accidents. Many more are injured badly. I would insist that driving does not pose a “great threat.”

12. Donna Locke writes
    November 10th, 2009 5:02 pm

    Martin, you’re too smart for this. If driving isn’t a great threat, why the strict enforcement on child car seats? And seatbelt laws?

    Every time I drive on the Perimeter in Atlanta, I know I’m taking a major risk.

    I may drive to town and return in the exact same condition in which I left home. This is not true with any pregnancy.

    There is no predicting what will happen in a car or in a pregnancy.

    In any event, distinguishing between low risk and high risk is irrelevant to this argument. The key word is “risk,” and the key principle here is that this risk, any risk, exists.

    Nothing you’ve written here stands up to actual life experience — reality.

    But the risk factor is just one part of this debate, just one element, though a major one, in a debate about essential freedom — and about the control of females, which, in most religions, has assumed top priority from the beginning.

13. TNVolunteer73 writes
    November 10th, 2009 5:10 pm

    BLACK COMMUNITY

    It is about abortion. Abortion has killmore of our people in 2 days than all the lynchings combind