Negotiators Add Anti-Abortion Clause to Spending Bill. According to a report in the NYT, the Radical Republicans in Congress have wasted no time in pushing their agenda. In a midnight backroom deal Radical Republicans add an amendment to restrict access to abortion.

The abortion language would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors, provides such 'conscience protection'' to doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training. The new language would expand that protection to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics and insurers.

The Times report includes this interesting little tidbit:

Ms. Boxer [why not Senator Boxer?] said that she complained to Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, but that he told her that House Republican leaders insisted that the provision, which was approved by the House in July but never came to the Senate for a vote, be included in the measure.

Now is the time to start writing and calling your Senator and Represenatives. Democratic Senators like Kerry, Kennedy, and Boxer who all have political capital to spend or those outgoing Senators need to block this bill from passing by any means necessary. It's time to call the Radical Republicans on this sleazy tactic of holding the the American public hostage to their radical agenda. If we cave on this issue, it will only embolden the Radical Republicans. This isn't an idle threat to a woman's right to choose. The Times article notes that

there are four states - Hawaii, Maryland, New York and Washington - that pay for some abortions for low-income women through their Medicaid programs. Under the language included in the omnibus bill, hospitals would not have to comply with those requirements.

Next time it will be language allowing pharmacists to refuse filling prescriptions for contraceptives of all kinds.
So remember "W" never stood for Women in the Radical Republican world view. It was, like much of the Radical Republican campaign, just an empty marketing strategy cooked up by doing some focus groups and push polls.
posted by Idle Crank at 11/20/2004 01:19:00 PM