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And The Abortion Stalemate Continues

By Amy Sullivan | @sullivanamy | September 30, 2009 | +

The Senate Finance Committee just voted on two amendments offered by Senator Orrin Hatch that form the heart of what Senate Republicans say they would need to make health reform what they call “abortion neutral.” (Whether they would vote for health reform even if their demands were met on abortion, is a question they decline to answer, as Chris Matthews learned yesterday.)

The two Hatch amendments were linked–one stated that state insurance exchanges could not be required to offer plans that cover abortion, and the other allowed plans to give consumers the option (as they do now) to purchase with their own money riders that would cover abortion. Hatch framed the first using the language of conscience clauses, arguing that people should not be forced to take part in abortion procedures if they believe abortion is wrong. But that, of course, is not the issue at play in requiring that the plans in state insurance exchanges include both those that cover abortion and those that do not. It would be an issue if a senator offered a pro-choice version of Hatch’s amendment, allowing state exchanges to provide no option for those who want a health care plan that doesn’t cover abortion. Hatch’s amendment, however, would simply have given states leeway to restrict abortion by excluding plans from the exchange that cover abortion.

In any case, both amendments went down, largely along party lines. Kent Conrad voted with Republicans on the exchange amendment, and Olympia Snowe joined her Democratic colleagues on both, complaining especially that the rider amendment would fail to help many women who seek abortions because “most of these pregnancies that result in abortions are unplanned pregnancies.”

It’s worth noting that Snowe’s position as a potential swing vote complicates matters for Democrats when it comes to addressing pro-life concerns about health care reform proposals. On the House side, Democratic leaders have to worry about the 40 pro-life members of their own caucus who have pledged not to support a health care bill that subsidies abortion. But tightening wording and restrictions to please those House Democrats runs the risk of alienating Snowe, a strong supporter of abortion rights.

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  • gysgt213

    Wow. So, Orrin Hatch, Kent Conrad and Olympia Snowe and a bunch of other clowns get to decide for all women. And this bothers apparently none of them. This is a great country.

  • constantweader

    For those of you inclined to think the Republicans have a good idea here, allow me to remind you of one of the most elegant — & courageous — paragraphs to appear in a modern Supreme Court opinion, one written by then-conservative Bush appointee David Souter in 1994:

    “For two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.”

    The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

  • bgjtenn

    No, they are only trying to prevent my taxes from paying for abortions. If the left is so committed to “abortion on demand”, why don’t they start a fund to pay for abortions?

  • deconstructiva

    Thanks, Amy. You rock, but could you add the “by” preposition in your first sentence (“by Sen. Hatch”), please? Given current politics, it’s way too easy to read the sentence as “…voted on two amendments TO (or FOR) Sen. Hatch…” and thus possibly trading women’s rights for R votes? (as if that’s gonna happen / not, as you’ve hinted) But didn’t original conservative ideas, esp. by Goldwater, view this issue as a personal matter, NOT a governmental one?

  • bgjtenn

    But when did “you have a right to X” become the “government must pay for you to have X”.

    I have a right to free speech, but the government is not required to fund it.

  • freeinpa

    Here is another tent in the liberal circus. When Republicans say the bill will pay for the abortions, liberals scream “that’s a lie and it is not in the bill”. Every vote to put in specific language goes down in flames. Even the dumbest liberal can figure out that without the language it will pay for abortions and the liars remain the liberals not the conservatives.

  • plukasiak

    your taxes aren’t paying for abortions, my are.
    _
    your taxes are paying to torture muslims at Bagram — something that I don’t want my tax dollars used for.

  • FlownOver

    Is anyone so clueless as to think there are more than one or two Republicans who would vote for an administration-supported bill, whatever it does or doesn’t say? Get real – their only interest is denying Obama a victory, even if it means more American deaths.

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