Will You Have To Ask Your Employer For The "Abortion Rider"?

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) held a press conference yesterday with several of New York City's top women leaders to speak out against the House health care bill's anti-choice Stupak-Pitts amendment.

Powerful women such as Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Gloria Steinem, Speaker of the NY City Council Christine Quinn, President of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards, President of NARAL Pro-Choice NY Kelli Conlin, and many others spoke against the Stupak measure, which is one of the greatest attempts to roll back women's reproductive rights since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

For those who are unclear on what the Stupak-Pitts amendment means, basically the measure would prohibit the proposed government-run insurance plan from covering abortions except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the woman's life. It also bars any health plan receiving federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace from offering abortion coverage; if women wanted to purchase abortion coverage through such plans, they'd have to buy it separately, as a so-called "rider" on their policy.

While this "abortion rider" is being touted as a solution to the prohibitive measures, Sen. Gillibrand said that the rider "is not only discriminatory, but ridiculous. It would require women to essentially plan for an event that occurs in the most unplanned and sometimes emergency situations."

Cecile Richards said that many House members are already having "buyers remorse" about the Stupak amendment--it has been reported that many didn't realize just how radical it was when they voted. Gloria Steinem warned that Stupak, if passed, could take us back to the "pre-Roe v. Wade era," while Kelli Conlin described how a woman's right to privacy will be ruined when she is forced to walk into her employer's HR department to request the abortion rider.

Lillian Rodríguez López, the President of the Hispanic Federation, spoke out for the first time about her own experience with abortion at age 17 and compared the right to reproductive health to the right to bear arms, saying that with both rights, the citizens of the United States are asked to "only use when necessary."

Abortion, however, is one of the most common medical procedures in the United States. According to the Guttmacher Institute, thirty-five per cent of all women of reproductive age in America today will have had an abortion by the time they are forty-five.

The press conference came at the heels of a petition sporting over 72,000 signatures that NARAL delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday, calling on him to resist pressure from anti-choice groups in the Senate version of the health care bill. More than 43,000 of the signatures came from stopabortionban.org, a web site NARAL Pro-Choice America established last week.

Rachel Maddow reports that Reid will unveil the Senate version this week and, despite Republican efforts to slow down the process in order to give interest groups time to organize, wants to begin debate on the bill before Thanksgiving. While Sen. Gillibrand stated at the press conference that she believes the Stupak language will not end up in the final version of the Senate bill, it is not clear yet what will be included and if any abortion language would effectively kill the health care bill in the Senate.

If Stupak is left out of the Senate version, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has already said that he plans to introduce a similar amendment. In addition, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told Politics Daily that he also wants to see stronger language restricting federal funding for abortion services than exists in the committee-passed bills.

It should be stated over and over again that it would become incredibly difficult to remove anti-choice language during conference committee if it has already been passed by both the House and Senate. Therefore, now is the time to contact your Senator and let them know how you feel about the Stupak amendment as well as any anti-abortion language in the final version of the Senate Health Care Bill.

Photo credit: New York Daily News