Dem leaders lose control of Frankenstein legislators they recruited for office

The conservative chickens have come home to roost. The Stupak/Pitts amendment which stripped abortion coverage from the House's health reform bill passed by a far wider margin than did the main bill. Abortion has always been a legal and a moral issue, not it's become an economic one.

The $1.1 billion health care bill passed by the House of Representatives by a close 220-215 on Saturday may be a win for the public option but it sacrifices a key component in reproductive health for women, especially for poor and middle-class women.

The amendment includes a ludicrous provision allowing the purchase of supplemental insurance if paid out of pocket for abortion services.  With many already uninsured, it is ludicrous to believe low and middle income women will buy supplemental "abortion rider" insurance for unplanned pregnancies.

While some groups like the AFL-CIO and Health Care for America Now celebrated passage of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, others see passage of the bill as a betrayal. If passed into law, a possibility given the more conservative make-up of the U.S. Senate, not only is abortion not covered by the public option, but women with private plans that currently cover abortion care will lose their access to a legal abortion as well.

“While there are some who are satisfied with the health care reform bill that passed in the House of Representatives late Saturday night, I am not one of them,” wrote Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

She said the bill will “undercut women's access to comprehensive health care.”

Abortion became the key sticking point of the bill, and Democratic leaders agreed to strip away existing coverage for reproductive services in order to win votes from conservative Democrats. Through an amendment crafted by abortion opponents, which passed a comfortable 240 to 194, the House bill includes a ban on private abortion coverage for millions of women and would prohibit it in the public option.

The amendment includes a ludicrous provision allowing the purchase of supplemental insurance if paid out of pocket for abortion services.  With many already uninsured, it is ludicrous to believe low and middle income women will buy supplemental "abortion rider" insurance for unplanned pregnancies.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice saw the abortion restriction coming, and spoke out against it before the vote in a letter to members of Congress:

“The majority of faith groups in America have affirmed that abortion is a decision of conscience that should be safeguarded by government. Further, these faith traditions affirm that health care services, including abortion, must be available to all, regardless of income. If coverage for abortion is eliminated from health care reform, the poor and communities of color will bear the consequences. Already, a low-income woman is four times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy and five times as likely to have an unintended birth as her higher income counterpart. Lack of access to abortion services perpetuates inequality and compromises the future of women, their families and their communities.”

Many of those Democrats that voted for the amendment had faced progressive opponents in their state primaries. But they were undercut and underfunded when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,  then led by Rahm Emanuel, opted to throw its substantial resources and financial support behind the more conservative candidate every time. Emanuel, now Obama’s chief of staff, took credit for recruiting candidates and bringing a Democratic majority into the House of Representatives.

Now there’s not much left for supporters of already legal reproductive health care coverage for women than to turn their disappointment directly at Obama.

“President Obama campaigned on a promise to put reproductive health care at the center of his reform plan,” said Richards. “Supporters of women's health voted for him and contributed to his campaign in record numbers — and now it's time for the president to reaffirm his commitment to women's health, and demand that Congress reject any bill that leaves women worse off under health care reform than they are today.”