Blogs Comment On Health Reform Amendments, Catholic Voters, Other Topics

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 07 Oct 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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The following summarizes recent women's health-related blog entries.

• "Bart Stupak, Leader of Antiabortion Democrats: 'Not Very Confident' on Health Care," Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News & World Report's "God & Country": In the blog entry, Gilgoff posts excerpts of a recent interview with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who is "leading the charge of antiabortion Democrats who are threatening to vote against health care reform unless more restrictions on abortion funding and coverage are added." Gilgoff also asked Stupak about his "specific grievances with the House health care bill" (HR 3200) and whether he believes the House Rules Committee will allow him to offer an amendment to expand the Hyde restrictions to health care reform. Stupak said that he doesn't "see a clear resolution right now. Maybe some language can be drafted that I haven't seen yet that will accommodate everybody. But I'm going to go back to what the president said: no public funding for abortions. ... I'm prepared to go to the Rules Committee and offer the Hyde Amendment." Stupak said that if he is given a vote, he can move to the merits of the bill. He also said that he is "not too sure" that he will be given permission "because no right-to-life amendments have been made to order all year." He added, "We really need the strength of the presidency to say, 'Here's what I need in this bill to sign it, and here's the language I would agree to.' But what the president said on Sept. 9, I can live with that and I can vote for that. But I'm not seeing that fully reflected in [the current House bill]. Close, but not quite there." Stupak went on to criticize the Capps compromise, saying, "I'm a man, and I can't get an abortion, but I have to pay for it" (Gilgoff, "God & Country," U.S. News & World Report, 10/2).
  
  
  
• "New Poll Reveals Interesting Data About Catholics and Choice," Feminists for Choice: Data from a recent Catholics for Choice poll regarding Roman Catholic voters' opinions on health reform and reproductive health care coverage were not surprising "because I have long suspected that the general Catholic population in the U.S. is more moderate or progressive than their leadership, or even their own reputation," the blog entry says. The poll found that 68% of respondents "do not believe that as a Catholic, you should oppose a health care plan because it includes coverage for abortion," and an equal number "disapproved of American Catholic bishops taking the position that Catholics should oppose a health care plan that covers abortions," the blog says. However, "the one result that did surprise me was that only 51% of those polled believed condoms should be paid for by the government," the blog continues, adding, "I suppose to me the idea of 'universal condom coverage' just makes too much sense for so many people to oppose" (Feminists for Choice, 10/2).
  
  
  
• "Abstinence-Only Programs: What Part of 'They Don't Work' Is Hard To Understand?" Julia Kaye, RH Reality Check: The Senate Finance Committee last week "in a 'hat-tip' to common-sense and efficacy" approved an amendment by committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to provide funding for evidence-based comprehensive sex education programs, according to Kaye, a policy associate at the National Women's Law Center. The amendment "is in line with" President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, Kaye adds. However, the committee also approved an amendment by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to restore $50 million in annual funding for abstinence-only programs through 2014. The committee voted to approve the amendment "[f]earing, I suppose, that abstinence-only programs would not meet the standards for the new pregnancy prevention funding," according to Kaye. She adds that committee members were "loathe, it seems, to end the dedicated funding stream to ab-only programs," which have been shown to be ineffective (Kaye, RH Reality Check, 10/2).
  

• "Massachusetts Report Provides Insights into Barriers That Remain After Health Reform," Our Bodies, Our Blog: The Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Family Planning Program and Ibis Reproductive Health recently released a report examining barriers to contraception access among low-income women since the enactment of the state's 2006 health insurance law, the blog states. Under the law, state residents who are ineligible for Medicaid or Medicare and do not have employer-sponsored health insurance can join one of four government-subsidized private health insurance plans. The report's authors reviewed the four plans "to determine how readily a user could understand them and get needed coverage information, surveyed family planning agency staff and conducted in-depth interviews with family planning and clinic staff, and held focus group discussions with low-income women," according to the blog. The authors found that there "was no central source of information on contraceptive coverage that would allow a woman to compare whether her method would be covered by each of the four government plans," the blog states. In addition, the authors found that both women and health care providers "generally reported easy access to contraception before and after reform, but some women reported experiencing barriers to accessing contraception using a prescription at pharmacies." For example, some pharmacists lacked information about the plans' coverage, while other women experienced barriers "of time, information, location and cost," such as plans that limited how many birth control pills would be distributed at one time. Meanwhile, women and providers "felt that some populations -- especially immigrants, young women, those with unstable employment or income, and those experiencing life changes -- had been 'left out' of the benefits for reform, citing problems of ineligibility, changing eligibility, and confidentiality," the blog states. "In general, women needed more information about contraceptive coverage, how to enroll, and how to document their eligibility for the government plans," the blog continues. The report offered "a series of recommendations, such as better educating providers and pharmacists about coverage under the government plans, developing more user-friendly information about coverage (especially of contraceptives), better supporting family planning clinics, and improving contraception coverage and access (such as allowing receipt of multiple months of hormonal contraception at one time, like 90-day or mail-order options provided by many insurers)," the blog notes. It concludes that the findings "may provide points of consideration if a public option is part of the national health care reform" (Our Bodies, Our Blog, 10/5).
  

• "Long Past Due: Constitution Protects Women in Prison From Unsafe Shackling During Childbirth," Diana Kasdan, RH Reality Check: A U.S. appeals court ruling in Nelson v. Norris that the U.S. Constitution protects pregnant women prisoners from being shackled during childbirth, along with recent state legislation banning the practice, "demonstrate[s] the dramatic shift that has taken place around the issue," according to American Civil Liberties Union attorney Kasdan. In Nelson v. Norris, plaintiff Shawanna Nelson argued that being shackled throughout the duration of her 2003 labor at an Arkansas state prison qualified as cruel and unusual punishment and was a violation of the eighth amendment. According to Kasdan, by the time a federal court decided to allow Nelson's case to proceed in 2007, anti-shackling laws were in place in California, Illinois and Vermont, "Amnesty International had documented this nationwide practice, and the national press had begun to call attention to the issue." After a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "completely dismissed Ms. Nelson's claim on the basis that her treatment did not raise any constitutional concern," in 2008 "a national coalition of advocates came together with the mission of raising the voices and stories of incarcerated women and ending the practice of shackling pregnant women in U.S. prisons and jails," Kasdan writes. According to Kasdan, "As part of that effort, the ACLU helped Ms. Nelson and her attorney petition for a rehearing before the full court, and dozens of medical and public health professionals and advocates submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Ms. Nelson." In the time it took for Nelson's case to be reconsidered, Kasdan says that "advocates successfully moved three more states to pass anti-shackling legislation, and introduced similar restrictions in three other states." She concludes that the "historic decision" in Nelson v. Norris "not only reaffirmed the constitutional rights of Ms. Nelson, it demonstrated the power of collectively raising women's voices to remind courts, lawmakers and ourselves of the fundamental human dignity of the hundreds of thousands of women and mothers who are incarcerated across the country" (Kasdan, RH Reality Check, 10/6).

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