Efforts To Exclude Abortion
Coverage From Health Reform ‘Ignore’ Women
“It is becoming obvious that just having a female reproductive system is a pre-existing condition in the health care debate,” with abortion as the “up-and-coming sticking point,” syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman writes in the Boston Globe. “We were told that the health care legislation would be ‘abortion neutral,’ that it wouldn’t change the shaky status quo or rile the troops in the abortion wars,” Goodman says. However, “it turns out that finding neutrality in the abortion wars is elusive,” as antiabortion-rights House members from both political parties are “demanding that any health plan offering abortion be banned from the newly created health care exchange,” she continues. Although “[m]ore than 80% of private insurance plans cover abortions, … any insurance plan that wants to be eligible for the huge wave of new clients would have to drop the abortion coverage it offers” if the opponents have their way, Goodman writes.
