Not Under the Bus

I first saw the Not Under the Bus campaign at Feminist Law Professors. In a nutshell, the campaign serves as "an aggregator for the many campaigns that women’s groups have started to stop the Stupak-Pitts Amendment."

For some background, the Stupack-Pitts Amendment is an amendment to the US House's version of its recently-passed health care reform bill known as the Affordable Health Care For America Act. The amendment, as it is worded, would likely prevent a public option, or private plans that receive any amount of federal funding, from paying for any abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother. This singling out of abortion is significant as currently, 87% of employer-based insurers cover abortion, meaning many women would lose coverage.

The Senate passed its version of the bill, albeit without such an amendment. The House and Senate bills are currently being compromised, which means that, if you care about this issue, there is still time to take action.

It is appalling that the (mostly) men in Congress are so casually tossing around the reproductive rights of women as though access to abortion is a political football and not a means of economic independence and basic control over one's body. Perhaps the lady members of Congress should get together and single out a man's "right" to sex by proposing an amendment banning insurers from covering Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medications. I mean, anti-choicer folks argue that they don't want their tax dollars paying for abortions because they disagree with abortion and, well, if that's the game we're playing and we get to make little check boxes by what our tax dollars and do and do not support, I'd begin by substituting my male boner subsidy with benefits for same-sex couples.

Go here for information on how you can help.