NEW YORK TIMES
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The abortion compromise in the Senate has angered advocates on both sides of the issue. Senator Ben Nelson, the Nebraska Democrat, had been holding up the Senate health care bill until he was satisfied with new anti-abortion language, which was made public on Saturday by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.
The National Right to Life Committee (pro-life) issued a statement saying it “strongly opposes” the abortion language. The National Organization for Women (pro-choice) also issued a statement strongly opposing the language. And in a second statement, more heated and personal, Terry O’Neill, president of NOW, said she was outraged that the Senate Democratic leadership “would cave in to Senator Ben Nelson.” “Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care,” Ms. O’Neill said. “And health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services.” If this language stays in the bill as is, she said, she would call on senators “who consider themselves friends of women’s rights” to vote against “this cruelly over-compromised legislation.”
But two of the Senate’s champions of abortion rights, Senators Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, issued a joint statement saying they were satisfied with the agreement. But the assurances of Ms. Boxer and Ms. Murray were not enough for some abortion-rights supporters.
Kelli Conlin, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, issued a statement saying: “While we recognize the efforts of our pro-choice women senators to combat the onerous conditions upon which Stupak and Nelson have insisted, we are frankly horrified by the shameful process that has allowed two men to hold American women hostage.” The reference in addition to Mr. Nelson was to Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, who framed the anti-abortion language in the House.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the right-to-life group, said that the new abortion language “solves none of the fundamental abortion-related problems with the Senate bill, and it actually creates some new abortion-related problems.”
At the same time, NOW said the measure would “effectively make abortion coverage unavailable in health insurance exchanges and, ultimately, in private insurance policies as well.”
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I think that aborting a baby should be depended on mather's decision in case of the pregnancy threatens mother's life or is due to rape. Otherwise it must be prohibited by law. Because no matter what the situation may be except those cases above, life is the most important thing. Life has to be respected and nobody has right to infringe on the other's right to life.
ReplyDeleteInstead of legalizing abortion, devising mothods for helping parents who are pregnant an unwanted baby with financial support or other various ways so that being able to encourage their childbirth would be much better.
abortion is wrong. the only way it should be legalized is if the pregnancy has life threats where you are going to die for sure. or if they're raped( and not just saying it). or if its an incest baby. other wise... you put yourself in that position to be having a baby. if your responsible enough to open your legs, then your should be responsible enough to take respnsibility of the 'after come'. your killing another living being. that murder before a baby even has the chance to live and taking away what they could have a chance at for a future. end. -Dorothy Restuchi
ReplyDeleteI disagree with abortion. But I'm more libertarian when it comes to things like this. For instance, I don't think that abortion is the biggest issue facing America at the moment, and I believe that there are more important things to focus on in this health care bill. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of heat from my fellow conservatives for this, but I believe we should focus more on the fact that America will form a single-payer system monopoly a.k.a. "the government" through this bill. True, the public option is out, but knowing how this adminstration works makes me believe that it will come back. Whether in the same form or not is anyone's guess. Even without the public option, the health care bill is horrible. Perhaps the public option will get in before 2013, when the bill actually goes into effect. Convenient for Obama--he won't see the backlash against it until after he is reelected.
ReplyDeleteMy opinions on abortion are strongly conservative. I truly believe that it is wrong to kill a baby, even in the womb. In the Bible, God tells us that he knit us together in our mothers womb, and we praise him for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. He also says that he knew every detail about us, even before we were born. When my mother became pregnant with me, through an affair, everyone pushed for abortion. She refused, and gave me to a family that she knew could not have kids, but desperately wanted a child. Every child deserves a chance, and there are many people out there who would love to have a baby, but aren't able to themselves. It may be hard, but good things can come of every bad decision or situation. What if an aborted baby would have grown to find the cure for cancer? What if people like Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln would have never been born? The question I often ask is- Why do we spend money on something like this when we are already so in debt? It just makes absolutely no sense to me. When I met my biological family, and met my grandmother (who pushed for abortion), she immediately burst into tears. She did this because she was so thankful that my mother decided against it. They consider me apart of their family, even though I don't live with them. My adoptive family reminds me everyday of the blessing that came from a stupid mistake.
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