Now that health insurance reform is law, will we work on actual health care reform, Mr. President?

[seafan]

What? You have an Executive Order to sign first?



We don't forget these things.



2003 — Congress passes and Bush signs the so-called "Partial Birth" Abortion Ban—the first federal ban on an abortion procedure since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Bush signs the bill, which does not include an exception to preserve a woman's health, while surrounded by a group of smiling men.


Article, 2003

.....

The abortion legislation that Bush signed passed both houses overwhelmingly, including a 281-142 vote in the House on Oct. 2. Former President Bill Clinton had vetoed the same bill twice, saying it didn't include an exception to protect a woman's health. That was the same legal ground that pro-choice groups cited in seeking court rulings to block the new law this week.

.....

2001 — The Bush administration reinstates the global "gag" rule that was first adopted in 1984 by the Reagan administration and later lifted when President Clinton came into office. The "gag" rule is an anti-free speech and anti-democratic policy which has caused 430 organizations in 50 countries to stop performing abortions or speaking about abortion laws in order to qualify for U.S. funding. Over 80,000 women around the world die each year from unsafe and illegal abortions and hundreds of thousands suffer complications from unsafe abortions.


Article, 2004

The gag rule, writes Ms. (Michelle) Goldberg, has often been justified as an act of moral necessity, but in fact it is absolutely, overtly political.

“For American presidents since Reagan,” Ms. Goldberg writes, “either imposing or rescinding the Mexico City ban has become a kind of ritual to mark the arrival of a new political party in the White House. One of the first things Bill Clinton did was overturn it; on his first day in power, George W. Bush reinstated it. By the time this book is published, Barack Obama will almost certainly have repealed it.” He did, almost as soon as he arrived at the White House.


AMERICANS HAVE HAD an unparalleled effect on the kinds of health care available to women in other, usually less developed countries since the 1960s, and almost every decision about who to fund and why, writes Ms. Goldberg, has been determined by politics. The executive branch of the U.S., at various times, has been for and against population control, for and against the use of birth control, or for and against catering to evangelical Christians by, for example, withdrawing money from the United Nations Population Fund.

“It’s hard to believe now,” Ms. Goldberg writes, “that the American government was once responsible for bringing safe abortion to great swaths of the developing world.” In the ’60s and ’70s, the high birthrate in poor countries, as compared to a low birthrate in Europe and the United States, set off fear that anti-capitalist sentiment would spread throughout the less developed world. “America’s international commitment to birth control was intended to fight communism, not to liberate women,” Ms. Goldberg writes. Richard Nixon was a strong proponent of sending birth control to poorer countries, and George H. W. Bush, “s a congressman … earned the nickname ‘Rubbers’ for his enthusiastic interest in family planning.”

Then came Ronald Reagan, whose election created “a total turnaround in the politics of family planning.” After Reagan, reproductive health became an international issue, although more often than not it was a proxy war between various international groups.

Take Latin America, where there are some of the “world’s strictest abortion laws and the highest rate of clandestine abortion.” Americans, writes Ms. Goldberg, are at least partially responsible for this. For example, when it looked like Uruguay was going to legalize first-term abortion in 2004, Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey faxed a letter signed by five other House Republicans to every member of the Uruguay Senate asking them to defeat the bill, which then fell four votes short of passing.

.....

2002 — The Bush administration tries to install a right wing, religious ideologue, who has led efforts to get the FDA to reverse approval of mifepristone, as head of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee.


Dr. W. David Hager
Bush's FDA Advisor On Women's Health Issues Accused By Former Wife of Serial Rape And Sodomy, 2005







2004 — The House of Representatives passes the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2003, which would for the first time establish in federal law a fetus as a legal "person," with individual rights separate from those of the pregnant woman.


President George W. Bush signs the Unborn Fetus Protection Act on April 1, 2004. Getty Images






Fast forward to March 24, 2010.



Obama to sign executive order on abortion limits Wednesday

(CNN) -- President Obama will sign an executive order Wednesday that ensures that existing limits on the federal funding of abortion remain in place under the new health care overhaul law.

Unlike the signing of the health care bill into law Tuesday, which was conducted under the glare of media cameras, the event Wednesday will be closed to the news media.

It will be attended by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and 12 of his anti-abortion Democratic House colleagues, without whose help the landmark overhaul bill would not have passed, political observers say.

The White House said the executive order reaffirms longstanding restrictions on the federal funding of abortion in the new law.

"While the legislation as written maintains current law, the executive order provides additional safeguards to ensure that the status quo is upheld and enforced, and that the health care legislation's restrictions against the public funding of abortions cannot be circumvented," the White House said.

Stupak said the order makes very clear that the current law applies to the new law.

"I have said from the start that my goal was to see health care pass while maintaining the principle of the sanctity of life," he said Tuesday.

At one point, the abortion issue nearly derailed the bill. But then Obama promised the executive order to the anti-abortion Democrats. The lawmakers switched their votes to "yes" to help pass the reform bill 219-212 on Sunday night.

.....

This Executive Order to appease Bart Stupak was the key to passing a dangerously flawed health insurance reform bill that we are now expected to be overjoyed about. And it is just wrong.


Now that we have a health insurance reform bill on the books, can we now get to work on actual HEALTH CARE REFORM, Mr. President?

[havocmom]

1. Thank you, seafan

Got your flame-proof knickers on, I hope. :thumbsup:

[NJmaverick]

2. Ah nothing I enjoy more than to see anti-Obama propaganda being spread

on the DEMOCRATIC Underground. It's just so helpful in our never ending struggle against the right wingers and their plans for our nation.:sarcasm:

[seafan]

3. RE The Executive Order: '...the event Wednesday will be closed to the news media.'

Why are they hiding this from the people?


March 24, 2010

(CNN) -- President Obama will sign an executive order Wednesday that ensures that existing limits on the federal funding of abortion remain in place under the new health care overhaul law.

Unlike the signing of the health care bill into law Tuesday, which was conducted under the glare of media cameras, the event Wednesday will be closed to the news media.

It will be attended by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and 12 of his anti-abortion Democratic House colleagues, without whose help the landmark overhaul bill would not have passed, political observers say.

.....

[ClassWarrior]

4. Why are you asking permission??! Just do it. Start organizing.

:eyes:

NGU.

[kestrel91316]

5. Healthcare in the US is pretty darned good. We need further reform in the

healthcare ACCESS department, because SOME people are still not going to be able to afford medical care of any kind. How many people is a subject for debate, but the number must be ZERO before we consider our work done.

[Jkid]

6. That's if Obama is not distracted by other issues.

[seafan]

7. TIME: Guests Invited to Abortion Executive Order Signing March 24, 2010

(Cross-post)



According to TIME:



Details: Guests Invited to Abortion Executive Order Signing March 24, 2010

Senator Bob Casey

Representative Bart Stupak

Representative Kathy Dahlkemper

Representative Marcy Kaptur

Representative Nick Rahall

Representative Jerry Costello

Representative Chris Carney

Representative Steve Driehaus

Representative Charlie Wilson

Representative Jim Oberstar

Representative Alan Mollohan

Representative Brad Ellsworth

Representative Henry Cuellar

Representative Mike Doyle

The Stupak 13 and one Senator.

"The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act."---- Candidate Barack Obama, July 9, 2008

"Obama does not support the Hyde Amendment," his campaign staff told RH Reality Check in response to a questionnaire from the reproductive rights group. "He believes that the federal government should not use its dollars to intrude on a poor woman's decision whether to carry to term or to terminate her pregnancy and selectively withhold benefits because she seeks to exercise her right of reproductive choice in a manner the government disfavors." 2007 LINK

And one president.




March 21, 2010:

As a consequences (sic) of the deal, Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for Choice, called for abortion rights supporters to renew their push to repeal the Hyde Amendment.

"I hope the choice movement now decides to play hardball with Democrats, including the President, and insist that an all out effort to overturn the Hyde Amendment is required if Democratic office holders and candidates want our vote in 2012," she told The Post. "I for one have decided that I simply will not vote for another elected official until Hyde is overturned and I hope others will do the same. There is no reason for prochoice voters to accept Democratic pussyfooting around on repealing Hyde." LINK

Since the media was barred from today's ceremony, there are no photographs for public consumption.


In the meantime, we'll just refer back to this photo from 2003:


2003

Congress passes and Bush signs the so-called "Partial Birth" Abortion Ban—the first federal ban on an abortion procedure since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Bush signs the bill, which does not include an exception to preserve a woman's health, while surrounded by a group of smiling men.

By the way, that's Jim Oberstar, D-Minnesota, second from the right, in that anti-choice signing celebration with another president as well.



On March 23, 2010, just add two Democratic women.

[amborin]

8. K&R

[leftstreet]

9. Sad to say, there will be no 'fixing' of this Health Insurers Bailout

With the gazillions of dollars these bottom feeders will be extorting from us, they'll have plenty to lobby against any reforms or fixes for years to come.

Fuck it


K&R - Thanks for putting this together