I’ve always been a bit wary of Guttmacher’s polls and stats in some areas. For example, I’ve felt that their polling fails to capture health reasons except as a very narrowly defined concept. I’m not sure how this is accomplished, unless we are to believe women very narrowly define their own health concerns. It is hard for me to accept that the respondents do this when I hear women discuss their reasons for abortion within my own sphere of influence. Not wanting to be sick, in pain, and at heightened risk of various painful and expensive health problems and illnesses are always given. Selection bias on my part, perhaps. It may be that many women have just been conditioned to disregard their own health when the subject is discussed.

Further to the point, it would be as if one is shown results of a poll suggesting that the reasons for women taking statins are primarily financial (can’t afford a heart attack) or “personal” (fearing disruption from work or school activities, etc.), with health reasons weighing in at <10%.

While I recognize that there are differences, I am not persuaded yet that more women don't take their own health concerns into account, particularly with the rise in asthma, diabetes, obesity, and other medical conditions that are complicated by pregnancy, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Finally I am tired of hearing how we need to get less having fought so hard for even a modicum of equality. So no, now I am not a loyal supporter of the Democrats. I am a feminist woman first and we can then go from there.

I am so glad to see you say this. It is affirming for me and I believe to most women.

I am so old that I have been alive from a period of profound, if not extreme, oppression of women’s rights.. When I applied to an advanced degree program, I was told if there were any openings males didn’t take I would only then likely be offered a place.

Fears of unintended pregnancy dominated female male, and family, relationships etc. Then came birth control (fought as vigorously as abortion now by the Catholic church) and a vibrant feminist movement, insistencing on equal civil liberties including contraception and abortion flourished.

I think it began to die when ERA failed to pass and momentum was lost. I have no idea how to re-energize it. But I hope Stupak and the disinterested Obama administration may do it.

Query? What makes pro-lifers so unpleasant? I will post my idea later. Even the ill informed blow hard clown Matthews becomes intolerably hateful when speaking about abortion, especially with pro-choice women.

The Guttmacher Institute, for example, reported that only 13 percent of abortions in 2001 were directly billed by providers to insurance companies

So that means that 87% of abortions were NOT covered by insurance but paid for by women directly out of their pockets. So that means that there are women who either

a) entirely lack coverage of any health program yet who would benefit from abortion coverage [yet these women would not be able to obtain abortion coverage although compelled to purchase mandatory insurance because of STUPAK]
b) were covered by insurance, but that insurance didn’t cover abortion because of the Hyde Amendment (Medicare, children on SCHIP, women in the military (or wives or teen dependents of a soldier), women in the Federal government (or the female dependents of a Federal employee).
c) a State employee in one of the 12 States that denies abortion coverage to their employees.
d) residents of the four states that deny insurers from covering elective abortions

Eliminate STUPAK and many women in that 87% – on Medicare, and in these other classes- would be able to obtain insurance options (their choice) with coverage for abortions.

These are women who currently opt for the more expensive option of carrying a pregnancy to term because the government WILL pay for that (but ignore the social costs involved…poverty, loss of educational and career opportunities, child abuse or abandonment, crime, welfare, etc.).

And because STUPAK eliminates coverage of women who have coverage in that 13% (underestimated) who opt for the exchange or receive subsidies it essentially violates Obama’s pledge that “no one will be forced to drop an insurance plan that the currently have.”

Rahm is now arguing that it’s okay if several million women give up their plans and many million more to join with those functionally denied their right of choice.

How ironic that that same leadersheep is shooting itself in the face, their party, many American women, and some of their staunchest current and future supporters.

Barack Obama is far more conservative than his campaign image and he likes to follow more than lead. Rarely a man willing to break new ground, Mr. Obama and his hand-picked assistant principal and chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, have chosen to follow in Mr. Bush’s footsteps here, too. They are presiding over the demise of their own party and a goodly chunk of America.