Senate Rejects Abortion Amendment In Health Care Bill

Stewart - Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a Catholic, and like all Catholics I know, he probably wouldn't have been so cruel as to force a woman to carry a dead or non-viable fetus to full term.

Even Patrick moynihan couldn't defend late term abortions, and he was far more eloquent than Sarah t. It really is infanticide.

Yeah, what mordicai & Tricksta & FrankMartin said ! Just sucks that so many women of my Mom's generation fought so hard and made so many gains for reproductive rights, and all these years later we're back to having to fight for access to what should be basic healthcare. Sigh...

Wow look at the trolls coming out of the woodwork. Congrats on the Senate for having more guts than the House. Legal medical options being denied to women is discrimination. End of story.

Yes, zodak, abortion is often a choice but rasputinsghost got it exactly right : poor women don't get that right to choose, & neither do women in states with maybe 1 or 2 licensed clinics & a lot of repressive restrictions (more like Oklahoma & the Dakotas than Louisiana). And hey there, patsw : If you're as ugly as your fellow "every sperm is sacred" mouth-breathers, good to know you'll never reproduce, (except with members of your own family, obviously...)

So if you find out you have a cancerous tumor and choose to have it removed, that's considered "elective" surgery too? Your logic (or lack thereof) is astounding.

Sarah T sums it up perfectly in #5. And I hope you armchair moralists never have to make such a painful decision in your lifetime but if you do, you might want to rethink the incredibly ignorant pronouncements you've made.

Damn, I tried to make a point and this Frank Martin dude was posting at the same time, and said it better than me!

sorry, The Other Sarah T, it is elective, it's a choice, remember: women's right to choose. the point is that the republicrats are making an issue of abortion in the health care bill because they don't want it to pass, so that they can keep getting their campaign money & know that abortion is the issue they can count on to get people to disagree. (republicrats: because they are all the same)

government funding gives them the ABILITY to choose. if you're poor and in an anti choice state that has like one abortion clinic (e.g. Louisiana), how exactly is that choice made available to you? if the state considers abortion a medical fucking procedure, which it does, what right do you have to place moral imprimaturs upon it if we've already decided to subsidize healthcare?

In every successful abortion, an innocent human being is killed. 49 million in the United States since 1973.

No, in every single abortion, a pregnancy is not carried to term.

And for every pregnancy where it was determined that the child-to-be would have a severely debilitating/degenerative disease and not live past the age of five, and yet the mother was forced to carry it to term anyway, an innocent human being (and the human being's parents and family) were subjected to a (short) lifetime of horror, severe pain and misery.

In what religion exactly is there a god that's ok with that?

Sorry, verbal, but there's no 100% foolproof form of birth control, and if you ever have sex you might be unlucky enough to learn that first-hand. As to your comment re, late term abortion, either you're equally ignorant on this subject, or you're the type of moralistic sadist who'd force a woman to bring a dead fetus to full term. Whatever the case, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and again, you'd better hope that you never have to learn about the subject the hard way.

Abortion isn't an issue, other than the funding. "choice" is just that, a choice, hence elective. Abortion is not a substitute for birth control, and yes that should be covered, and in a lot of cases free. Aside from a medical emergency affecting the health of the mother, it is a choice. And one last thing, late term abortion, if you choose to engage in that horror, you should have a random appendage removed at the same time.

Hey longacre & verbal : Choosing to have an abortion instead of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to full term is not "elective surgery ", and if men could get knocked up, abortion wouldn't even be an issue, except for the looniest of religious loonies. And guess what ? Dental should be covered, too : Those of us who like non-rotting teeth won't force that root canal on you, promise.

99.999% of abortions are elective procedures; given the left's logic then most plastic surgery and all dental should be covered as well.

This has nothing to do with a woman's right to choose, and leaving this out of this 'abortion' of a health care bill doesn't affect that right.

99.999%, garbage, what dark recess of you mind did you dig that nonsense out of?

Elective doesn't mean a procedure isn’t medically necessary. Hate it, but abortions are legal medical procedure and excluding them based on religious or moral grounds is problematic, even illegal.

And if abortion is elective then what about hip or knee replacement? Are those always medically necessary? Or are they often performed to enhance the life of the patient. Should the healthcare bill exclude hip and knee replacement surgery for people who have spent more that 20 years overweight or with a BMI in excess of 30 (BMI is a joke by the way but or idiot leaders use it so I will)? Or should we refuse skin cancer treatment for people that didn't wear hats and sun screen after being repeatedly told to by their doctor?

Better question, why should I pay for any of the consequences resulting from other peoples choices? I say do what you want with your life, smoke it-pop it-read it or breed with it, but don't come crying to me when you break a piece of yourself.

"Abortion rights advocates said that [Senator Ben] Nelson’s proposed language, which would mirror restrictions included in the health care bill approved last month by the House, posed one of the greatest threats to women’s freedoms since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision."

Not being able to get a government-funded abortion does not affect a woman's freedom to obtain one. The Supreme Court has already said as much.