The Abortion Debate Is the "Pitts"

Here's the latest on the abortion legislation in the house that no one in the media cares enough to cover. (It's apparently one of those stories Rachel Maddow would say that no one is talking about!) Although the bill sponsored by U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ) no longer redefines rape, its cessation of tax breaks for health plans that happen to include abortion coverage would essentially bar women who work for the government or serve in military to receive abortion coverage, and it would deny any access to such coverage for poor women as well. Even worse, by ending tax breaks for such plans, it would manage to prevent private employers from covering it as well.

If you think Smith is a horrible person, wait until you hear what Joseph Pitts, a House Republican from Pennsylvania, has in store. The Pitts bill, called the Protect Life Act, would bar insurance plans in the new system set up by the health care law from providing abortion coverage to anyone who receives government aid while permitting just about any hospital, clinic, or insurance company to refuse to provide, cover, or pay for abortions. They wouldn't even have to refer patients elsewhere for abortions. But here's the clincher - the so-called "Protect Life Act" would allow religiously affiliated hospitals to impose religious beliefs and refuse to provide emergency abortion care even in cases where it's necessary to save a woman's life.

Protect life? Whose life is it, anyway?

Of course, you can't blame Americans for being outraged if no one's informing them because the media are too busy covering President Obama's quixotic attempts to kiss and make up with big business.

And while all of this is going on, an anti-abortion group based in California is trying a sting operation comparable to the one that brought down ACORN not too long ago. Live Action, based in San Jose, sent men posing as pimps to Planned Parenthood offices to get information about abortions for prostitutes and sex workers, getting it on secret videotape. Planned Parenthood insists that the videos do not accurately portray their practices and they that they try to get underaged girls who ask about abortion themselves to talk to a social worker and that they screen these girls for abuse and neglect. They insist that they take the health and well-being of girls very seriously - and why wouldn't they? - and Live Action is trying to prove otherwise.

Let me just state my own beliefs on abortion, if I haven't already done so on this blog. I'm against it, except in cases of rape, incest, and life-threatening pregnancies. I oppose abortion for the same reason I oppose the death penalty - I do not condone the idea of human beings deciding who gets to live and who does not. But - while I am opposed to abortion, I am even more opposed to enforcing my own beliefs on those who think differently, and so I therefore believe the practice should remain legal. Smith and Pitts - and the people at Live Action - are entitled to speak out against abortion as I have just done. They are not entitled to force their opinions on others. Unfortunately, that's what these mendacious House bills would do.