House health care bill vs. the First Amendment

While a part of me was happy to see a health care reform bill pass the House on Saturday night, another part of me is disappointed for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the House bill does not contain the truly robust public option that we really need.

Second, I am disappointed that the bill includes the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which restricts abortion coverage.

The amendment was obviously a gift (or bribe) to the Democratic "moderates" who are obviously pandering to the religious extremists in their districts. After all, most criticism of abortion that I come across tends to be religiously motivated.

And religiously motivated legislation has no place in the United States of America, where the First Amendment supposedly guarantees the separation of church and state.

The fact is that abortion is currently a legal medical procedure in the United States of America.

But, under the new House bill, it appears that a woman cannot even use her own money to pay for an abortion if she receives a federal subsidy for her health insurance.

Of course, as always, poorer women will suffer the most -- the ones who often cannot afford to properly support the children they will be forced to bear.

I contend that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be 100% covered. But they can't. So they cannot (or will not) relate. So women's reproductive rights become a bargaining chip. And the timid left gives in to the demands of the religious right and the "moderate" Dems. The separation of church and state guaranteed by the First Amendment is ignored and spited.

And women and children will suffer as a result.

This is apparently what those so-called "moderates" want for their sisters, daughters, nieces, and granddaughters.

But this is not "pro-life"; it is pro-embryo. Once those embryos are born, they're on their own.

And heaven help them if they're not born to the rich.