Similar stories:
•
House votes strict ban on abortion subsidies
A bipartisan House coalition voted Saturday to prohibit coverage of abortions in a new government-run health care plan that Democrats would establish to compete with private insurers.
The 240-194 vote on an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., was a blow to liberals, who would have allowed the Obama administration and its successors to decide whether abortions would be covered by the government plan. Sixty-four Democrats joined 176 Republicans in favor of the prohibition.
Stupak's measure also would bar anyone getting federal health subsidies from purchasing private insurance polices that included abortion coverage.
•
Abortion could roil Senate health care debate
Abortion opponents in the Senate are seeking tough restrictions in the health care overhaul bill, a move that could roil a shaky Democratic effort to pass President Barack Obama's signature issue by year's end.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Monday it's unlikely he could support a bill that doesn't clearly prohibit federal dollars from going to pay for abortions. His spokesman said Nelson is weighing options, including offering an amendment that's similar to the one passed by the House.
The House-passed restrictions were the price Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had to pay to get a health care bill passed, on a narrow 220-215 vote. But it's prompted an angry backlash from liberals, some of whom are now threatening to vote against a final bill if the curbs stay in.
•
Abortion funding a sticking point in House health care bill
Would abortions be easier or harder to obtain under the health care overhaul legislation that the House of Representatives is likely to consider later this week?
It depends on how one interprets the bill.
Abortion foes are upset that the measure would require plans that offer elective abortion services to set aside at least a dollar a month from each of their patient's private premium dollars in an account strictly apart from any federal funds.
•
eBay: No auction for suspect in Kan. doc's death
Online retailer eBay said Tuesday it will block an auction planned to raise money for the man charged with killing Kansas abortion provider George Tiller.
Supporters of the man had said that they wanted to raise money to pay for Scott Roeder's defense. They planned to auction off items including an Army of God manual, an underground publication for anti-abortion militants that describes ways to shut down clinics, including bombing.
Also on the auction list was a prison cookbook compiled by Shelley Shannon, the Oregon woman who shot and wounded Tiller in 1993 and was later convicted in a series of abortion clinic arsons and bombings.
•
MARY SANCHEZ: Anti-abortion militants adrift
Is Operation Rescue on its last legs? That's the question many are asking in light of an Internet appeal the once-prominent anti-abortion organization made recently pleading for donations to save its life.
"There's no time to lose," wrote Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, "we're getting very close to the point of shutting everything down if emergency help doesn't arrive soon." Many in the media seized on the appeal to speculate as to whether the protest group was finished.
Indeed, times have not been good for Operation Rescue lately, especially since a gunman killed the organization's greatest fund-raising tool. In Dr. George Tiller, the recently murdered Wichita, Kan., abortion doctor, Operation Rescue had a worthy nemesis. In fact, the organization relocated to Wichita from California in 2002 explicitly to harass Tiller. Without him, the group is floundering.
In response to Christopher G. Tasy (letter April 24):
Thanks for running Amy Goodman's column. She is first-class. But I'll always miss Molly Ivins. If dissent is unpatriotic, then those Germans who supported Hitler during World War II were patriots. What kind of value is that? National polls and honking horns at the Peace Corner, Blackstone and Shaw avenues, indicate that the "fringe" includes the great majority of citizens.
I'm not sure how to define "madman." But someone who attacks a defenseless nation that never threatened your own country and uses white phosphorus and depleted uranium, which also harms our own soldiers, to kill 655,000 of that country's civilians, including mothers and their children, is immoral. Family values, anyone?
I have a hard time justifying most cases of abortion, but there's little point arguing about it. The effective weapon against abortion is access for all to health care including contraception, to good jobs and to a good education. Then women who are forced to consider abortion because they are unable to raise a child would really have a choice. Universal health care and a living wage, anybody?
Bill Simon
E-Mail
Print
@Nyx.CommentBody@