The forced-birthers are out in force in the blogosphere, looking for federal funding of abortions in the bill, so I thought I'd help them out.

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The public plan and the exchange[s]

The public plan might or might not pay for abortions that don't fall under the Hyde amendment. The Secretary of HHS cannot require private insurance plans offered through the exchange[s] to cover abortions of any kind. Fortunately Sec HHS can't prevent private insurance from paying for abortions either. Abortion cannot be listed as part of the essential benefits package.

If you want to know why people might NOT want to choose the public plan, here's one reason that some women will "choose" to stay with private insurance.

Oh well, at least it doesn't prohibit abortion coverage outright.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

On Monday I sent the following email to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Colorado:

The recent letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB] opposing a House health care plan on the grounds that its prohibition of abortion funding was a "legal fiction" raised a question to me. I first learned of you because of your statement that voting for John Kerry in 2004 was cooperating in evil due to his position on abortion, so I know how seriously you take the issue. My question is, has the American church, the Conference or any other official Catholic body or agency taken a position on Catholics' purchasing insurance from companies that provide abortion services? All of the major ones - Aetna, Blue Cross, Cigna, United Healthcare and so on - provide abortion services in their policies. Doesn't anyone who pays premiums to these insurers help to fund abortion, and wouldn't that also amount to cooperating in evil?

It seems the Catholic Church has focused all of its energy and activism on government's role but left the private sector off scot-free. I am not aware of any visibility on this from the church, and that appears to be a glaring omission. Has it been addressed, and if so has it been addressed as forcefully? On the face of it, it seems to me that anything contributing to abortions, public or private, would be equally objectionable.

Thanks in advance for any time and attention you are able to provide.

From the June 5th letters section of the Star Tribune, a woman tells her story:

"ABORTION DOCTOR SLAIN
A personal story may give a little perspective

Regarding the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the antiabortion zealots would like everyone to think late-term abortions are never performed for a good reason. (The woman's life, health and wellbeing and severe fetal defects are not considered good reasons.)

Perhaps a real-life example will help everyone (at least the decent people) understand this issue.

How about "abortion reduction"?

First of all, if you were truly concerned about abortion reduction, you shouldn't have sacrificed women's healthcare, on the altar of bipartisanship!

"The election forces the pro-life movement to go back to what we do best — local grass-roots organizing," said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition. "We will not go silently into the night."

From an AP story carried on Yahoo: just because they got beat in California, the anti-choice groups aren't through. They want to make sure you know they're still angry.

Priests for Life (how's that for irony?) has a spokesman named Frank Pavone. He wants to remind the nation that the adoption or single motherhood is still preferable to abortion in the view of the church.

Barack Obama is looking for support from some of the most intolerant and corrupt "Christian" right leaders.

An article entitled Obama Meets with Conservative and Progressive Religious Leaders at the Christian Broadcasting network, included a list of "religious leaders" that Obama is trying to get support from...

Most of these leaders are rabidly anti-gay and anti-choice. And they even include one "religious leader" who played a role in Monica Goodlings efforts to put more right wing Christians in the DoJ....

Here's a partial list...

TD Jakes – One of those mega-church preachers who enriches himself (he lives in a $1.7 million mansion) while “saving souls”

Scratch the surface of any anti-choice man, and you'll always find the same thing:

Aubert looks startled. "I never really thought about it for the woman," he says slowly.

But she's supposed to be thinking of your pathetic needs every hour of every fucking day?

Of course you didn't think of her, you sick fuck. What is it with these men? Oh, that's right- they believe there are only two heads that matter in the world, and both of them are attached to their bodies.

Grrr. Sorry, I'm too angry to post on this in detail. I think it's been around for a while and I just missed it, forgive the link-only post. Blah, Blah, women are chattel, men their Gawd-appointed owners, no man should be denied the right to his use of my womb.

/erasing rage-filled invective towards men who are so insecure they feel compelled to control women to compensate/

One of those moments Molly should be here for.

[Welcome National Review readers. The password is still "specimen jar." Oh, you won't be returning here to apologize? That's okay, we didn't expect you to.]

So, it turns out, according to billing records from the lobby shop he worked for, Fred Thompson did do lobbying work for that pro-choice organization in the early nineties, just as Judith DeSarno claimed he had, complete with minutes of an executive board meeting discussing his work, and her memeories of a lunch at which "Fred" amusingly acted out a death scene from his latest film, which DeSarno remembered having involved cowboys.

Extremism in defense of blastocysts is no vice! WaPo:

Sen. Sam Brownback, campaigning for president Saturday before the National Catholic Men's Conference, questioned whether rape victims should get abortions.

"Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that's been raped?" the Kansas Republican asked at the St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers gathering.

Well, no, it wouldn't be. If that was what was happening you, er, Republican.

Well, yes, that headline is just a wee bit inflammatory. Some of the forced pregnancy looons are in it for the power. Others of them are in it because they want to control "their" women. And others are in it because they really are serious that a blastocyst is a baby, and is just as important as a living, breathing, woman.

Whatever. (Why I should take their beliefs seriously is a question that's about as open as the question of whether the earth is 6000 years old.) LA Times:

Some of the biggest groups in the movement, including Focus on the Family and National Right to Life, are under attack from fellow activists who accuse them of turning a godly [yeah, right] cause into a money-grubbing industry.

Of course, the activists are who saying Mullah Dobson has no clothes are even more lunatic than The Master Of The Rod Himself, but heck: The God(dess)(s)(es) of Your Choice, If Any, move in mysterious ways, His/Her/Their/Its wonders to perform.

It's always a pleasure to see the wingers eating their own:

Pope Benedict XVI , the ancient relic poseur who is the chief apologist for the ancient medieval relic that is the Catholic Church is on a whirlwind tour of the Americas, which began here in Brazil with a canonization of an 18th century snake-oil salesman and a rousing call to action by the faithful on the most important issues of our time.

The South Carolina legislature sure are busy bees. Fresh off the proposal to give prisoners six months off their sentences if they become human organ farms and donate kidneys, they now have come up with a new doozy of a proposal. If you want an abortion in the Palmetto state, there is a new catch.

I'm struggling to write a post for this, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Freedom of choice is a Good Thing, I celebrate the fact that in this country women are (mostly) allowed to control their own bodies. The anti-choice movement cares nothing for children or women or even the supposed dictates of their god(s); they are sick freaks who cut off parts of their own sexual organs and who are mostly racist Quiverfull types with serious problems with women and authority. But damn, I can't think of the last time I wrote five drafts of a post and trashed them all. Let me try the telegraph version.

What about pro-choice women who have abortions and regret it? What does our narrative offer them? I'm speaking of women who were pro-choice before and after having abortions, but who find the experience so complicated as to leave them wanting, as they turn to those who "support" their right to choose? What does our side offer them?

Digby sees more and more liberals running from their traditional role of protecting abortion rights.

Before they throw the right not to have babies out with the bathwater, maybe they should read a little Freakonomics:

VastLeft (you gotta love him!) has a new blog, Bible Study for Atheists. As an atheist, I thought I'd hate it but I visited it (out of courtesy, I guess). At first, there was that "there ain't nothing new here" feeling. I've avoided the bible for years--same old/same old... BUT--

You're not surprised. Hat tip to Blondesense, for making me get pissed as I pack.