CardiovascularBlogs Comment On Media Coverage Of Abortion Issues In Health Reform Debate, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries. ~ "Mainstream Media Reinforces Unexamined Arguments Against Public Funding for Abortion," Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check: It "seems that mainstream media s ... believe that abortion is an effective cudgel to beat health care reform to death," Marcotte writes. According to Marcotte, the "unvarnished truth" is that there is "no way that any kind of public health care plan will have elective abortion coverage. Nor is there any real chance of abortion becoming mandated coverage." However, "you wouldn"t know it to read the media coverage of this issue," she writes, continuing that "we"ve got the toxic mixture of pants-on-fire lying anti-choicers and cowardly media outlets that give the opponents of health care reform an opportunity to lie about the potential for taxpayer-funded abortions." Those who defend health care reform are "so busy trying to shut down the misinformation about abortion coverage that we"re not having the more interesting discussion about whether or not abortion should be covered," Marcotte says. She adds, "And by not having that discussion, we"re allowing the belief that some people"s moral objections to abortion should dictate federal policy lay unchallenged," she continues. She writes that she "suspect[s] that anti-choicers latched onto taxpayer-funded abortions because they can count on a lot of the public to imagine the government funding female licentiousness." Marcotte concludes that the "good news is that this contempt for female sexuality has receded enough that the media debate hasn"t -- yet -- turned to whether or not health care reform should cover contraception" (Marcotte, RH Reality Check, 7/28).~ "Privileging Opposition to Abortion," Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America: Some reporters "have skewed their reports in favor of those who oppose" coverage of abortion in federally subsidized insurance plans, according to Foser. For example, Foser writes that on a recent episode of MSNBC"s "Hardball," host Chris Matthews asked Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) "leading questions that encouraged them to state their opposition to insurance coverage of abortion" but never asked them "one simple question: Why shouldn"t abortion be covered, given that the procedure is legal?" Foser adds, "Nor has he asked if there are any other legal procedures that shouldn"t be covered." The "premise that taxpayers who oppose abortion shouldn"t have to pay for them with their tax money carries obvious implications the media ignores," Foser writes. He adds that the "idea that taxpayers shouldn"t pay for insurance that covers medical services they don"t support is fundamentally incompatible with the very concept of insurance." He continues, "If every interest group wields veto power over the medical care insurance can cover, insurance simply can"t work." However, this is not the "only logical inconsistency on the part of abortion foes that the media fail to examine" in their coverage of abortion issues in the health reform debate, he writes. "Many of those who are most adamant that the government not allow abortion to be paid for by health insurance plans are the same conservatives who argue against health care reform by warning of the prospect of a government bureaucrat getting between you and your doctor," according to Foser. He continues that the "same people who want a government ban on insurance coverage for a legal medical procedure turn around and demagogue about government bureaucrats making medical decisions," which is "a pretty obvious inconsistency, the kind any reporter should be able to spot easily." However, the "tension between those two positions has gone unexplored in news reports about the abortion controversy," Foser concludes (Foser, Media Matters for America, 7/24).~ "Obama Abortion Backtrack Shows He"s All Rhetoric, No Fight," Bonnie Erbe, U.S. News & World Report"s "Thomas Jefferson Street": "[O]ne thing we know will not be included" in the Senate version of health care reform legislation "is a provision to reverse the infamous Hyde Amendment," which bans federal Medicaid funding from being used for abortion services, Erbe writes. She continues that "our supposedly pro-choice president is signaling that federal funds for abortion is not the kind of issue over which he"s willing to wage a fight," given President Obama"s recent comment that there is a ""tradition"" of ""not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care."" Erbe writes that Obama is "about as pro-choice as he is anti-war, pro-environment and pro-women"s rights, which is to say, not so much or hardly at all when it comes to action versus rhetoric" (Erbe, "Thomas Jefferson Street," U.S. News & World Report, 7/27).~ "Bid To Strip Planned Parenthood Funding Rejected," Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check: The House on July 24 rejected an amendment to the fiscal year 2010 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (HR 3293) that sought to prohibit Title X family planning funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Jacobson writes. She notes that the amendment "received the strong support of anti-choice activist groups, including members of the Susan B. Anthony List." Jacobson continues that the group "this week sent out repeated "urgent action" dispatches that hinge on lurid allegations that Planned Parenthood is under "multiple investigations in several states" for "allowing sexual abuse of children to go unreported, as well as encouraging young girls to lie about their age in order to obtain an abortion."" However, the so-called "investigations" are "not police investigations and don"t involve legal authorities," Jacobson writes. She adds that "they have been conducted by Lila Rose, who poses as an underage woman and visits Planned Parenthood clinics with a hidden camera." Rose"s tapes "of alleged wrongdoing have spurred no investigation by law enforcement, which discount them essentially as entrapment," Jacobson writes. She notes that PPFA is the "largest single of reproductive health care in the country" -- including cancer screenings, breast exams and treatment of sexually transmitted infections -- and "reportedly receives up to $350 million in public funding to deliver primary reproductive health care services" (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 7/27).~ "Is Obama"s Abortion-as-Distraction Remark a Bigger Threat to the Left or Right?" Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News & World Report"s "God & Country": President Obama"s recent comment that abortion is serving as a "distraction" to the health care reform debate is "ironic" because it "will tick off" advocates on both sides of the abortion debate, Gilgoff writes. Obama"s comment is "actually more threatening to abortion-rights supporters than to opponents," as the rhetoric "suggests the president doesn"t want to fight over the polarizing abortion issue, which means letting the status quo -- that tradition of not financing abortion with taxpayer dollars -- stand," according to Gilgoff. However, abortion-rights opponents "don"t trust the Obama administration not to define abortion as a basic benefit in the public health care option after Congress passes the health care bill," Gilgoff says, adding that they "won"t be satisfied until Congress explicitly bans government-funded or subsidized abortion in the new health care system" (Gilgoff, "God & Country," U.S. News & World Report, 7/27).
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