Move On

When the liberal advocacy organization MoveOn.org was founded a few years ago, I was psyched. Approximately 900,000 emails from them later, not so much. Every day in the last few weeks, I received three emails from them. I blew my gasket today.

My motivating MoveOn email today noted that the Senate could really screw up the health care bill. My presence was requested at a rally to support the legislation that was out there. There was a little line thrown in about how anti-choice advocates muscled their religious beliefs into health care, denying women access to abortions, but whatever.

No, not whatever. I am sick of sacrificing my rights for the "greater good" when no one else seems to think they should ever do so. In yet another mass email I received (this time from Media Matters for America; I swear every progressive organization on the planet emails me daily), I learned that media coverage of the legislation is - surprise, surprise - completely misleading:

Media figures continue to falsely claim that a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the House health care reform bill would only have the effect of prohibiting government money from being used to pay for abortions, echoing a myth previously advanced about a proposed amendment to a prior version of that legislation. In fact, language in the current House bill already segregates federal money so it cannot be used directly to fund abortions, and the proposed amendment would effectively ban abortion coverage for some who have it now.

(Emphasis mine.)

Ellen Malcolm explains at The Huffington Post:

The Amendment effectively bans private insurance companies that participate in insurance exchanges from providing coverage of abortion. It tries to camouflage the impact by providing an "abortion rider" that women could choose to pay extra for to cover costs if they have an abortion.

I'm tired of being thrown under the bus so that others can roll forward over me. When the Catholic bishops (who launched "a forceful lobbying effort" that is credited "with the success of the provision") and other religious fundamentalists next want to forbid insurance plans from covering contraceptives or protect "pharmacists" who decline to fill prescriptions that they find morally objectionable, am I again supposed to step aside for the greater good? No. Instead, I shall Move On.