Stupak is as Stupak Does

So let me see if I understand you correctly, mainstream Democrats: Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), a longtime opponent of health care reform, has decided out of the goodness of his heart to construct a well-written amendment to the health care bill that would bring pro-choice and pro-life Democrats together and ensure its passage. Am I right?

Judging by the words of my About.com colleague Deborah White, guide to U.S. Liberal Politics, that's what many Democrats are thinking right now--which is how they're justifying the biggest restriction on abortion rights since Roe v. Wade. But let's break this down:

"The hard fact is that without the Stupak amendment, the House health care reform bill would have gone down to defeat last weekend."

Nobody knows that. 39 Democrats voted against the health care bill, and 22 of those 39 voted for the Stupak amendment (which means that 22 Democrats joined the Republicans to pass the Stupak amendment and still tried to sink the revised bill). Pro-choice Democrats who voted against the health care bill, like Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), had issues with other parts of the legislation (such as the fact that it doesn't provide single-payer coverage) and could potentially have flipped to support it if there weren't enough votes to ensure its passage; and of the 42 Democrats who voted for Stupak and the health care bill, we have no real idea how many would have still supported the bill if there had not been an anti-abortion amendment, or at least would have accepted a less draconian amendment that only addresses abortion funding in the public-option plan.

The latter point is crucial because the Stupak amendment does more than its advocates in the mainstream Democratic party claim it does. It really does amount, potentially, to a total ban on private insurance coverage of abortions through its Exchange restrictions--when 87% of plans cover abortion at the moment. This is a huge blow against a woman's right to choose, and a significant invasion of medical privacy. It might not even survive judicial review--and how far to the right does the Democratic Party have to be when one of its reproductive health policies is too far-right to survive judicial review under the Roberts Court?

I'm also troubled by the tone of ransom that's associated with this restriction. As Deborah writes:

"Frankly, pro-choice overreaction on the Stupak amendment belies a certain trite liberal elitism. Think about it: does anyone honestly believe that given a choice between health care with no abortion coverage or no health care access, lower income women would choose to forgo all health care services?"

I think that low-income women who have to induce their abortions with coathangers and black-market misoprostol are at risk either way. And yes, if we're going to choose which women we're going to allow to die, then I suppose fewer will die from illegal abortions than undiagnosed cancer or heart disease. But why are we using this kind of devil's arithmetic when we're talking about women's lives?

I recognize that, as a sad practical reality, the public-option plan won't cover abortions. The pro-choice movement was prepared for that. What we were not prepared for was an amendment that is potentially tantamount to a ban on all insurance coverage of abortion. If you want to revise the health care bill to create an exception in the public-option plan for abortions, then do so. But don't pretend the Stupak amendment is that revision. It isn't.

Let's be blunt here: Bart Stupak knew exactly what he was doing when he proposed this amendment. Just as the extreme right hoped to sink the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 with the Communications Decency Act, and to sink the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill by expanding the federal death penalty to include a variety of nonviolent offenses, Rep. Stupak hoped that waging war on a woman's right to choose would sink the health care bill--and in a way that places the blame at the feet of the pro-choice movement instead of his own.

And any logic that would be used to defend the Stupak amendment could be used to defend any number of other restrictions on civil liberties. What if Congress decides that it won't provide body armor for troops in Afghanistan unless don't-ask-don't-tell is renewed? Would you really choose LGBT inclusion, bloggers like Deborah might ask, over the lives of our troops? Or what if Congress decides that it won't pass immigration reform unless a conservative is appointed to the next U.S. Supreme Court vacancy? Is control of the U.S. Supreme Court so important to you, Deborah might ask, that you'd let 12 million people live in fear of deportation?

We need to stop thinking like hostages and start thinking like activists. And the first step is to get rid of the Stupak amendment.

Related: History of Feminism | Understanding the Religious Right