"Maximally Pro-Choice"

Following up on my previous post, there's a special group of people I want to highlight: There were 64 Democrats who voted for the Stupak coathanger amendment in November - well, there were 219 Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment in November, but that was after it was already inserted into the bill. There were 64 Democrats who voted to insert that language into the bill. Of those 64, 37 went on to support the bill through all three votes in March. In other words, if these 37 Democrats had only found it within themselves to not explicitly make women second-class citizens, they wouldn't be on my list. They are:

Joe Baca CA-43, Sanford Bishop GA-02, John Boccieri OH-16, Dennis Cardoza CA-18, Christopher Carney PA-10, Jim Costa CA-20, Henry Cuellar TX-28, Kathy Dahlkemper PA-03, Michael Doyle PA-14, Steve Driehaus OH-01, Brad Ellsworth IN-08, Bob Etheridge NC-02, Bart Gordon TN-06, Baron Hill IN-09, Paul Kanjorski PA-11, Marcy Kaptur OH-09, Dale Kildee MI-05, Jim Langevin RI-02, Michael Michaud ME-02, Alan Mollohan WV-01, Richard Neal MA-02, Jim Oberstar MN-08, David Obey WI-07, Solomon Ortiz TX-27, Tom Perriello VA-05, Earl Pomeroy ND-AL, Nick Rahall WV-03, Silvestre Reyes TX-16, Ciro Rodriguez TX-23, Tim Ryan OH-17, John Salazar CO-03, Vic Snyder AR-02, John Spratt SC-05, Bart Stupak MI-01, Charlie Wilson OH-06

I understand a lot of people want to forgive and forget this vote, as I did for other votes against the bill in November, because these people voted for the bill in March. SEIU is running ads in six congressional districts to thank those Representatives for supporting health care, and four of the six voted for Stupak. Stupak himself, once he was bought off with the President agreeing to issue an Executive Order just for him, came up solid in speaking against the Republican motion to recommit, which was basically his original amendment from November. Tom Perriello seems to be a particular favorite around Left Blogistan: He's on the short list for OpenLeft's Better Democrats slate of endorsements, and on the We've Got Your Back ActBlue page created by DailyKos's Adam Bonin. Commenters compare him to Alan Grayson, who voted for the health care bill while wearing an American flag tie. (537:20 in this C-SPAN clip.)

On one blog where Tom Perriello was cited as an example of exactly the kind of swing-district Democrat people should be supporting, I commented stating my reluctance after his Stupak vote. Another commenter stated that "you can't expect Dems in red districts to take a maximally pro-choice position." So now allowing health insurance to cover an entirely legal medical procedure is a maximally pro-choice position? Bullshit. Voting no on Stupak is the very definition of minimally pro-choice. Maximally pro-choice would be making free, no-questions-asked abortions available at every post office. Maximally pro-choice would be legislating that no doctor could be licensed in any field unless they were also certified abortion providers and offered abortion services at their practices. Maximally pro-choice would be making the abortion pill available over-the-counter in vending machines and using government subsidies to keep the price down.

Simply not voting to make abortion unavailable to any woman who can't afford an additional rider, or any woman who is prevented from making her own insurance purchasing choices by her employer, controlling/abusive partner, parent, etc. is not anything like maximally pro-choice. It is incredibly minimally pro-choice, and Tom Perriello and these rest of these 37 so-called Democrats, and indeed all 64 D's who voted for the amendment, couldn't even scrape together the guts to stand up for that.

The obvious question is, why give folks like Dennis Kucinich and Betsy Markey a break for their votes against the bill in November and not give the same break to Tom Perriello and Earl Pomeroy? Well, Kucinich et al literally got a do-over; the house had to pass the health bill a second time, and they came out on the right side that time. The Stupakers got no such chance; because of their vote, we got the Nelson abortion language in the Senate bill, and that executive order, and they have done nothing to repair that damage.

If they all helped to pass a bill that, say, removed the Nelson language and repealed the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion services, then I would say fine, all is forgiven. But until something like that happens, good riddance. Either women are full and equal citizens of this country, or they are not, and this group emphatically voted 'Not.' Supposedly they did this because they can't survive in their districts while supporting equal rights for 52% of the population. Great, then this vote should have helped them, they don't need my help.