Surprised Baby is surprised to learn that if he wants health care, he has to somehow get himself back into his mother’s womb
We know that “pro-lifers” don’t really care all that much about women’s health and lives. We know that they justify the damage they do with concern for the unborn. We know that The Baby is the chief concern of pro-lifers… right?
Nope, not so much on that last one. For all their cries about saving babies, they don’t seem particularly interested in actually helping children and babies — National Right to Life just refused to support the S-CHIP program that provides health care for kids from lower-income families.
However, the NRLC maintains that the Democrats misconstrue their position on the Medicare issue and that they don’t have a stake in the SCHIP bill.
“That letter mixes two issues that really have no relation to each other,” said Douglas Johnson, NRLC’s legislative director. “There’s nothing there [in the SCHIP bill] for us to really grab onto.”
Right. There’s nothing in a bill about providing health care to children that has to do with life at all. And just in case you weren’t totally convinced that they could care less about born people:
The right-to-life group had wanted to codify an administration policy providing SCHIP coverage for unborn children — which most Democrats believe should instead apply to the pregnant mothers — but got no support from Ryan and other Democrats who oppose abortion rights, Johnson added.
I knew we had that “assholes” tag for a reason.
Similar Posts:
- The Bush administration: So “pro-life,” they’ll violate federal law to deny health care to children by Jill April 19, 2008
- Sacrificing Women at the Altar of Fetus Fetishism by Jill April 25, 2007
- Pro-Life Politicians: Every fetus is an incredibly valuable human life with rights that trump all others. Until it’s born. Then the little bastard’s on its own. by Jill July 20, 2007
- South Dakota bill would allow the killing of abortion providers as “justifiable homicide” by Jill February 15, 2011
- Bush v. Children by Jill September 17, 2007
I know this is a very serious issue, but this sentence made me burst out laughing. :)
This refusal to expand the health care programme seems so very contradictory and hypocritical.
Let’s not forget that everytime a republican is whining about SCHIP covering adults and not just children that the adults they are talking about are pregnant women.
If there were a middle ground to found with the forced pregnancy folks- I would think that prenatal care might be part of it. But I would be wrong.
After re-reading the Hill article, I clearly recalled getting three “Support Children’s Healthcare” e-mails: one from Planned Parenthood and two from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
Hrm.
Of course you’d be wrong. The ONLY concern that pro-life groups have in terms of prenatal care is how policy can be used to establish a precedent for refering to a fetus as a human being. It ends there.
Pro-life isn’t about quality of life, it is about absolute and invasive control over the way in which life begins and ends. Thats it, thats the end. Ultimately, the pro-life position doesn’t even really care about babies, they just use that idea to mask the philosophy behind their agenda. The pro-life movement is opposed to abortion (and birth control) because it represents an unacceptable infringement by human beings upon the responsibilities of their god. You have to understand that this isn’t about life or suffering, this is about human beings (and, more directly, women) reaching beyond their place. The objection to abortion is an objection to a refusal of submission to the will of a jealous god.
Another reason to support SCHIP. And another reason why some antis would be against it? The linked article reports that ethnic disparities in health care are reduced after SCHIP implimentation.
Here’s a proud S-CHIP supporting pro-lifer:
http://vox-nova.com/2007/10/17/s-chip-overcoming-the-myths/
MM, I hear you that pro-life supporters of the S-CHIP do exist. I do think there are plenty of pro-lifers who are on board with actually caring for babies after they’re born.
But where are the mainstream pro-life organizations? Pro-life Republicans? Why aren’t they doing anything to actually help kids?
Jill-Exactly!
Katha Pollitt remarked on this a few years ago: according to conservatives, having children is a woman’s highest duty, the ultimate fulfillment of her nature, and her greatest contribution to the future of civilization and the species–until she actually has one, at which point it becomes just another lifestyle choice for which she should bear all the costs and tradeoffs.
It’s almost like they’re not really serious about the first part.
How big an asshole do you have to be to insist on the coverage applying specifically to fetuses instead of the mother? Seriously, when the outcome is exactly the same thing except that mom gets the shaft on anything post-birth or -miscarriage–even at the expense of her ability to care for the newborn–how can that be looked at as anything but anti-mother?
which most Democrats believe should instead apply to the pregnant mothers
Which would seem to me to be the Biblically motivated way of thinking about this … after all the Bible doesn’t consider killing a fetus (i.e. causing a miscarriage) to be homocide but does consider it to be an injury to the woman requiring compensation.
Good for you! I’m really glad to see eye to eye with you on this issue. But who would you vote for: A pro-life politician who was against S-CHIP or a pro-choice politician who was for it?
One other thing about S-CHIP: It probably isn’t really a money loser in the end. People who have health insurance are more likely to have primary care physicians, therefore less likely to end up in the ER for minor illnesses. They are also more likely to get preventative care and so less likely to end up in the hospital dying expensively of end stage disease. Finally, children who get preventative care and early treatment for any chronic medical conditions are more likely to grow up into healthy, tax-paying adults than those who do not. So the $35 billion (a tiny amount, really, compared with the federal budget or even the war on Iraq), will be repaid in fewer unpaid hospital bills (that end up being paid by the taxpayers) and more healthy, tax-paying citizens. So where’s the problem with it?
dianne, to turn the concept on its head:
who would YOU (or, for that matter, WE who are pro-choice and pro-SCHIP) vote for? a pro-life politician who was pro-SCHIP or a pro-choice politician who was anti-SCHIP? if such a thing even exists? huh.
“So where’s the problem with it?”
Well, it’s socialism. Horrible, logical socialism.
Disgraceful. Disgraceful that pro-lifers don’t care for the already born.
I have some respect for Morning’s Minion and other sane pro-lifers with consistent sets of ethics. I disagree with them, but I can understand, respect, and even find common ground with them.
I simply cannot fathom how someone can care more about a blastocyst than a baby. It makes so little sense that it can’t be true. These people are obviously in bad faith, and are actually wanting to punish women for their sexuality, and just using “saaaving the baybees” as a cover for their misogyny.
Ah, but you see, “right to life” simply means “right to exist outside of the womb for an undefined period of time to be no shorter than 0 seconds”.
At least, as far as I can tell, since beyond that moment the idea seems to be “welp, it’s alive and out of the womb. My job here is done.”
But then- if that IS how they see it, then life starts at birth… so they are projecting rights onto something that they don’t define as alive… since once it IS alive they stop caring…
Okay, my head hurts now.
If your point is that it’s a nasty choice to have to make and possibly an unfair question, consider it made! I’d rather eat ground glass than vote for a politician that voted against S-CHIP. On the other hand, the day abortion is illegalized in the US is the day I’m leaving the country and never coming back. I think, on the balance, I’d vote for the pro-lifer: the S-CHIP vote hangs by a thread and one congressperson could make all the difference. The abortion debate has been going on for years and will likely to continue on with no real conclusion for many more years. So I’d have to go for the pro-lifer. Possibly on my way to the airport.
The reason I asked MM, though, was because pro-lifers tend to be single-issue voters. So, in a sense, it doesn’t matter that the Vox writers are mostly anti-death penalty, anti-war, anti-school of the Americas, etc. They’ll vote as though they were pro- all those things because they’ll vote for the pro-life candidate no matter how distasteful they find the rest of their platform. Or, at least, so I have the impression. Anyone from vox who wants to correct me, please do so.
Dianne (in case you’re still reading this thread), I think this very quandry is a reason why it’s valuable to keep lines of communication open with people we disagree with on one issue, even a trump issue. Our winner-take-all system is structured to enforce such nasty choices for people all around the political landscape, and currently the only work-around is for the political and media dialog to see an issue having broad support from many positions.
Imagine the blow to mindless dichotomizing that would be struck were NARAL and NRLC to take out full-page ads on facing pages of the New York Times (or, heck, even the National Enquirer) explaining why for different reasons they both supported making the health of children a priority not contingent on family wealth and naming names of representatives and legislation that advanced that goal.
I know, it’s a fantasy, but there is precedent in some ecumenical movements for social justice.
Cranefly: I think that would be awesome, but I must agree that it is fantasy. Any thoughts on how or if it could become closer to reality?
[...] all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have demonstrated time and again that they could actually care less. They’re more interested in punishing women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family [...]
[...] all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have demonstrated time and again that they could actually care less. They’re more interested in punishing women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family [...]