Roundup: Abortion and Health Care Reform

Aug 28, 2009, 11:22am

Amy Dempsey

Abortion and Health Care Reform; Does Circumcision Protect Men from HIV/AIDS?; Michael Steele was For Abortion and Medicare

Abortion and Health Care Reform
In an electronic "town hall
kit" that was published this week, the conservative Family Research
Council and other conservative groups declared the pending health care
legislation will require taxpayers to "pay for abortion on demand" and
to "fund the leading provider of abortion in the nation, Planned
Parenthood," according to a New York Times article.

The
House Energy and Commerce Committee adopted the only amendment that
clearly addresses the abortion issue, and was introduced by
Representative Lois Capps, Democrat of California. If this amendment
were to become law, health coverage for abortion care would not change
substantially, the article said.

The New York Times said:

Under the proposed legislation passed by the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, abortion coverage would not be included in the
"essential benefits package" of minimum services that plans would be
required to offer. But in each region of the country there would have
to be at least one plan available that offers abortion coverage and one
that does not.

The Capps amendment, as it’s called, would not pre-empt state laws
regulating abortion. Currently, four states restrict private insurance
coverage of abortion to cases in which a woman’s life is in danger
unless she purchases an insurance rider for an additional fee,
according to the Guttmacher Institute. In these states – Idaho,
Kentucky, Missouri and North Dakota – restrictions would remain in
place. (A fifth state, Oklahoma, has a similar restriction, but also
allows abortion in cases of rape or incest.)

Does Circumcision Protect Men from HIV/AIDS?
Research
in some African countries has shown that circumcision reduces a man’s
risk of contracting HIV/AIDS through heterosexual intercourse,
according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

A
recent study from the Center for Disease Control suggests the same does
not apply for men who have sex with men, one of the groups most at risk
of contracting the virus. The CDC surveyed 4,900 men who had anal sex
with HIV positive men, and
found that the infection rate was 3.5 percent for men who were
circumcised and those who were not, the article said.

The Associated Press and Miami Herald
reported that many global health organizations have promoted
circumcision as a defense against the spread of HIV/AIDS, but that
promotion was done in countries where 80 percent of men were already
circumcised.

Michael Steele was For Abortion and Medicare
GOP
Chairman Michael Steele is confused about where he stands on health
care reform. Before he was against Medicare, he was for it, and before
that he couldn’t give an answer to where he stood on the issue,
according to the Los Angeles Times.

He should know his stance on a government program that consumes one-fifth of the federal budget .

According to the Times, he was not a popular pick for Republicans.

A previous article said:

It took six contested ballots before Steele defeated a slate of
candidates that included the party’s incumbent chairman, Mike Duncan.
In the end, it was a divided Republican National Committee — 91 out of
168 members — that backed Steele over the last challenger standing,
Katon Dawson, the white chairman of the South Carolina GOP, who had
presented himself as the rock-ribbed conservative in the race.

OTHER NEWS TO NOTE:

August 27: NYTimes: Some Roman Catholic Bishops Assail Health Plan

August 27: LifeSiteNews: Morning-After Pill Proving To Be Ineffective and Abused

August 27: Examiner: Part III: Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pro-life Movement by Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life

August 27: Baltimore Sun: Does an IUD Always Prevent Pregnancy?

August 28: Boston Globe: Complex legacy of a Catholic

August 27: HuffPo: Abortion Is New Front in Health Care Battle

August 27: KTUU: Palin claims she never agreed to attend anti-abortion event

August 27: LA Times: Michael Steele: For Medicare and abortion before he’s against them

August 27: NYTimes: Prescriptions: The Abortion Question

August 27: AlterNet: Emergency Contraception: Have We Come Full Circle?

August 27: Our Bodies Ourselves: Take a Survey on Using Emergency Contraception for Book on the History of EC