by Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights,
National Women's Law Center
Why should women have to make a trade-off between our ability to get abortion coverage and trying to eliminate other unfair and discriminatory insurance practices against women in health reform?
We shouldn’t.
Tell your Senators that you need it all — health care reform that works for women includes comprehensive reproductive health care that covers abortion care.
The passage of the House health care reform bill brought us one step closer to health reform that works for women by ending higher premiums based on gender, denials by insurance companies for having had a Cesarean section or suffered domestic abuse under the guise that these were “pre-existing conditions,” and providing other major protections for women.
But anti-choice Members of Congress dealt a huge blow to women’s reproductive health coverage at the last minute by including the anti-choice Stupak-Pitts amendment in health care legislation. If this amendment becomes law, it will, in effect, prohibit women from using their own personal, private funds to purchase an insurance plan that includes abortion coverage in the new health insurance exchanges—taking away essential coverage that most insurance plans provide today.
Now, the Senate is about to take up health reform legislation. We need to make sure that they know that women demand it all because women need it all. Tell your Senators that we need health reform that works for women now, including comprehensive reproductive health care that covers abortion care.