Another Goddamn Post on Health Care Reform:
Bart Stupak's position on the health care reform bill long ago left the realm of principled opposition and entered the realm of ego-fluffing grandstanding. How do you get time on Fox "news"? By being the mighty Democrat who loves him the fetuses and stands up to mean ol' Nancy Pelosi.

Just to be clear here on what Stupak and radical anti-choicers are pissy about: Both the House and Senate bills specifically, clearly, and redundantly ban any of your precious tax dollars from being used to cover the cost of abortion, which is still, you know, a legal medical procedure. The question comes down to federal subsidies that will be given to individuals to purchase health insurance in the new exchanges. The House bill says that the subsidies cannot be used for any insurance plan that covers elective abortion, which means that abortion coverage simply will not be available. The Senate bill says that subsidies can be used for insurance plans that cover elective abortion, but you have to purchase a separate abortion policy without your subsidy. In other words, Stupak's opposition is predicated on the idea that the Senate bill gives money to insurance plans that cover abortion, even if that money cannot, by law, be used for abortion, but those funds presumably free up other money that will most definitely be used only for aborting white babies. Or something like that. Thus, in the most indirect method possible, Stupak can claim that the Senate bill funds abortion, even though it says it doesn't. It's like not buying gas at Citgo because you think Hugo Chavez will use your money for new guayaberas. Got it? Fuck no? Good. Then let's continue.

Funny thing about Stupak is that back when the Senate bill was first passed, he said this: "One key difference between the House and Senate bills is that the Senate bill includes no public health insurance option. Now that the House and Senate have passed their respective bills, negotiations will begin to craft one final health care bill." Notice the lack of mention of abortion at all there. In other words, Stupak wasn't so worried about the fetuses in the pre-Scott Brown era, when he had significantly less power.

Now Stupak has gone paranoiac. The Michigan Congressman told the National Review that he's heard from Democratic members of the House, "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing. Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue--come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we're talking about."

This caused the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto to go the full Beck nutzoid in a charming piece titled "ObamaCare and Eugenics": In order to be effective, a policy of using abortion as a cost-cutting measure would have to aim at preventing the birth of babies with such pre-existing conditions. The goal would be not a reduction in the number of babies, but an 'improvement' in the 'quality' (narrowly defined in economic terms) of the babies who are born. This is known as eugenics." And this is known as "fucktarded bullshit," or "my masturbatory fantasy about how eeeevil Barack Obama is." The Rude Pundit's pretty sure this would be a better argument if the government were actually going to run a public option health insurance program, since then it would directly cost the government millions more. And Stupak supports the public option.

Taranto demonstrates just how hysterical a drama queen he is when he goes on, "It's not hard to imagine the federal government's establishing counseling protocols designed to encourage abortion in certain situations--for example, informing a woman after a Down syndrome diagnosis of the burdens (but not the joys) of rearing a child with that condition." It takes a certain kind of shit-flinging madness to advocate that future parents of a child with Down syndrome not be informed of the particular burdens that they will have to deal with. It takes an even greater madness to equate such information with eugenics, as if making an informed decision on whether or not to have a Down syndrome child is the same as breeding for blond hair and blue eyes.

A simple question here for Taranto and for Stupak and his dwindling minions: How is it pro-life to oppose giving some form of health care coverage to tens of millions of people, including future babies?

Tomorrow: Yes, one more goddamn post on health care reform. This time about how much the Senate bill sucks and how much it needs to be passed.