Hill’s Blue Dog Blunder

Rep. Baron Hill, D-9th, voting in favor of the Stupak amendment, prioritized political capital over responsible lawmaking.

The amendment builds on the status quo: federal funds currently cannot be used to cover the costs of abortions for any reason. However, Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, D-1st District, conceived a plan to appease many of Congress’s so-called Blue Dog Democrats, representatives from southern or other socially conservative districts that face greater political risk in supporting the health care reform America needs.

His amendment would appease pro-lifers in Blue Dog districts by banning the funding of abortions under any insurance plan traded in the new health care reform plan’s insurance exchange. It would also prohibit low-income women who receive government subsidies under the health care bill from purchasing insurance plans that cover abortion.

No representatives were proposing reversing the long-held federal policy of not appropriating federal funds toward insurance plans covering abortion.

However, the amendment all but bans any insurance coverage of abortion, extending the function of the law against federal funding significantly beyond its intended purpose.

The amendment makes it impossible for any insurance plan that provides coverage to women for abortions to accept even a single customer. Abortion would be legal, but with many more Americans choosing from insurance plans within a federal exchange (with or without a public option), very few insurance companies would see any reason to cover abortion.

Many assume that the Senate will never support this move to make abortion significantly less accessible in American society – and if they do, advocates for the right to choose are confident that the courts will not uphold the restrictions.

Regardless of differing viewpoints on abortion, it is still a legal medical procedure and should be recognized as such by the law. Simply sidestepping the rulings of the Supreme Court is not a legitimate political strategy.

If abortion is made illegal, it should be because it’s overturned by the courts. The Stupak amendment makes abortion legal in name only for many low-income women, who are both most likely to need the procedure and most likely to be unable to pay for the procedure if their insurance doesn’t cover it.

Nonetheless, Stupak’s amendment passed with 64 votes, including Hill’s. The health care vote was not supposed to be a vote about a woman’s right to choose. Hill could have taken a courageous position in opposing an amendment that ignored the spirit of the law against federal funding for abortions.

Hill should have stood up in support of responsible lawmaking and against inappropriate political deal-making.