Tell your Representatives how you feel about the Stupak Amendment

The House passed the historic Affordable Health Care Act (HR3962) by a narrow margin (220-215) with major gains for women including eliminating gender rating in insurance prices, banning pre-existing conditions, capping out of pocket expenses, expanding Medicaid to include individuals at 150% of the federal poverty level, improving Medicare by closing the donut hole on prescription drug coverage, no charge for preventive care, and stopping the practice of dropping coverage or capping coverage of sick people. Important provisions that advance the health needs of LGBT people were also included in the Act. Unequal taxation of domestic partner benefits was eliminated.

Women's rights advocates, however, were delivered a major defeat Saturday night by passage of the outrageously restrictive anti-abortion Stupak amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962) by a 240-194 vote of the House of Representatives. The amendment, co-sponsored by Bart Stupak (D-MI), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Brad Ellsworth (D-IN), Dan Lipinski (D-IL), and Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), bans abortion coverage for women in both the public option and private insurance. Under the guise of no federal funding for abortion in so-called keeping with Hyde Amendment restrictions, the Stupak Amendment goes way beyond Hyde. This amendment bans abortion coverage even if women pay for it with their own money in the public option or private plans in the insurance exchange.