Somewhere along the line politics on both Democratic and Republican sides became a battleground of extremes. Extremism, by definition represents the limits of a point of view, by definition leaving most reasonable Americans choosing the better of two not-so-great choices.
The ACA, as part of its preventive services includes requirements for essential health benefits, with an emphasis on preventive services and with provisions for women’s health services in section 1302b. (My objections to the preventive services provisions are many including their mislabeling as “free” since insurance premiums which rose on average 13 percent last year and are slated to rise 7.4 percent this year indicate that preventive services are “included” not “free.”)
It seems obvious to me that because of the expanded coverage of women’s health, especially sexual and reproductive health, specifically the Act’s failure to provide similar coverage for men including payment for certain procedures and free screenings for various diseases for men, the Act itself singled women’s health out for consideration by individuals weighing provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
In response, the benefits provided to women, segregated out from the male-female population by the Act also brought into question the ever-touchy issue of abortion. In this way the ACA itself became a back-door way for the most extreme pro-lifers to find a current platform to promote their agenda.
But what of abortion rights in this country? Before Affordable Care the nation had already begun to seriously chip away at abortion rights with the 2007 Supreme Court decision of Gonzales v. Cahart that upheld the Federal ban contained in the “Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.”
Now, with the renewed dialogue about abortion that has brought to light some of the most ignorant and anti-woman speech from elected officials and would-be elected officials that I’ve ever heard, it is Paul Ryan whom the focus should be on. If Mitt Romney is elected President, as Vice President, Paul Ryan becomes President of the Senate and the deciding vote in the event there is a 50/50 split among senators regarding a piece of legislation.
This role in an extreme America is a meaningful risk to abortion rights. (Some argue that the modern use of the filibuster would help prevent having the Vice President cast a deciding vote in the event of a tie.)
Once passed, legislation would have to be challenged on Constitutionality grounds in order to prevent it from becoming the law of the land, much like the Affordable Care Act became entangled in its assessment by the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court considered an anti-abortion law constitutional, much like the Affordable Care Act, the anti-abortion legislation would have to be repealed or amended through the legislative process to prevent its policies from coming into play on a semi-permanent basis.
Another line of attack for the rights created in Roe v. Wade would be the Supreme Court reversing its own decision based on the merits of another case brought before it. This is the less likely route but remains a possibility which is why the makeup of the Supreme Court is important in terms of the views of its members.
The expanded coverage of women’s health was a very costly provision for women in the ACA in my opinion because it singled women out for superior coverage over males, and because its efforts to address contraception opened the door for those who are not only pro-life but whose agendas are so extreme they are only marginally supported even within the pro-life community to direct a national conversation of women’s bodies and women’s rights that incorporates ideas only supported in the most pre-modern countries in the world.
For me, each side’s inability to be responsive to the majority of people within their parties rather than the extreme and factionalized few of the many groups within the US has allowed us all to witness the weakness of the new extremism in both Democratic and Republican parties…It leaves people hopelessly polarized having to choose between two parties whose views likely do not reflect their own on many issues.
Regardless of the winner, it seems to me that we all lose. The winning candidate will reassure us that he represents “all” Americans but the nastiness of language, proposed policies, and the sheer unreasonableness of both sides and their ability to work with each other will leave those words of "working for all Americans" lingering in the air as merely another campaign lie.
