Email from NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia:
Dear XXXXXX,
Gov. McDonnell won’t rest until abortion access is completely eliminated in the Commonwealth.
Late last night, Gov. McDonnell added an anti-abortion amendment to SB921 and HB1900, bills to implement Virginia’s new health-insurance exchange as set out under the Affordable Care Act. McDonnell’s new amendment seeks to ban abortion coverage from all private plans sold in Virginia’s federally run health-insurance exchange, and if passed, will block thousands of Virginian women from purchasing comprehensive health care with their own private dollars.
By banning women from using their own money to purchase private insurance plans that include this one common benefit, Gov. McDonnell is attempting to restrict Virginians’ personal economic decisions as well as their access to affordable comprehensive health care. Let’s be clear – despite what you will hear from anti-choice groups, this amendment is not a matter of eliminating public funding for abortion. Instead, McDonnell’s amendment would block Virginia women from spending their own private dollars to purchase an insurance policy with abortion coverage. In addition, the governor’s amendment would take away basic coverage currently included in a vast majority of Virginia’s private insurance plans.
You and I know that every Virginian woman deserves access to the full range of safe, legal, essential health-care services they need, including abortion care. But with an anti-choice House and Senate, there is a very good chance that this dangerous amendment will pass – and thousands of Virginia women will have their access to health care reduced even further.
Governor Ultra-Sound McDonnell has stepped over the line this time. He pulled an end run on the women of Virginia. He sneaked. I, for one, am sick of that little bastard. He is NO moderate. The voters should have listened when we attempted to show him for what he was. He outlined it all in a thesis from 20 years ago….when he attended Pat Robertson’s university.
He is interfering with what we buy with our own money. He and his band of wing-nuts are the very people who attempted to challenge the ACA mandating that everyone carry some sort of coverage. Now Governor Ultra-Sound thinks he can restrict women from purchasing coverage on their health care insurance, even when they pay with their own money. When is he going to decide that I can’t have my squash blossom necklace insured? Oh wait, my necklace doesn’t have a political agenda, at least not in this state.
Lt. Governor candidate Dr. Ralph Northan urged us to contact our senators. Fat chance that will do me any good. My state senator is Senator Colgan. He is more Republican than Democrat now. He sold us down the river with the mini-hospital regulations for clinics that provide more than 12 abortions a month. I doubt if he will do any one any good with Governor Ultra-Sound’s new interference. When will we have elected officials who trust women to make deeply personal decisions for themselves? Senator Dick Black is as bad or worse than Colgan.
How long will our elected officials continue to display paternalist behavior towards the women of Virginia?
Women should now have even more incentive to reject Republicans in this next election. Go Pro Choice Terry McAuliffe. He trusts women to make their own reproductive choices. He doesn’t attempt to tell them what kind of coverage they have have with their health care.
When will Governor Ultra-Sound start playing funny money with contraception. Will that be next?
Governor Rltra-sound’s amendment:
No qualified health insurance plan that is sold or offered for sale through an exchange established or operating in the Commonwealth shall provide coverage for abortions, regardless of whether such coverage is provided through the plan or is offered as a separate optional rider thereto, provided that such limitation shall not apply to an abortion performed (i) when the life of the mother is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or (ii) when the pregnancy is the result of an alleged act of rape or incest.
I called the govenors office on this last week. So much for small government! What a pack of hyprocrisy!
I find the silence on this issue alarming. Since when does a governor have the right to tell any Virginia resident that they cannot have health coverage for a certain condition?
What if some of his ilk writes in some restriction on contraception? How about vasectomies?
Why do we just accept these things.
Governor Ultra-Sound’s amendment:
No qualified health insurance plan that is sold or offered for sale through an exchange established or operating in the Commonwealth shall provide coverage for abortions, regardless of whether such coverage is provided through the plan or is offered as a separate optional rider thereto, provided that such limitation shall not apply to an abortion performed (i) when the life of the mother is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or (ii) when the pregnancy is the result of an alleged act of rape or incest.