Just like laws against murder, merely subject to a great deal more division and controversy.

Constitutional federalism has been politically incorrect for ages. Don't expect a return to it any time soon.

* * *

Actually correcting the problems with Medicare today (including its eventual financial failure if not corrected) should be the first thing undertaken before expanding the scope of federal health care (which itself should be considered in the light of current and future economic conditions), but the libs and Dems are removed as usual from logic.

* * *

“If we don't fund abortions we absolutely should create a much larger fund for the placement, rearing, education and material needs of all the new unwanted children until they reach 18 that will be born to teenage girls”

There is no corresponding obligation whatsoever to do this, so don't claim there is. That there should be child-related entitlements is a separate issue and worth looking at (libs and Dems _love_ entitlements of all kinds; they buy not only good will, but, more importantly, votes among the susceptible). The actual scope of child-related entitlements actually goes beyond abortion and beyond health care and is a fully “social” issue as well as the subject of some rationalization (the best such programs could maybe become truly pro-natal, a goal that is largely unattainable among women, who prefer to choose on their own if they will have children and aren't amenable to encouragement or even coersion to have them). The rationalization comes from the fact that children in a society with enormous government entitments and other services and agencies will become future taxpayers to fund this society (government) and so the promotion of such future taxpayers merit support. (Only the rare fringist anti-child “child-free” people would object to this for objection's own sake.)

* * *

“The sole basis for excluding abortion is cost containment, we can not afford it.”

Actually, many view abortion as wrong (and, commonly, say it should be criminalized), and even those who don't say it's wrong per se don't necessarily believe it need be provided to anyone on demand — it is not a “right” that is a claim on society, that should necessarily ever be provided by government (“society”).

* * *

“Lastly, Bill Clinton once said of abortion that he wanted it to be 'safe, legal, and rare.' “

Hillary Clinton has said similar things, as has Barack Obama, and most other prominent Democrats. Only a small militant fringe are absolute abortion “right” demanders (the amoral as well as “personally anarchistic” kind that also want no parental involvement whatsoever if a teen is involved, for example).

This issue _will_ be reintroduced once federal health care is extended to child-bearing females. …

* * *

“This is why I think single-payer should still be on the table — not that it's really all that crazy, but it is a huge and extreme change from status quo; a public option would look as moderate as it is if that were the case.”

It might look that way to the blind or to those with (deliberately?) distorted vision, but not to the honest.

What is currently being attempted is an openly transparent (except to the blind or those with distorted version, or who remain those whom the Democrats can exploit with euphemistic, evasive rhetoric and lies) incrementalist move toward federal health care for all (often described by the weasel phrase “single-payer”) that is attempted instead not only because of special interests who are currently in the health care sector, but because even today federal health care, while not surprising, remains radical and rightly raises concerns and fears among the public. In the same way politicians avoid using the word “liberal” because liberalism has been so failed and discredited for years, so they avoid “government health care” and related honest nomenclature, instead using evasive, even cowardly weasel words like “single-payer” (when we all know Washington is the intended single “payer,” controller, and provider of health care ultimately), and it is why rather than going right to extending Medicare to more people, they play games.

The reason for extending Medicare to everyone (which partially and indirectly is what the Dems currently are seeking, anyway) should be openly discussed and considered as an option is not for the Dems to even more overload their strong-arm situation (which is not “bi-partisan,” as liars and fools claim) to boost even more their near-monopolistic negotiating position; it is because it's honest, more direct, and simple.

Excellent analysis!

Now, could we please throw out the career politicians who keep abrogating their responsibilities?

Must we pay for Viagra and abortion? As drafted, this redistribution of American societal wealth, health care reform, will bankrupt us, the costs are unsustainable. Subsidizing undisciplined sex will only accelerate this certain outcome. The sole basis for excluding abortion is cost containment, we can not afford it. Conversely, if we taxed abortions; they would indeed become rare, which is Obama's stated policy. It is a hard decision, but if, “people will do it anyway” is valid, then,”let them pay for it” may be the only realistic response from society. It is logical.

In a broader sense the government reserves the right to draft my body for military service and while serving has the right to abrogate my bodily autonomy with vaccines, blood draws, etc. In like manner there is a legal right for the government to infringe upon bodily autonomy in other circumstances, e.g quarantine.

Yes, I believe that the almighty dollar is behind much of the abortion lobby. There is a vested financial interest in having a woman abort her “fetus” vs. carrying the child to term. The amount of money you quote is eye-opening. If a clinic can schedule 3 abortions Monday to Friday, fifty-one weeks per year, then even using your lower figure of $ 1,500.00, the clinic will generate $ 22,500.00 per week, or $ 1,147,500.00 annually. That is one clinic. Now put one hundred of those clinics across the nation, and you've generated a nice little business, all based on the notion that a young woman should not be “burdened” (to use President Obama's term) with an unwanted pregnancy. Ca-ching, ca-ching. Oh yeah, and any emotional trauma caused the would-be mother post-op? Don't worry, she'll get over it. This kind of racket is no more morally defensible than the defense contractors who wrack-up big bucks making land-mines that will take off legs in Cambodia, or dozens of other countries. Princess Diana crusaded against the latter, and so she should have, but who will speak up for the victims of the abortion industry, born and unborn?

Next, I've only done a cursory glance, but the basic cost of a 1st or 2nd trimester procedure is about $1500 – $3000. Very few women who have decided an abortion is the right action are going to reverse it for a couple G.

Next, there are thousands and thousands of children available right now for people to adopt, they are just older children. We don't need to generate more babies to meet the desire for adopted children. We need to convince more parents that an older child can fit into their family.

Finally, no child has probably ever been aborted in the name of “choice”. “Hey, I want to have my baby, but as a political statement I'm going to have an abortion to prove my dedication to the pro-choice cause!” Women have abortions for a thousand reasons, none of which are to support choice. They support choice, because they have a thousand reasons.

All that said, my general position is indeed to try to reduce abortions without making them illegal. I just don't think “Pay and Deliver” is the best choice. Who would you decide gets these payments? I'm a mom with no plans to abort, but if I show up in a clinic and say I'm thinking about it, I get to walk away with 5 big ones? That's never going to fly.

Plan ahead and put the money where your mouth is. That's what I always say.

will come right out and say it. No federal funding for abortion procedures should be stipulated in the healthcare legislation now being deliberated in Congress. It pains me to say that because on principle I am pro-choice. The decision should rest with the doctor and the woman, the father, perhaps the pastor and definitely not the government.

I realize this position is contradictory because it penalizes women who cannot afford abortion.

Actually, I don't think your position is contradictory at all. On the contrary, I believe it is people who call themselves “pro-choice” but want to force taxpayers to pay for abortions who hold the contradictory position.

The true “pro-choice” position with regards to abortion is the one that holds that people should be able to make decisions regarding abortions completely independent from the government. This means that pro-lifers cannot use the force of government to arrest women who have abortions or doctors who provide them. It also means that people sympathetic to abortions cannot force taxpayers to pay for this procedure.

Abortion remains legal (rightly so, in my opinion). Forcing people who oppose this procedure on moral grounds to pay for it only gets the government more involved in abortions. This will not only inflame the pro-life side, but it will inevitably allow the government to impose more restrictions on abortion.

Lastly, Bill Clinton once said of abortion that he wanted it to be “safe, legal, and rare.” I agree. You don't make abortion rare by subsidizing it.

You've apparently never heard of the blue dogs. What would you call a plan which none of the Republicans or the moderate Dems support that has a government owned and operated plan which once again plans on taxing the wealthiest Americans (like everything else) to pay for everyone else, and with a govt. boot to force employers to abandon their current plans to carry it, regardless of cost or benefits provided? Is *that* bipartisan? I think not. Let's leave the hyperbolic “nightmare” descriptions out of it and admit that only the left wing of the Democratic party wants those things and they can't even get all of their own party onboard for it because of the potential downstream damage. If we find a compromise that works for the Pubbies and the moderates,even if the furthest left wing of the Democratic party wants a lot more, it's one heck of a lot more “bipartisan” than what you're describing.

The Dems won the last two cycles and they have the majority. If they can somehow force this down the throats of everyone else, then that's the fruits of victory and that's what we'll have. And then we'll see how it shakes out and let the voters speak in the next cycle to see what they thought of it.

Whatever else you could call a health care reform proposal without a public option, without a surtax on the wealthy to pay for it, and without an employer mandate, you cannot call it bipartisan. You could call it your dream come true, and I could call it my nightmare, but you cannot call it bipartisan. The prefix “bi” in bipartisan means “two,” or “both.” You cannot call a proposal bipartisan if it removes everything that one of the sides wants.

If it is the case that the public option is dead, the entire post makes no sense. Trying to “insert” a health care issue into a health care discussion doesn't seem “silly” to many people. Whether this issue goes one way or the other in the final bill, I don't think it's fair to claim it off-topic or silly to discuss.