NOW Will Score House Health Vote as
Anti-Choice

Erin Matsen, VP of the National Organization for Women, today said that in its ratings of lawmakers, her group will score House votes in favor of the recently-passed health care bill to be anti-choice.  Asked whether that would be the case on ABC’s web program Top Line, she said:

Absolutely, but you know what? I’m not concerned about… Democrats, what I’m really concerned about are women on college campuses who are missing their periods.

Of course the problem isn’t limited to college campuses, but the point Matsen was making is that in all of the political horse trading, some law makers have lost sight of women.  Matsen reminded viewers of NOW’s health reform cred:

NOW was the first organization to come out in favor of single-payer health care is a feminist issue in 1995.

Yet she says Friday night’s “back-room deal” to vote on and eventually include the Stupak amendment changed the picture.

In all of my years of pro-choice organizing (and it’s not that many, I’m 29), I never thought I would make a sign that says My Body, My Money, My Choice. What we have for the first time is an attempt to bar women from using their own private funds, with private insurance companies, from accessing abortion…

Asked whether she agreed with the assessment that the worst thing that the Democrats can do on health care is nothing, Matsen said:

I do not agree with that at all… The notion that we should sacrifice our rights as women for the greater good is absolutely a false choice… I don’t believe that we can roll back women’s constitutional rights.