Neil deMause: The Website

The Stupak Amendment follows in the long, sad tradition of restricting abortion access by class:

Back when the debate over health care reform began — I believe it was a Tuesday, in the late Pleistocene — nobody expected that it would end up reviving the memory of Henry Hyde.

For those too young to remember, Hyde was a Republican Congressman whose career highlights included trying to impeach President Clinton over Monica Lewinsky at the same time as he was admitting to his own extramarital affair. Where his name will live on, though, is in the Hyde Amendment: Passed in 1977, when the paint was still wet on Roe v. Wade, it declared that though abortion might be legal, Congress wasn’t about to let Medicaid pay for any… [read more]

One of my first published articles was about legal battles over anti-abortion protests outside women’s clinics. (If you’re expecting a hotlink here, you severely underestimate how old I am.) Nearly 20 years later, not a whole lot has changed:

The scene outside the Ambulatory Surgery Center of Brooklyn was much the same as every Saturday morning outside the Sunset Park facility that performs abortions. A woman in a blue baseball cap, with a rosary strung around her neck, approached any young woman happening by with a “Would you like some information, ma’am?” and handed out a leaflet promising “Pregnant?…Worried? We’ll Help!” Nearby, two of her associates prayed silently, surrounded by placards of dismembered fetuses and a larged framed poster of Jesus… [read more]