rh reality check
GRITtv: The F Word: Stupak vs. The Nuns
Poor Bart Stupak. Apparently his life has become a living hell. That's according to a recent profile in The Hill. Ever since he started trying to hold health care reform for ransom over abortion, he's had to deal with critics. He's had to deal, for example, with receiving letters from religious leaders representing 59,000 Catholic nuns. Of the letters sent to Congress this week calling the health care reform bill “the real pro-life stance,” Stupak said, "When I’m drafting right to life language, I don’t call up the nuns.” They're only women, after all. Women, as Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check notes, who do the real work of ministering to women in need. Stupak's clearly worried that his anti-reform stance may turn out to be the petard on which he hoisted his career. It's possible, but really it's not actually about him -- or even the President, or the Democrats. It's about people's health. Will the Senate bill give more people more access to insurance? Probably. Will they be able to afford it? That's an open question. But will it save lives? No doubt. And that was the nun's point. Just how many saved lives does he have to oppose before Stupak's stripped of the term "pro-life" once and for all?
The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.
Email this pageGRITtv: Men Respect Women's Choices
Tim Tebow isn't the only male pro athlete with an opinion on women's reproductive choices, it seems. Former Minnesota Vikings football player Sean James and former Olympic Gold Medalist Al Joyner (brother of Olympic track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee) speak up for women's choices in this video from our friends at RH Reality Check.
GRITtv: Organizing for Sex Workers' Rights
"The exercise of human rights should not be contingent on whether or not you think a person's choices or circumstances are a good way to live or be." Audacia Raywrote these words after spending time in Sangli, in India, with the International Women's Health Coalition. While there, she made this short documentary about the sex workers in Sangli and their fight to organize for their own human rights. Thanks to RH Reality Check for the video.
GRITtv: The F Word: Stupak is a Step Back
The House passed its version of health-care legislation Saturday night by a vote of 220 to 215 after the approval of an amendment which amounts to a not-very-back door abortion ban for everyone but the very rich. It's sexist, it's classist, it goes well beyond the heinous Hyde Amendment ban on public funding for abortion--and it passed with the support of 64 Democrats, roughly a quarter of the caucus. The House move had less to do with majority than it had to do with theocracy. Why is it that from Bangor to the Beltway, church pressure works on even liberal Democrats, even as no politician in America seems to be afraid of losing votes over being anti-choice? And it's not too late for the liberal campaign contributors to close their wallets until they find out.
GRITtv: Rural South Suffers Stigma of HIV
From RH Reality Check, this video looks at the state of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in South Carolina. Much of the state is poor and rural and suffers from a lack of both proper health care funds and proper education for the population. Activists in the state note that the stigma and the lack of information are still as bad in parts of South Carolina as they were in 1981, when the virus first hit the American consciousness. Activists are calling for a massive public health initiative to slow the spread of HIV and to treat people who have already contracted the virus.
GRITtv: The F Word: Being Female Is Not A Preexisting Condition
We all know by now that private insurers make their profits by denying people's claims when they get sick. But how about denying claims and refusing coverage to people who are perfectly healthy? Insurance companies routinely discriminate against women; when they provide coverage at all, they charge women more than men. It should be shameful but mostly it's not. Don't like it? The good folks at RH Reality Check have a launched a campaign: BEING FEMALE IS NOT A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION. Thanks to SEIU and RH Reality Check for the data.
GRITtv: Oct. 6, 2009
Cassidy Friedman has made a video about Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who plunged into the healthcare debate with an editorial for the Wall Street Journal in which he declared that, "Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals." Plus all the latest news and headlines about Afghanistan, healthcare, ACORN and more.
GRITtv: Young and Coming Out With HIV
Adolescence can be hard for pretty much everyone, but imagine growing up with a life-threatening virus. LaShaun Brown, a courageous 14 year-old in North Carolina, is doing just that. RH Reality Check, teaming up with filmmaker Hunter Stuart, has been producing a new series entitled 'Living With HIV'. This new segment is called 'Young and Coming Out With HIV'. Here's an extended excerpt.
