The Prevention First Act: When Harry (and Hillary) met figleaf
I'm not egotistical enough to imagine that any policy makers in Washington, D.C. read my blog, but I'm happy to see that someone in Congress is proposing legislation promoting contraception and sex education as a response to the new anti-abortion majority on the Supreme Court.
According to The Hill, an online new outlet that covers Congress, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has introduced the a bill called The Prevention First Act. Reid is one of the few Democrats who identify as anti-abortion but the bill has strong support from pro-choice stalwart Sen. Hillary Clinton as well as Senators Akaka, Cantwell, Corzine, Feinstein, Harkin, Inouye, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Mikulski, Murray, Schumer, Stabenow, and Wyden.
The wedge is legislation expanding access to contraceptives and sex education, which polls show a majority of Americans support but which Democrats are betting will be difficult for social conservatives in the Republican base to accept.
Democratic strategists say the time is right for action because women who support abortion rights but are not politically engaged are alarmed by the confirmation of Samuel Alito as Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement on the Supreme Court and by the passage of legislation strictly curbing the availability of abortion.
...
The Prevention First Act is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), one of few congressional Democrats considered anti-abortion. The bill, which Reid introduced at the start of the Congress, has the support of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), presumptive front-runner in the 2008 presidential primary and 21 other Democrats.
The bill would prohibit group health plans from excluding contraceptive drugs, devices and outpatient services if they cover the cost of other prescription drugs and outpatient services. It would also require the secretary of health and human services to disseminate information on emergency contraception to healthcare providers and require hospitals receiving federal money to provide emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.
The bill would also mandate that federally funded programs provide information about contraceptives that is medically accurate and includes data on health benefits and failure rates.
...
“The issue of abortion is very different from the issue of prevention, access to birth control and access to comprehensive sex education,� said Anna Greenberg, a pollster for Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, which works for the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America. “I think that Senator Reid’s prevention-first agenda is not just smart in policy terms but smart in political terms because there is overwhelming support in the public for access to birth control and comprehensive sex education. People want women to be able to prevent unwanted pregnancies.�
Celinda Lake, a pollster with Lake Snell Perry Mermin and Associates, working for NARAL, has tested voter support for Reid’s Prevention First Act.
“It’s 3-to-1 in favor of it. Even pro-life voters support it,� Lake said. “It has the potential to be both a wedge and a turnout issue post-Alito. It shows how extreme a faction [within] the Republican Party is.
As you can imagine this kind of initiative makes me *extremely* happy for a multitude of reasons, not least because I've spoken passionately about it in the past, in exactly these terms: it turns the focus where it belongs -- on *prevention* rather than abortion, it frames the issue in a way that the vast, vast majority of Americans are in agreement -- on *prevention* rather than abortion, and it positions it in a way that highlights how out of step the right-wing base really is with American values.
Consider:
“The efforts will likely fail because they’re beholden to left-wing interest groups who oppose common-sense measures like parental notification,� said John Hart, spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), a conservative Republican who has been outspoken on the issues of abortion and contraception. “They take an ideological and unscientific view of contraception.
“Our work to improve accuracy of labeling on condoms has been blocked by a lot of people on the left who are supposedly for a balanced education approach.�
Hart explained that Democrats and their liberal allies often oppose efforts to increase awareness about the failure rate of contraceptives in preventing pregnancy and the spread of disease.
He added that his boss would work with any colleague who wants to protect the health of women and young adults but would also “fight any effort by any politician to make this a wedge issue.�
Now the great thing about that objection (aside from its fundamental flaws and its tenor of sour grapes) is that the obvious response in the context of pregnancy *prevention* is that *if* Sen. Coburn were genuinely concerned about the effectiveness of current-generation contraceptives he's in a very good position to fund research for a new generation of even safer, more effective, and more accessible contraceptives. And if he's not sincere and willing to help (he's not, his party is actively opposing approval of the HPV vaccine on the grounds that HPV might be sexually transmitted and approving it might lead to safer sex) then in the context of pregnancy prevention he comes out looking like a pro-unwanted-pregnancy extremist.
My one quibble with the bill is that it does indeed seem to be put out as a "wedge" issue. While turnabout is fair play (the so-called "partial birth abortion" bills were pure wedge issues as well) I'd be a lot happier if this were a genuinely bipartisan bill. So I'm going to say regardless of your local Senator's and member of Congress's party affiliation you should give them a call and let them know this bill is a good first step (though only a first step) in the right direction and that you expect them to support it.
And if you're a blogger, and you're not crazy about unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, I'd appreciate it if you'd spread the word.
Update:
Read the full text of Senate Bill S.20 -- The Prevention First.
Two points about Sen. Coburn's staff objections.
First of all, S.20 expressly requires that risks and benefits be fully disclosed.
18 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any in-
19 formation concerning the use of a contraceptive provided
20 through any federally funded sex education, family life
21 education, abstinence education, comprehensive health
22 education, or character education program shall be medi-
23 cally accurate and shall include health benefits and failure
24 rates relating to the use of such contraceptive.
So the staffer's stated concerns suggest he hasn't bothered to read the bill. (Which is sort of surprising -- it's not very long at all and you'd expect any competent, responsible Senate staffer who'd read the bill would have noticed the provision.)
Second, the text of the bill points out that *current* abstinence-only legislation forbids discussion of contraception methods *except* for failure rates and safety risks. How's *that* been working to reduce unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, Tom?
