House Committee Makes Rare Move In Favor Of Abortion Rights by Laura Bassett | Huffington Post | Posted: 06/24/2014 12:06 pm EDT Excerpts: "The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved by voice vote an amendment that will extend abortion coverage to Peace Corps volunteers who are raped during their service. The GOP-controlled committee blocked the abortion coverage provision last year after the Senate tried to include it in the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. But no Republicans spoke out against the measure on Tuesday at a committee mark-up of the FY 2015 version of the bill, and the provision passed quickly by a voice vote. Since 1979, the federal appropriations provision that funds the Peace Corps has contained a rider that bars funding for abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is in danger. All other women who receive health coverage through federal streams, including Medicaid recipients, federal employees, residents of the District of Columbia and even women in federal prisons, can have their abortions covered in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. The provision approved on Tuesday would cover abortions for Peace Corps volunteers in all three cases. "With today's vote, no longer will women in the Peace Corps be denied coverage for abortion care after they've been raped or when they face life-threatening pregnancy complications. "We applaud Congress for finally doing the right thing and standing behind the women who have stood up for our country." The Center for Reproductive Rights released a study in May that found that nearly 10 percent of returned Peace Corps volunteers surveyed had been sexually assaulted during their service. Because their monthly stipends are so small, it is very difficult for volunteers to pay for an abortion out of pocket after having been raped. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of the amendment, told The Huffington Post last month that it is simply unfair to deny Peace Corps volunteers the same type of health coverage as federal employees, especially since their volunteer work abroad often places them in relatively dangerous situations." read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/24/peace-corps-rape-abortion_n_5525751.html ...... IMO: Let's get this straight now....the republicans blocked the provision last year for federally funded abortion in cases of rape, or face life-threatening pregnancy complications in the Senate, but this year the House has passed the same bill and has sent it over to the Senate for passing?. Is all this 'War on Women's Rights' just political BS, or what? What is so different about being in the Peace Corps and being a homemaker that gives one woman the right to a paid-for abortion in cases of rape when a housewife gets raped by anyone and she has to wade thru screaming, sweating, evangelical nuts to get to a clinic for an abortion and has no hospital to go to for further treatment if something goes wrong. Of course it is extremely rare that anything goes wrong in an abortion...wealthy women call it a D&C while for poor women it is an abortion. Either republicans are for or against abortion, which btw, is still the law of the land, but republicans have spent years trying to overturn Roe v Wade but suddenty they are picking and choosing which American female can get an abortion, and who pays for it? The last I heard, females had to undergo a lecture by a prolifer, watch images of a glob you cannot see but is pointed out by a prolife nurse, then having to wait at least 24 hours before trying to find a women's clinic that is still allowed to stay open and seeing if she has the money to pay for her abortion if she may have to travel 30 miles in dire distress if something does go wrong during the abortion, but her doctor may not be accepted by that hospital. Really guys; that does get a little hectic and over the top for any woman to have to endure because she was raped whether she is in the Peace Corp or not!. Do legislators feel like God or Satan when they say: "It's ok for a Peace Corp female and my wife to get an abortion, but the rest of you female biotches will just have to have the baby!" To me this is a profound discovery of the lengths republicans will go to in order to gain an unconstitutional control over women's bodies, with their unrelenting laws pertaining to abortion...but during an election year, will backtrack and try to sound a little civilized by giving only the Peace Corp females the right to get an abortion...while we all still understand that Roe V Wade (The right to a safe Abortion) is still the Law of the Land.
But see, those Republicans imagined "good decent white girls" getting raped and impregnated by black or Asian men......to many of them, that over-rides their supposed objection to abortion.
