Road Trip!

As many of you know Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, in coalition with many local organizations, is planning a trip to Washington DC on December 2nd. We need to bring thousands of supporters from across the country to the nation's capital to show the overwhelming support for women's health! To do this, we need your help.

Join us in Washington, DC on Wednesday December 2nd for a day of lobbying and visibility to pass a health care reform bill that protects women and comprehensive reproductive health services. The tentative agenda is as follows:

6 a.m.: Leave Pittsburgh. We will be renting passenger vans and providing breakfast to those joining us. If anyone remembers the ride to March for Women's Lives a few years back, the ride down is fun and inspiring! There is nothing like rejuvenating our resolve with like minded supporters. We will also host a mini-briefing once the coffee kicks in :)

10 a.m. to 12 p.m.: Lobby with members of house. We will be asking for meetings with Congressman Doyle and Altmire. We will make additional meetings based on the constituents that participate in the event. If you are a constituent of a different congressperson, please let me know! We are happy (excited, even) to make additional meetings.

12 p.m to 2 p.m.: Coalition press conference in Upper Senate Park with Members of Congress where we will present the petition signatures we have collected against Stupak-Pitts language in the health care bill. If you would like to sign the online petition visit http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform/index.htm. If you would like a hard copy of the petition, contact me and I will send it right over to you.

2 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Additional meetings with members of the house and visits to Senators Specter and Casey.

4 p.m to 8 p.m.: Drive back to Pittsburgh

Our strategy at these meetings is to educate and persuade our representatives to oppose Stupak-Pitts language in the final health care reform bill. This is a challenging but rewarding task. One I am sure we are up to.

For more information on the Stupak-Pitts amendment please visit http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/. Please forward this email to your networks. The broader our range of support, the more successful we will prove to be.

Aftermath of the Stupak Attack

So, let's start by calling it what it is. Saying that what Rep. Bart Stupak attached to the health care reform bill was an 'amendment' is misleading. He did not just propose amending the bill, he dramatically reduced the impact of the bill for a certain class of Americans. As is typical, the ladies got the shaft. Let's agree right now not call it the "Stupak Amendment" and go with the "Stupak Attack". I think that more accurately names the atrocity that he delivered to American women on Saturday night.

Now that we have that out of the way, on to the impact of the Stupak Attack on women's health care. Primarily, the attack violates one of the underlying principle of health care reform. That no one will lose the benefits they currently have. The truth is that under the attack, millions of women would lose the private coverage for abortion services that they already have and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money if the insurance carrier is part of the new exchange. Charming.

The Stupak Attack prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option AND prohibits anyone receiving an federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion services. It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals. The only way to get around this hoopla is to purchase a separate 'abortion rider' which not only does NOT EXIST in the world of health insurance but is completely contrary to the nature of abortion procedures. Women do not plan for an unplanned pregnancy. I hate to say it but...duh.

Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak Attack is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage. Current restrictions on access to abortion under the Hyde Amendment (also due for a re-naming) would expand to include women considered to be middle class. So basically, unless you have your own private emergency abortion services fund or are wealth to begin with, you are out of luck.

Obviously, we are feeling pretty darn bitter about the way this went down. We do still have some hope to spread around. The senate has yet to release their version of the bill. Here in PA, that means a lot. We have an ex-republican pro-choice Senator and an anti-choice Democrat. Call them both! Call them now! If you have a personal story about abortion coverage, write it down and send it to them. Write a letter to the editor calling out the representatives who decided a handful of Catholic bishops are more valuable then 50% of the population. Call those guys too. Let them hear your disgust, your anger, and your disappointment. And right before you hang up the phone, let them know that if you can't count on them then they certainly can't count on you.

EMERGENCY!!! We need your phone call right now!

What follows is an urgent message from Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Please, please, please pick up your phone right now and call your representative. A handful of bishops should not determine the fate of women in the US. Let your representatives know that we elected them, they answer to us! Let us know if you make the call! I know its Saturday morning and as alarmist and extreme as this is going to sound, its true...THE FATE OF WOMEN'S ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE RESTS IN YOUR HANDS!!! Pick up the phone.

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I’m writing to you with an urgent request.

Late yesterday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops met with leaders in the House of Representatives in their bid to eliminate women’s access to abortion care under health care reform.

We have just received news that their efforts are working, and Representative Bart Stupak has introduced an amendment to the health care reform bill that will result in women losing health care coverage for abortion. We urgently need you, and your friends and family, to do two things:

Call your representative at 202-730-9001 and ask (him or her) to reject the Stupak amendment that will remove abortion coverage from health care reform.

If the bishops and their anti-choice partners in the House succeed, they’ll permanently alter health care in America, even taking away benefits from women that they have today. The bishops want to effectively eliminate abortion coverage in both private plans and the public option. We simply cannot stand for such a discriminatory, mean-spirited attack on women.

It’s a chilling ultimatum: eliminate choice for millions of women, or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will do all they can to kill health care reform. This is a true crisis for American women, and we need you to act now.

Call your representative at 202-730-9001 and tell him or her to reject this attack on women’s health — and then forward this message to your friends, your family, everyone you know and ask them to do the same (and don’t forget to post the news to Facebook, Twitter — everywhere).

We need you now, more than ever. Thank you for standing strong with us in the face of this vicious last-minute attack on women. We will keep you posted on what’s next.

Sincerely,

Cecile

Pittsburgh Medical Safety Zone Ordinance Modified

It has been a rough week for us here at PPWP.We have had a lot of questions about the Third Circuit's ruling concerning our buffer zone ordinance. It has not been "struck down" as was implied in the Post-Gazette and Associated Press articles but modified so that we must choose either the 15 ft buffer zone or the 8 ft bubble zone. We aren't happy with that either but at least both halves of the ordinance were deemed to be constitutional. Just not together unfortunately. I will never understand why the right to harass and intimidate is more important than the right of patient access to health care. Below, is PPWP's press release concerning the matter. We will be updating as we get more information.

PITTSBURGH, PA – Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania responds to court ruling striking down city ordinance designed to protect the safety and privacy of patients.

Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania is troubled and disappointed by the recent ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which effectively reduced the protection of women seeking out medical care at family planning centers in Pittsburgh. While pleased that the court approved a modified version of the original ordinance, Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania is concerned with the reduced protections this rule offers patients and others impacted by protesters at medical facilities.

The case, Brown v. City of Pittsburgh, was a constitutional challenge by an anti-choice protester against Pittsburgh’s Medical Safety Zone Ordinance which gave individuals two protections against harassment outside of medical facilities targeted by protesters - a 15-foot fixed no-protest zone around clinic entrances and a floating 8 foot personal bubble zone of protection around each person approaching the clinic. The 8 foot personal bubble is triggered after a person expresses that they are uninterested in speaking with the protester. The protester can continue to protest so long as they are 8 feet from the individual.

While the court determined that both zones are content-neutral and do not violate the Constitution, they concluded that the combination of the two zones was insufficiently narrowly tailored and that the City could keep one but not both kinds of protective zones. The court remanded the case to the trial judge to permit the City to determine which of the two types of buffer zones it wished to keep.

“The security and privacy of our clients has been greatly enhanced by the Pittsburgh Medical Safety Zone Ordinance” said Kim Evert, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania. “We will continue to work with the city to ensure that patient safety needs are met and are dismayed by the courts decision to weaken these protections.”