The War on Women widened significantly today.
Virginia Governor Bob McVaginal Probe has accepted the idea of operating a health insurance exchange under Obamacare, but if he has his way, it may not include insurance plans that cover abortion even if they are private plans.
According to The Virginian-Pilot, Gov. McDonnell is crafting a restrictive abortion coverage ban for the state exchange, but some legislators believe that the wording could be used to go beyond just the exchange, banning coverage in private insurance, too. Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan County told The Pilot he was concerned that “an amendment drawn too broadly could restrict abortions in private insurance plans, something that would go ‘way too far.’”
So what is “too far?” NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia notes that Gov. McDonnell’s 2011 plan would not only forbid any private insurer that participated in the state exchange from providing abortion coverage, but it would also forbid women from purchasing separate riders, even with their own personal money.
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans have introduced a bill that would require clinics that provide abortion to remodel their buildings to comply with surgical center building standards, which would place as many as 60 clinics at risk of closing.
The modifications required for compliance with ambulatory surgical center standards would require clinics to make significant structural changes, like widened hallways and modifications to air flow patterns, that one abortion provider told RH Reality Check are “unwarranted” in terms of improving the health and safety of abortion patients.
And in Alabama, state Republicans introduced SB205, a fetal “personhood” bill that would “define the term “persons” to include all human beings resulting from the union of the male sperm with the female egg either from sexual intercourse or in the case of in vitrofertilization, the fertilized egg or eggs relied onby a physician for implantation in the uterus.”
My sources tell me each of these bills were introduced with glowing smiles and a wink which, as you know, makes it all okay.