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Ezra Klein correctly channels T.R. Reid.

“To oppose expanded coverage in the name of restricting abortion gets things exactly backward,” writes T.R. Reid. “It’s like saying you won’t fix the broken furnace in a schoolhouse because you’re against pneumonia.” Here’s his argument:

Read the quote in context here.

In a nutshell Reid says part A would be…

In Britain, only 8 percent of the population is Catholic (compared with 25 percent in the United States). Abortion there is legal. Abortion is free. And yet British women have fewer abortions than Americans do. I asked Cardinal Hume why that is.

The cardinal said that there were several reasons but that one important explanation was Britain’s universal health-care system. “If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it’s needed,” Hume explained, “she’s more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn’t it obvious?”

A legitimately life-affirmative position that, for instance, the Nebraska Right to Life PAC appears to also endorse. (If one was actually “pro-life” as opposed to merely anti-sex or anti-women’s-autonomy, supporting women who choose to keep an unplanned pregnancy… as opposed to, say, relishing pregnancy in particular and children in general as women’s ordained punishment for “original sin.”)

Reid’s Part B goes like this

A young woman I knew in Britain added another explanation. “If you’re [sexually] active,” she said, “the way to avoid abortion is to avoid pregnancy. Most of us do that with an IUD or a diaphragm. It means going to the doctor. But that’s easy here, because anybody can go to the doctor free.”

Another excellent point, obviously.

If one really wanted to reduce abortion, as opposed to, say, using the threat of pregnancy to hammer women into submission, one would enthusiastically embrace both parts A and B, and one would tend to view extending coverage to the most economically vulnerable population as an excellent step in the right direction. If one actually didn’t give a flying fig about abortion except as a way to enforce, say, Rule of Desire #1 you’d expect them to oppose healthcare reform.

In a news-roundup item BarbinMD of Daily Kos says

Republicans are “quietly asking” if John Ensign (R-NV) can serve effectively in the wake of his sex scandal. You’d think the “family values” crowd would be shouting it from the rooftops … which of course they would be if Ensign was a Democrat.

She said it here.

Remember it’s not so much that it’s ok if you are a Republican (IOKIYAR), it’s that it’s just not news when a Republican does it (IJNNWACDU.) Might as well write stories about dogs biting humans. Pretty much by definition nobody expects morality from conservatives so journalists mostly don’t bother making a big deal out of it when they do.

Sharon Johnson of WE.News says (bold and italics mine)

A bill under contention in Nebraska proposes joining 14 states and the District of Columbia in providing prenatal care for all pregnant, low-income women regardless of immigrant status under CHIP, the children’s health insurance program.

It is authored by Republican Sen. Kathy Campbell, a long-time advocate for women and children, who says the bill is “morally right because all children deserve to be born healthy.” Republican Gov. Dave Heineman opposes it, saying taxpayer-funded benefits should not reach people without legal citizenship.

Read the quote in context here.

Oddly, in 2006 the Nebraska Right to Life Political Action Committee aggressively endorsed Gov. Heineman’s reelection, saying abortion-rights opponents “got more action in 15 months from Heineman than we did out of [previous governor] Johanns in six years.”

And by “oddly,” in this case, I mean that the Nebraska Right to Life PAC steadfastedly supports the bill Heineman’s threatening to veto. In direct violation of blogger protocol (we’re supposed to just sit in our pajamas in our mom’s basements) I called them to ask. The woman who answered said NRTL believes strongly in prenatal care for everyone regardless of status.

Whatever else one might say about any organization opposed to reproductive rights one can say that at least on this issue NRTL has a consistent position. Whatever else one can say about Heineman, he clearly doesn’t.

And it’s not just about the choice issue that he’s being inconsistent by the way. He can’t claim this is about his nominal conservative principle of “States Rights.” The bill is a Nebraska initiative to restore a program that was cut from this year’s Medicare legislation. He can’t claim this is about his nominal conservative principle of “fiscal responsibility” either. By replacing Medicare funds with CHIP, which has more generous reimbursement rates, the bill would save Nebraska taxpayers almost $4 million a year.

Instead, like Congressman Bart Stupak, Heineman’s position is pure, gratuitous Teabagging.

Via Matthew Yglesias,

BarbinMD of Daily Kos snarks John Ensign to the bone over his dismissal of an F.B.I. inquiry into whether strong-arming a company to hire the husband of a woman with whom he had an affair.

According to Ensign’s spokeswoman:

“Senator Ensign has consistently acted in an ethical manner to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”

No word on whether Mrs. Ensign agrees.

She said it here.

Background: Nevada Sen. John Ensign got in a little hot water when he conducted an affair with a campaign employee. He then got in a little more hot water when the employee’s husband (also an Ensign staffer!) discovered the affair and threatened to take the story public. Then he got in a little more hot water by paying the husband quite a bit of hush money out of his parent’s bank account. He now seems to be in considerably more hot water with, for instance, the F.B.I., for possibly suggesting that if a company wanted favors from him they’d have to hire the husband as a consultant.

Actually, unless you follow seriously left/progressive/Democratic bloggers like Barb you may not have heard about any of that. That’s because only sex-and-coverup scandals that really seem to have legs are those of Democrats like John Edwards or Bill Clinton.

There are all manner of excuses bandied about for the seeming double standard. The right-wing noise machine being one, progressive’s peculiarly tone deafness to the importance of public relations being another. Sometimes it’s attributed to the press’s peculiar affection for Republican silverbacks like John McCain. And sometimes (perhaps least improbably) it’s that while the general population and even members of the news industry might be progressive, advertisers, especially major advertisers likely to buy time in major outlets, tend to be very conservative.

Personally I think that for all the narrative about liberals and progressives being the party of Godlessness, Gays, and “Sodom and Gomorrah,” the general public perhaps, well, perversely expects better of Democrats, which makes their misbehavior feel like news. Meanwhile, again for all their talk about sanctity, patriotism, and moral standing it’s… contrary to the lamenting IOKIFYAR acronym (“it’s ok if you’re a Republican”) the real problem is it’s just not news when yet another Republican Senator disgraces himself, when a “homophobic” California legislator turns out to be openly gay, when a “family values” televangelist turns out to be a drug addict or pedophile or to hire male or female prostitutes, or when an “upright” rising star in the Senate turns out to not just cheat on his wife, and not just cheat on his wife with prostitutes, but cheats on his wife with prostitutes who indulge his fetish for wearing diapers. It’s just not news.

Update Oh and this just in the (Republican, naturally) Majority Leader of the Utah House has just admitted that he took a nude hot tub with a 15-year-old. Which might not be an issue (who goes in a hot tub with clothes on) except he evidently took her somewhere to do it, they were alone, and most suspiciously, he paid her $150,000 of hush money. TPMMuckraker caps the post with the IJNNWARD news that “After the confession, lawmakers lined up to embrace Garn and his wife.” Sweet mother of pearl!