Uppity Wisconsin

There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.

The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats’ concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House’s version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.

The goal is to limit women’s access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn’t have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.

At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself…but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I’m starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this…and I’m also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak’s logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.

It’s Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we’re done here it’s entirely possible that you’ll see Stupak’s logic in a whole new light.

The "belated" release of the Great Lakes Study is coming under fire.  Two Michigan lawmakers, Rep Bart Stupak and John Dingell both Democrats have sent a letter to the CDC announcing their probe into the matter.  The probe will investigate allegations that the Bush administration suppressed the report, an inquiry questioning the demotion of one of the authors who pushed for the study's release and also to pursue and investigate concerns raised between the correlation of contaminated areas and the health of citizens living there.  According to "The Detroit News" the letter states:

"If the conclusions of this study are accurate and correct, the health of millions of people in the Great Lakes region may be at risk," Dingell and Stupak write in their letter to the CDC. "Moreover apparent withholding of this report raises grave questions about the integrity of scientific research at" the agency, they write.

The letter asks the CDC to turn over any documents relating to the report or the decision not to publish it, as well as records on the demotion of Christopher DeRosa, the scientist who led the work on the report."