Health Care of Women Isn’t Negotiable : Abortion coverage for all must be included in any reform plan.

Passage of health-care legislation will be a defining moment for the women of this nation. For the 29 million women with no health insurance, for the millions at risk for breast cancer and for the 3 million who will face a crisis pregnancy, health-care reform holds so much promise--and so much risk.

In this, the greatest nation in the world, it is unconscionable that most women do not have coverage for preventive procedures like mammography; that women under 30, the group most likely to have children, are also the group least likely to have health insurance, or that Congress has repeatedly failed to ensure that disadvantaged women have access to a full range of pregnancy-related services.

We have a historic opportunity to change all this. If done right, health-care reform can address the specific and unique needs of this nation’s women. If done right, health-care reform can ensure universal coverage and provide a full range of pregnancy services to all women. If it is not done right, it will represent not only a missed opportunity, but also a major step backward for many American women.

There are those who will try to distort this issue and play politics, claiming that some pregnancy-related services are too controversial and should be taken out of the health-care package. Unfortunately, they miss the point. Any health-care reform that does not adequately address the needs of women--52% of the population--is no reform at all.

Real health-care reform means expanding private coverage, not taking away benefits that we already have. Currently, two-thirds of private health-insurance plans routinely cover all pregnancy-related services. A recent public-opinion survey found that 68% of voters want the health-benefits package to include medical procedures currently covered by private health insurance. The new plan must not take away vital reproductive-health services that millions of women have today and may need tomorrow.

For women facing crisis pregnancies, the difficult decision of abortion is for a woman, her family and her doctor, within the framework of her religious belief. It must be made in the doctor’s office, not in Congress.

Health-care legislation working its way through Congress carefully addresses these moral and religious views by permitting health-care professionals or facilities to opt out of providing abortion services. These legislative proposals make the point very clear: If you are morally opposed to a medical procedure, you cannot be required to perform it.

This opt-out provision strikes the critical balance between respecting the beliefs of some and protecting the health-care needs of others. If Congress were to take the unfortunate step of scaling back the list of pregnancy--related services, we would open a Pandora’s box of possible discriminatory treatment in our new health-care system.

Opposition to a particular medical service gives no one the right to redline the health-care plan for American women. If we do not allow coverage of abortion, where will this lead? Will we eliminate coverage for contraception, AIDS or blood transfusions because of the objections of one group or another?

President Clinton has forwarded to Congress a plan that provides health security to all Americans and helps improve a system that has too often neglected women. Congress must now act swiftly to enact real health-care reform.

If we fail, the impact on women will be swift and devastating. Eliminating the full range of pregnancy-related services will not reduce the number of abortions. It will only make abortion more difficult and dangerous, putting women’s lives and health at risk.

It will mean that fewer doctors will perform abortions. Women will have to travel farther and delay medical care. Safe medical abortion, available in only 17% of the counties in the United States, will become increasingly difficult to obtain. And there will be more unintended pregnancies, higher rates of infant mortality and more babies born too early, too small and too sick.

We are standing at a crossroads. We can choose the path that will endanger the health and lives of countless women by eliminating coverage for abortion. Or we can allow those providers with conscientious objectors to opt out of abortion services while providing insurance coverage for the full range of pregnancy-related services, ensuring that abortion remains safe and, at the same time, far less necessary. The contrast is stark, the choice clear.