As you may have heard, the Republican National Committee (RNC) recently came under fire because they included elective abortion coverage in the health care plan they offer to employees. In light of these revelations, the RNC has announced that it will “fix” the “problem” and cease this coverage option.

Before the RNC announced their decision, a right-leaning blog, redstate.com, called for heads to roll, in no uncertain terms. They say:

“In order for the RNC to regain the trust of their donors, they must disclose the names of all people involved in any way of the selection of their health care plan. And those people must be summarily fired. No severance packages, no golden parachutes; fired. For cause.”

While the RNC seems to be in the midst of appeasing a portion of its base, no one’s been fired yet, at least as of this writing. Since the policy’s been in use since 1991, it seems unlikely that whomever signed up for the plan is still with the RNC, a fact that seems lost on the writer of the redstate.com blog. Also lost on most of the commentators (though pointed out in this Politico blog) is that the only individuals commentating on the RNC’s insurance plan thus far are men… RNC chairman Michael Steele, RNC member James Bopp, Jr., RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA)… in fact, going through the above links, the only quoted woman is Gail Gitcho, an RNC spokesperson… and all she had to offer was the official party line. No personal thoughts or opinions (unlike the aforementioned men). I’m trying to decide if this decided lack of input from women is a failing of the media or the RNC… if it’s the former, it’s a glaring oversight and if it’s the latter, it’s an example of rampant paternalism at best, glaring misogyny at worst. How do Republican women feel about having this debated in the media? And, perhaps more importantly, how do they feel about having their insurance decided by whomever screams the loudest? I’d kind of like to know, though I’m not holding my breath for an answer.

Taken directly from the RNC website:

“The Republican Party, like our nation’s founders, believes that government must be limited so that it never becomes powerful enough to infringe on the rights of individuals.”

I’m including this quote for a reason: namely, it’s indicative of something that I just can’t wrap my head around with the right and the far-right. How can people claim to be pro-limited government, yet in favor of laws deciding what a woman can or cannot do with her body? (Or, for that matter, whether two consenting adults of the same-sex can get married?) Isn’t that, in its most basic form, a government that’s beyond “limited?” By the same token, how can one be for “the rights of individuals” and feel that it’s ok to restrict what medical procedures a woman can have? Individual rights are important to the RNC, until they clash with the beliefs of evangelicals.

I’ve said it before and said it again… health care and the right to access to legal medical procedures should not be determined by politics. The RNC, by coming out so vehemently against abortion (and by allowing a small segment of their constituency to affect that decision) has painted itself into a corner. By listening to this part of their base, they’re disregarding one of the fundamental tenets of their party. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like anyone there really cares. Nor do they seem to care about tossing the women in their party under the bus.

After all, what’s a little hypocrisy when Michael Steele and the other heads of the RNC can get some good press coverage… right?

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