It was an eleventh-hour addition. Here’s what happened: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needed another chunk of votes for the health care bill to pass. She knew that the Stupak Amendment, which would trim abortion coverage from subsidized insurance plans, would reel in support from the pro-life Democrats. She agreed to let the House vote on the amendment. It passed with flying colors and swept 41 more signatures onto the health care bill, which then just barely passed (220 votes to 215).

And then pro-choice America went berserk.

They argued that President Barack Obama violated his promise — he had promised that no one would lose his or her present coverage with the advent of health care reform, didn’t he? Currently, more than 85 percent of insurance plans cover abortion, but the government will deprive all of these plans of subsidies. In the new “exchange” — the market of blended public-private insurance policies created by health care reform — an unsubsidized plan will find it too costly to survive. Consequently, the plan will “sell out” abortion coverage for a subsidy in order to stay competitive, or else languish and die. Obama promised, though, and abortion is a medical procedure like any other that should be readily available. Will we stop covering tonsil removal next?

The problem is that abortion is not a procedure like any other, and the Stupak Amendment is, both morally and practically speaking, a sound and intelligent piece of policy.

I am pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. I wholeheartedly support your right to choose abortion, but I would strongly encourage you not to. It would have been none of my business — your private insurance is exactly that, yours and private — but when we as a nation pleaded for health care reform at any cost, we pleaded to make it my business. We removed the line between public and private and made it our collective business. Now, my tax dollars will subsidize your insurance policy to make it affordable, and yours mine. And unlike the choice to remove your tonsils, your choice to undergo abortion is heavy. It’s loaded with religious and moral significance — make it, by all means, but please don’t ask me to pay for any part of it.

Granted, my tax money is already used for wars I don’t support, but at the very least, those wars are intended to protect me and every other citizen. Your abortion is a decision that affects only you. To present an exaggerated analogy — emphasis on exaggerated — would you, in turn, subsidize my purchase of a gun? A government that recognizes a right is by no means obliged to provide for it.

It is fascinating that this issue has the most liberal of the liberals speaking in Republican tongue. Planned Parenthood opposes the entire reform bill on the grounds that it strips women of this crucial choice and that these subsidized insurance plans should not be the only available options — and right there, they have drifted onto Republican grounds. Strangely, though, most of us share their attitude. We liberals are still incredibly idealistic in imagining the consequences of reform. The reality is, even Obama’s comforting rhetoric cannot change the fact that health care reform will, without a doubt, whittle down the range of available policies. The Stupak amendment is just the first controversial cut.

But by garnering the votes of pro-life Democrats for the health care bill, the Stupak Amendment has essentially given 47 million Americans access to insurance. As for the whittled-down range, I have no doubt that a private organization with thick-walleted, pro-choice donors will emerge shortly to fund abortions for those who cannot afford them out of pocket. It is not and was never the government’s place to do so. It is the government’s place to ensure that the low-income woman with a high fever can see a doctor, and that medical care for the rest of her body is not held hostage for the sake of her ovaries. In that regard, Stupak is anything but stupid.

Trisha Jain is an LSA freshman.