NAF Patients in the News
Last night, the Senate defeated the Nelson-Hatch Amendment, which would have imposed the same restrictions to insurance coverage for abortion as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment passed by the House.
Yesterday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) cited some of our patient’s stories during debate on the Senate floor. Today, Women’s eNews profiled one of the patients we brought forward to lobby against the Stupak-Pitts and Nelson-Hatch Amendments:
One Woman Mobilized
One person who was mobilized by the Dec. 2 protest is Dana Weinstein.
In an exclusive interview with Women’s eNews, Weinstein said that until recently she’d felt uncomfortable even uttering the word “abortion.”But then it happened to her.
In the early part of this summer, Weinstein was still a happily pregnant 38-year-old watching TV at her home in Maryland. A reporter interviewed a physician in Boulder, Colo., named Warren Hern. After the murder of Dr. George Tiller earlier this year, Hern is one of the country’s last doctors who still provides late-term abortions.
“I remember lying in bed thinking, how could anybody terminate later term?”
Weinstein said.But then, a few weeks later in late June, at 28 weeks, a routine sonogram showed an abnormality in her fetus’s brain. A subsequent MRI showed that the fetus had two life-threatening conditions. If it survived birth, it would likely require immediate resuscitation and a life of feeding tubes.
After consulting more doctors, Weinstein and her husband wound up in Hern’s clinic in Colorado.
Now, five months later, Weinstein is still fighting with her insurance company, hoping to be reimbursed for some of $17,500 it cost for the late-term abortion.
“I was fortunate to be able to pull the money together,” Weinstein said, adding that the experience has spurred her to speak out on behalf of other, less fortunate women.
Her first move: vocally opposing the Stupak-Pitts amendment. In recent days Weinstein has shared her story with members of the National Abortion Federation, the staff of Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Women’s eNews.