Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

The Abortion Taxman Cometh

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Mar. 31, 2011 4:15 PM PDT

The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill on Thursday that uses the tax code to limit access to abortions in the US. As we've reported, the language in the bill extends the ban on federal funding for abortion to the tax code, blocking tax credits from being used for insurance plans that cover abortion services and forbidding tax deductions for the costs of an abortion.

The proposed law would not apply to abortions in cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is at risk. It passed on a straight party line vote on Thursday afternoon.

Republicans say they're just bringing consistency to federal policies. The bill will "make sure that the destruction of an innocent human life is not subsidized by this government," says Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas). But Democrats and abortion rights advocates argue that the bill would significantly limit the availability of abortions in this country.

The measure, HR 1232, is similar to the language on the tax code included in HR 3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," and would likely be incorporated into that bill should it go to the House floor. HR 1232 does clean up some of HR 3's notoriously vague legislative language, but the bills are similar in many respects.

Like HR 3, HR 1232 blocks small businesses that provide health care to their employees or the self-employed from getting tax credits for their health insurance if they choose a plan that covers abortion. The small business tax credits, worth about $40 billion over ten years, were passed as part of the Democrats' health care reform law and took effect during the 2010 tax year.

The bill also bars the use of flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) or health savings accounts (HSAs)—which allow employees to set aside pre-tax earnings for medical uses—to pay for abortions. And if a woman does obtain an abortion using FSA or HSA money, she would have the cost of that abortion added to her taxable income.

HR 1232 would also have the impact of reducing the number of health plans that cover abortions, says Donna Crane, policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America. While 87 percent of plans currently offer abortion coverage, many would likely drop it in order stay cost-competitive with other plans. "That will mean that Americans in this country will have diminished access to abortions," said Crane. It also means that women who seek an abortion would be forced to pay out of pocket—which can be a sizable cost.

The provisions could also lead to abortion audits—where the IRS is forced to evaluate whether or not an abortion was in fact permissible for tax coverage because it was the result of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. "Not only is that insensitive, to put burden on woman going through an absolute terrible time in her life, but I don't think it's workable," said Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) in Thursday's mark-up. "A criminal case wouldn't fit conveniently within the tax season."

In explaining the bill in the hearing, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation, acknowledged that there is a "gray area" in terms of what is considered to endanger the life of a woman. Similarly, how the IRS would handle evaluating the reason a woman obtained an abortion is also unknown. "If this were to come up in an audit, I'm not exactly sure how it would be resolved," Barthold said.

Republicans argue that HR 1232 would have "negligible revenue effect," overall. But Democrats note that the bill would increase the tax burden for individuals and small businesses that want to purchase insurance that covers abortions. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) introduced an amendment, which was voted down on a party-line vote, that would have nullified the bill should it increase the tax liability for anyone.

That it was voted down, Crowley said afterward, is evidence that Republicans in the committee are "willing to use the tax code for movement on their social agenda," even if it raises costs for some.

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House Panel Marks up Tax Portion of GOP's Abortion Bill

—By Kate Sheppard

| Thu Mar. 31, 2011 11:23 AM PDT

The House Ways and Means Committee is marking up language dealing with the tax code provisions of the GOP bill that would drastically alter the shape of US abortion law. As we've reported here, the language in the bill would extend the ban on federal funding for abortion to the tax code.

I'll be live-tweeting the markup below:

Obama's Snoozefest of an Energy Speech

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Mar. 30, 2011 4:10 PM PDT

The Obama administration has had terrible luck when it comes to energy. A year ago tomorrow President Obama called for increased offshore drilling, only to have the Deepwater Horizon explode a few weeks later and unleash the worst oil spill in US history on the Gulf of Mexico. In this year's State of the Union he called for a "clean energy standard" that included, among other things, nuclear power—only to have a bunch of reactors malfunction in Japan. I do feel a little bit bad for the administration for that reason. But it's worth noting that the administration didn't change courses on those two issues at all in Obama's energy speech on Wednesday. In fact, Obama only dug in further on both oil and nuclear.

This is especially uninspiring given the context in which he gave the speech. The upheaval in a number of Middle Eastern nations has raised concerns about our dependence on the region for oil. Rising gas prices are making Americans anxious. Japan is still in the middle of a nuclear disaster. The first anniversary of the Gulf spill is upon us. And the Senate is currently considering several measures to block the EPA from acting on greenhouse gas emissions, an issue inextricable from our energy concerns.

There were a few good promises in the speech on the energy front. You can read his remarks here or read more on the Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future. In them, Obama calls for a one-third cut in oil use in the next 10 years, in addition to the goal of drawing 80 percent of our energy from "clean" sources 2035 that he outlined earlier this year. You should read David Roberts at Grist for more detailed griping about the speech.

But the administration's energy and climate agenda is probably on the back burner for the foreseeable future, so I'm having a hard time really getting too worked up about the speech. I have very little faith that the House and Senate can come to an agreement on even minor policy on this—even if Obama had said all the right things in the speech.

I will point out, though, that it would have been nice if he'd lent some support to the Environmental Protection Agency's work on greenhouse gas regulations in the speech, given that the Senate may well vote this week to block the agency from acting. Reaffirmation of the administration's support for those rules would have been useful today of all days.

Kansas, Idaho Advance "Pain-Capable" Fetus Bills

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Mar. 30, 2011 1:13 PM PDT

Kansas and Idaho are the latest states to take up bills that would reduce the window of time in which women can obtain an abortion. Last month, we reported that Minnesota lawmakers had introduced a bill that would limit abortions to 20 weeks after conception, based on the (not-scientifically-sound) claim that a fetus can feel pain at that point. That bill was approved in committee, the Minnesota Independent reports, and is expected to advance.

This week, the Kansas legislature passed a similar bill that would ban abortion at 22 weeks, on the same premise that the fetus can feel pain at that point. The law creates an exemption if the abortion is needed to save the life of the mother or if there will be "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman"—but explicitly states that the mental or emotional health of the woman doesn't count. The bill now goes to the desk of Gov. Sam Brownback, a staunch anti-abortion Republican. As the Kansas City Star reports, the state legislature there has repeatedly passed bills that would have made obtaining an abortion in the state much more difficult, but the previous Democratic governor vetoed them. Kansas lawmakers also approved a bill that will require teenagers seeking an abortion to get written consent from both parents before they can do so, as Robin Marty reports at RH Reality Check.

Idaho lawmakers also advanced a bill on Wednesday that sets the "fetal pain" ban at 20 weeks. It was passed out of committee in the state House and will now go to a full vote; it already passed the state Senate. The bills are all similar to one passed in Nebraska last year.

Chris Smith's African Abortion Adventure

The New Jersey Republican spent part of last week meddling in Kenya's abortion politics—and taxpayers footed the bill.

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Mar. 30, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.).

Most members of Congress spent last week's recess back in their districts, talking to their constituents and getting a sense of what Americans want their elected officials to be doing back in Washington. But Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, had other plans: He spent part of the break on a taxpayer-funded trip to Kenya, where he slammed the country's new constitution for allowing abortions in cases when the health of the mother is at risk.

Kenyan abortion restrictions go far beyond those in American law, and Kenya's new constitution, approved overwhelmingly last August, codifies a ban on abortions in the country. But that's not enough for Smith and US anti-abortion groups, who argue that the exception allowing for legal abortions to preserve the health of the mother "opens the door to abortion on demand."

Smith wasn't just meeting with Kenyan politicians and activists during his time in East Africa—he was actively politicking. On March 21, Smith spoke at an event on the new constitution sponsored by the Kenya Christian Professional Forum in Limuru, a town about 35 miles outside Kenya's capital, Nairobi. A staffer for the US-based group Center for Reproductive Rights, which recently opened an office in Nairobi, took notes during the speech. In it, the congressman reportedly called for "a world free of abortion." Smith also accused "pro-abortion NGOs" of having "hijacked" the maternal mortality issue in order to legalize the killing of the unborn, CRR says.

[Read the full article]