Whatever your feelings on abortion, this isn’t representative of what is being considered:

The city of Berkeley made an official statement on abortion Wednesday by sending coat hangers — a symbol of illegal abortions — to 20 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted to restrict federal funding for abortions in the health care bill.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who co-sponsored the item before the City Council on Tuesday night with Susan Wengraf and Linda Maio, put the coat hangers and an official city letter in the mail Wednesday.

“The coat hanger represents the time when women had to have abortions in back alleys and tried to self-abort,” Wengraf said. “My initial take was this is too extreme. But women’s reproductive health is very important to me.

“I don’t want my granddaughter to go through what my grandmothers had to. I don’t want it compromised. I don’t think the health care bill is reform if it excludes access to women’s reproductive health care.”

It does not “exclude” access to “women’s reproductive health care”, today’s euphemism for abortion. Abortion remains legal and accessible. It simply denies payment at a federal level for the procedure, much like coverage for cosmetic coverage is denied. Does the denial of the latter somehow “exclude” access to cosmetic surgeons and make that procedure a “back alley” procedure? No, you simply buy a private bit of insurance or, *gasp*, pay for the procedure out of pocket. But both remain completely legal and completely available. Neither, however, should be subsidized by taxpayers (along with many other things).

“I think the coat hanger is an inappropriate symbol, and it could backfire on us,” Wozniak said.

Indeed, it’s not only inappropriate, but it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the proposal which makes the coat-hanger group look foolish. But then consider what group is doing this (the city that banned the military) and it isn’t at all surprising they look foolish.

~McQ