By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

Yesterday, President Obama signed health care reform into law. As Mike Lillis explains in the Washington Independent, the bill now proceeds to the Senate for reconciliation. The whole process could be complete by the end of the week. Republicans and their allies have already moved to challenge reform in court.

Legal challenges

The fight is far from over, however. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that Republicans have already filed papers to challenge health care reform in court. The Justice Department has pledged to vigorously defend health care reform, according to Zach Roth of TPM Muckraker.

The legal arguments against health care reform center around the constitutionality of an individual mandate, i.e., the requirement that everyone must carry health insurance. This argument is specious. The bill characterizes the mandatory payments as a tax, and imposes a fine for those who don’t pay their insurance tax. There is no question that Congress has the authority to levy taxes in support of the general welfare and providing health insurance to the people easily meets that legal criterion.

Dave Weigel of the Washington Independent reviews some of the other formidable legal barriers to challenging health care reform in court. But take heart, teabaggers! Birther-dentist-lawyer Orly Taitz is on the case.

Violent outbursts from reform opponents

Some anti-reform activists have resorted to intimidation.  Five Democratic offices were vandalized in the days surrounding the House vote, as Justin Elliott reports for TPM Muckraker. Someone hurled a brick through the window of the Niagara office of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the chair of the powerful House Rules Committee.

Slaughter is notorious on the right for drawing up the controversial “deem and pass” strategy for moving the bill forward. Her plan was never put into action, but she has become a target anyway. Another Democratic office in Slaughter’s district was damaged by a brick bearing a quote from conservative icon Barry Goldwater: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Elliott notes that a conservative blogger in Alabama is doing his best to incite similar attacks, though it’s not clear whether he instigated any of the original five:

…Blogger Mike Vanderboegh has been tracking the breaking of windows at Dem offices after issuing a call Friday: “To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW.“

Reproductive rights take a hit

Anti-abortion extremist Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) failed to get his ultra-restrictive abortion language inserted into the health care bill, but the final bill does impede health insurance coverage for abortion.

For example, those who choose abortion coverage will have to write two checks: One for their regular premium and one for a dollar to go into a separate abortion coverage fund. Many analysts fear that the extra hassles will discourage private insurers from covering abortion at all.  Pro-choice activists were in a weaker negotiating position because, unlike Stupak and his allies, they weren’t prepared to kill health reform if their demands weren’t met.

The greater good?

Now that health care reform is safely signed into law, the pro-choice movement is stepping back and asking itself some tough questions.

In The Nation, Katha Pollitt argues that the pro-choice movement deserves to be rewarded for sacrificing its own agenda for the greater good. She suggests that the Democrats could reward the reproductive rights movement by fully funding the Violence Against Women Act, addressing maternal mortality and other policy changes to advance women’s health and freedom.

Jos of Feministing counters that with their go along to get along attitude pro-choice groups have only demonstrated that they can be ignored with impunity: “You don’t get rewarded for demonstrating a lack of political power, you get further marginalized.”

At RH Reality Check, Megan Carpentier argues that national pro-choice organization like NARAL and Planned Parenthood ceded their leverage too easily. While anti-choicers were beefing up their lobbying presence in Washington, major pro-choice groups were scaling back. Pro-choice groups compromised early and easily, perhaps because they were overly confident that their service to the Democratic cause would be rewarded in the end.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

In a nation that scored a miserable D- on choice, Oregon stood out with a solid A rating.

How did Oregon do so well? Let's check with NARAL.

Executives

• Secretary of State Bill Bradbury (D) is pro-choice.
• Attorney General Hardy Myers (D) is pro-choice.

Legislature

• The Oregon House is pro-choice.
• The Oregon Senate is pro-choice.

Senate	Pro-Choice Score
RON WYDEN	100%
Gordon Smith	40%

House of Representatives		Pro-Choice Score
1	DAVID WU	100%
2	Greg Walden	100%
3	EARL BLUMENAUER	100%
4	PETER DeFAZIO	100%
5	DARLENE HOOLEY	100%

Oh, Gordon. How could you? We were so close! I'm a little puzzled by the Greg Walden rating, but we can look into that later.

Sadly, this is one of Gordon Smith's higher NARAL scores- he scored 0% on choice for years in the Senate.

Fortunately, Smith is facing an increasingly uphill battle against Democratic candidate Jeff Merkley, who received a solid 100% NARAL rating on choice for his work in the Oregon legislature.

Go sign Jeff Merkley's petition standing up to the Bush administration's efforts to further erode women's access to reproductive health care, and why not toss him a few bucks while you're at it.  Remember, a pro-choice President isn't going to be enough to undo the legislative damage Bush and his political judges have done to a woman's right to choose over the last eight years.

Crossposted at Sandstorm.

I'm proud of my husband.  Gary Pritchard is running for State Senate in California.  It's the 33rd district and his opponent is a very far right neo-con Republican named Mimi Walters.  The odds of my husband winning this race are not good but the most important thing about this race for me and for him is getting a "D" on the ballot and running the best race he can.  I promised I would back him up on this and I've done that.

According to his calculations he's knocked on over 10,000 doors this summer.  Gary has also been running as a moderate.  Why?  Because he understands the reality of our district and that a moderate Democrat would represent far more voters than a far right Republican who takes their seat for granted.

But there are some things you cannot be moderate on, such as a woman's right to choose.  Either you support it or you don't.  Gary supports it and  this is the letter he wrote to NARAL for their endorsement.  Gary is also running this race for our Five year old daughter Charlotte.

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People can say what they want about Heather Ryan, and her campaign, Ryan for Kentucky. The fact of the matter is that this young lady is not only extremely smart, and compassionate, but courageous. She knows full well that the Republicans in this district will once again try to use social issues to divide us and defeat Progress in this country.

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This is Obama reaching out to evangelicals:

In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother."

Obama then added: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term."

Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he "strongly disagreed" with the ruling because it "dramatically departs form previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women."

Now this is not a direct contradiction to what he said per se, but seriously, since when is 'mental distress' not a serious affliction. He is talking about taking away rights of women under serious psychological and emotional distress. What is up with him?

I hope this is some pandering to evangelicals that he doesn't actually believe, but even then minimizing the seriousness of mental afflictions of pregnant women is simply a way of saying that women should not have control over their bodies even if are in deep emotional and psychological distress. The extension of that argument is that women get cranky and emotional and dont know what is 'the right thing to do' in their emotional fits. It is highly patronizing and pathetic.

How do you think NARAL is feeling right about now?

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