Blog for Choice 2008

So today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision allowing women in the United States to increase their reproductive autonomy. A lot has happened in the 35 years since the decision, namely, the judicial de-radicalization of the import of the ruling. Hurdles of every sort have been erected to prevent women from controlling all aspects of their reproductive health - but especially in the arena of abortion rights. In 2005 alone, there were over 50 abortion-specific regulations enacted in the states - and many of these are as inane as widening the hallways in abortion clinics (which many clinics cannot afford . . . you see where this is headed). These last 35 years have illustrated the importance of casting a pro-choice vote when you get the chance. Why? Here are some specific, some of them recent, examples:

* "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban" - a ban based on a medical procedure that doesn't exist. Basically, it is like banning unicorns for the sake of the health of horses. Yes, I am being rather glib. But the bottom line is that our legislators thought it important to enact a ban using anti-choice propaganda that prohibits doctors from choosing the best medical procedure for their patients when their patient's health is at stake. Oh, if her life is at stake, then the doctor can choose the intact D&E procedure. But not if she might simply be rendered infertile, or paralyzed, or lose tremendous amounts of blood due to a clotting disorder, or spend more time under anesthesia than she should for her particular circumstances. Then the doctor must defer to the wishes of the legislature - have you researched how many of them come from medical backgrounds, specifically in the OBGYN field? Exactly. This ban takes medical decision-making out of the hands of physicians and their patients and puts it into the pockets of politicians. How comforting.

* Hyde Amendment - Can you imagine the world where there was no Hyde to enact this amendment that robs legal choice and reproductive freedom from poor women? What if we had elected more pro-choice legislators? Imagine this scenario: A poor woman on welfare with 2 children that she is struggling to care for without the help of their father becomes pregnant (no, we are not going to judge how she became pregnant, because that is not our JOB, but let's just say she couldn't afford birth control and due to abstinence only education her partner doesn't know how to properly use a condom). She wants desperately to provide for the two children she already has. In fact, she has been taking classes to get her GED and wants to pursue a career in social work. Now she is pregnant. She knows she cannot afford another child. She has no way to pay for day care so that she can continue her education if she has this child. She wants to have an abortion. Because of the Hyde Amendment, Medicaid is not required to pay for it. She needs to find a way to scrape together about $400 (if she's lucky and lives in a place with available clinics that are reasonably priced) - and she needs to do it fast because time only makes the procedure more expensive. Where should she get this money? How? If she had that kind of cash, she probably wouldn't be eligible for welfare in the first place. So she has the third child, drops out of her classes, and remains on welfare because she is drowning in the costs of her children, and because the system actually ENCOURAGED her to have that third baby (watch as your myth of the welfare mom evaporates . . .). What could she have accomplished if given other choices? It would be interesting to see, wouldn't it?

*PEPFAR and the Global Gag Rule - this administration has *admirably* sent funds to fight AIDS in needy countries. However, they have also attached requirements such as not giving condoms to prostitutes (those most likely to be able to actually stop the spread of the disease), not allowing agencies receiving aid to even mention the word abortion (thus curbing their freedom of speech in a most abhorrent fashion), and recommending marriage as the best way to prevent HIV infection (marriage is actually the NUMBER ONE risk factor for getting HIV for women in Africa - husbands bring it home from prostitutes who don't have condoms, the wives think they are safe in marriage from disease, or have no say in contraceptive use, and there you go, another tragic story about "one of those poor women in Africa"). So, our aid actually has the effect of rendering women in other countries with fewer options, less education, and a greater risk of disease and unwanted pregnancy. How generous.

* Abstinence-only education - proven again and again to be ineffective. It does not delay the onset of first sexual experience, nor does it prevent the transmission of STIs. What it does is waste taxpayers' money in programs filled with lies and inaccuracies, and worst of all, robs the future of this country of decision-making tools about how to handle the pressures of sexual peer pressure. Comprehensive, age-appropriate sex ed for all!

These are only a few examples of the consequences of blindly electing people who are so beholden to fringe groups and the religious dollar that they cannot see the devastating impact they have on the lives of real women. A pro-choice vote is a vote that puts reproductive autonomy in the hands of women, enabling women to step up to take their rightful place as equals in society, not leaving them the forced baby-carriers for the "real" decision-makers. A pro-choice vote is not a vote for abortion, or against children, it is a vote for education, health care, expanded access to contraception - a pro-choice vote is just that, a vote for CHOICE.