For many, abortion access will now be legal in name only. Texas has just moved to defund Planned Parenthood.
State legislatures across the country, from Indiana to New Hampshire, have introduced bills designed to restrict everything from funding to patient access. As of July 13th, 80 new restrictions have been enacted at the state level– more than three times the number of laws passed in 2010.
Leaders of the anti-choice movement know that a direct campaign against Roe v Wade would be expensive and likely meet with a lot of resistance. Crusading against state laws allows those in the movement to conceal their agenda under the strictures of states’ rights, in addition to dangling the threat of a national repeal should citizens protest the unconstitutionality of these new laws.
As with all austerity measures, defunding Planned Parenthood will only hurt poor citizens and minorities. If our representatives are so concerned with the state coffers, perhaps cutting bonuses and corporate tax loopholes– targeting the class of citizenry that got us into debt in the first place– would prove a better solution. Of course, the crusade against Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics goes beyond funding. Many citizens don’t support their tax money going towards what they genuinely believe to be the murder of unborn children. Many citizens don’t support their tax money going to unsustainable, unethical wars either, but there you go.
Defunding Planned Parenthood, an organization for which abortion constitutes no more than three percent of its health services, will effectively shut down the only affordable health care centers for many Americans. Using such essential services as a bargaining chip is downright unethical.
We’re seeing our reproductive, constitutionally protected rights eroding before our eyes. What can we do to slow– and hopefully reverse– the damage? I vote that we institute comprehensive sex education in public schools. What do you think? What can we do?
3 replies on “For Conservatives, Reproductive Rights are Wrong”
Honestly, I feel like in terms of rallying public opinion, the antichoice movement has the better plan and they’re more willing to fight for it in the media. For example: Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow’s Focus on the Family commercial drew all kinds of press, because they went looking for it. Planned Parenthood had a commericial too, but no one remembers it, and they didn’t play it up at all. In my view, AntiChoice wants it more and are willing to do what it takes to get their agenda through, as conservatives seem to in other areas of legislation as well. The progressive left doesn’t go to the polls and won’t make a stand. That’s why the situation is what it is now.
It wouldn’t solve the core issue at hand (conservative beliefs regarding lady issues), but I’ve always felt that PP gets a bad rap because of its name. I think it would do a lot of good if PP took a small loss and re-branded themselves as a general healthcare outfit. As far as liberals go, we could reduce some animosity by acknowledging that most people, due to PP’s piss-poor PR (and name), assume that PP only deals with vaginas.
This makes me ill.