A Woman's Right Is in Peril
Comment A Woman's Right Is in Peril Four days after his second inauguration, George Bush addressed an anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C., by phone. "The America of our dreams, where every...
...The global gag rule therefore forces a cruel choice: In starkest terms, foreign NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) can either choose to accept USAID funds for provision of essential health services-but with restrictions which may jeopardize the health of many patients- or the NGOs can choose to reject the policy and lose vital U.S...
...Women's health programs, especially those that provide women with voluntary family planning services, elevate the status of women in their societies, and lead to economic development...
...The state ranked forty-fifth, according to the group...
...Congress finds that there is substantial evidence that the process of being killed in an abortion will cause the unborn child pain...
...Kline, who is anti-abortion, first said he was looking for cases of underage victims of rape...
...And it penalizes states or local governments that would require these health care companies to offer abortions, counseling, or referrals...
...I ask that God bless you for your dedication...
...Population Fund...
...These proposed restrictions included abortion bans, parental notifications, anti-abortion counseling, waiting periods, and the imposition of burdensome regulations on abortion clinics, such as specifications for the widths of doorways...
...For too long, we've worried too much about the Supreme Court...
...Mississippi is one of two states that require the consent of both parents before a minor can get an abortion...
...We can vote for a President who we believe will appoint justices who will uphold the right to choose...
...Also known as a "conscience clause," the law allows any health care provider to refuse to be involved in any service-from referrals to abortions-they object to on moral, ethical, or religious grounds...
...When Bush submitted his $2.57 trillion budget, he once again failed to provide a single penny to the United Nations Population Fund, which provides more assistance to women in the Third World than any other group...
...Three federal district courts declared Ashcroft's demand unconstitutional...
...This case echoes John Ashcroft's 2004 subpoena of the medical records of 900 women who sought abortions at six Planned Parenthood clinics across the country...
...Everything they do now is a movement to give personhood to a fetus...
...In addition, Bush is maintaining the "global gag rule," which denies overseas family planning organizations any U.S...
...And the state legislature has placed a slew of restrictions on women seeking abortions...
...The only exception is "if the abortion was necessary to save the life of the minor because her life was endangered by a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness...
...Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has said that one of his top ten legislative priorities is the "Child Custody Protection Act...
...They come up with amazing things...
...Introduced by Brownback and Representative Chris Smith, Republican of New Jersey, this bill would require abortion providers to tell any woman seeking an abortion past the twentieth week that the fetus would be experiencing pain during the abortion...
...He is advocating such a move even though some federally funded abstinence-only programs have spread ridiculous information, such as that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," as a report by Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, revealed...
...Texas and Utah require parental consent for adolescents who seek state-funded family planning services...
...The Michigan anti-abortion legislators aren't satisfied yet...
...Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan It's just making them more dangerous...
...This global gag rule is not making abortions rarer...
...According to the World Health Organization, 95 percent of unsafe abortions take place in the Third World...
...Rahman's group noted that Congress had allocated $34 million this year for the fund, which "could prevent the deaths of 4,700 women who die during childbirth from preventable causes and 77,000 infants and young children who die because their mothers aren't healthy enough to breast feed...
...This radical law goes far beyond any other legislation in the country, threatening women's ability to obtain even a first-trimester abortion and, in some instances, preventing doctors from treating miscarriages," said the Reverend Mark Pawlowski, CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Central Michigan...
...If Bush and Brownback and the anti-abortion movement have their way, it will be, even though the majority of Americans support choice...
...The views of the anti-abortion zealots are...
...Congress has more fanatical members than ever, none more so than newly elected Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who advocates the death penalty for doctors who provide abortions...
...Anti-abortion groups believe they can pass this into law this year...
...The anti-abortion campaigns at the state level are galloping along, even in places you might not expect, like Michigan, which went to John Kerry and has a pro-choice governor, Jennifer Granholm...
...Interviewed by an antiabortion group at the event, he also said, "This is a pro-life country...
...A week later he acknowledged that his investigation is also aimed at "criminal late-term abortion...
...Meanwhile, as Republicans are thinking of evermore ingenious ways to restrict the right to an abortion, Bush himself is cutting back on Medicaid funds so that facilities which treat the poor have a harder time doing so...
...In exchange for receiving the grant, the clinic would have to show "the visual image of the fetus" to the pregnant woman and provide her with "information on abortion and alternatives to abortion such as childbirth and adoption and information concerning public and private agencies that will assist in those alternatives...
...And we need, at the state level, to pressure our local legislators to heed the views of a majority of Americans, a majority that still believes in the right to choose...
...Each year, an estimated 80,000 women die from complications of unsafe abortions...
...If we don't, we'll find ourselves living in the country of Sam Brownback, the America of George Bush's dreams...
...As a result, a woman in America today has far less freedom to have an abortion than a woman in America the day after Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973...
...But Bush continues to refuse to release the money...
...Nationwide, 93 percent of abortions are performed in clinics, not hospitals, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute...
...And it also requires the provider to tell the woman that she has "the option of choosing to have anesthesia or other pain-reducing drug or drugs administered directly to the pain-capable unborn child...
...Even as many pro-choice people have been worrying about the potential calamity that awaits in the Supreme Court, the anti-abortion forces have been busy gaining ground elsewhere...
...Planned Parenthood, along with the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights, is suing in federal court to try to stop the law...
...The Bush Administration has promoted anti-abortion policies both internationally and domestically...
...One bill they've put in is to allow for a federal tax deduction for a still-born birth," says Shelli Weisberg, a lobbyist for the Michigan ACLU...
...More than thirty that limit a woman's right to choose are circulating in that legislature...
...Imagine a politician sitting in your living room or around the kitchen table playing such an active role in any other area of your life...
...More than thirty states have such laws...
...Mississippi enacted a law in 2004 that requires abortions after the first trimester be performed in a hospital...
...aid if they even provide abortion counseling or referrals...
...In May 2004, Mississippi's legislature passed the single most expansive refusal law in the nation...
...Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, went even further...
...But the views of the public are not dominating the debate in Washington and in statehouses around the country...
...And Bush's answer to unwanted pregnancies is simply more money for abstinence only...
...Vicki Saporta, President of the National Abortion Federation...
...support," says the Global Gag Rule Impact Project, run by pro-choice groups...
...The script adds: "In some cases, there may be some additional risk to you associated with administering such a drug...
...In a number of countries, established referral networks of providers are collapsing as leading family planning NGOs downsize and struggle to cope with budget cuts and rapidly declining stocks of contraceptive supplies...
...It would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to give grants for ultrasound equipment to nonprofit community-based pregnancy help medical clinics...
...And the action in the states is overwhelmingly hostile...
...The Congress of the United States has determined that at this stage of development, an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain," it states...
...Only one abortion clinic serves the entire state...
...Litigation is so far blocking the enforcement of this law...
...And it joins Texas in demanding that women be told that having an abortion increases the threat of breast cancer, even though the National Cancer Institute does not support that claim...
...And for poor women, who are disproportionately of color, that freedom is hanging by a thread...
...More inventive is the "Informed Choice Act," introduced by Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida...
...Not that it isn't vitally important, but our ability as citizens to affect that outcome is weak, and the timing of such work is intermittent...
...Forty-six states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services," the Guttmacher Institute says...
...Committee for the U.N...
...Mississippi is one of the more difficult places to get an abortion...
...Ostensibly designed to outlaw so-called partial birth abortions, the law, which is slated to take effect at the end of March, does not stop there...
...In domestic policy, Bush and the Republicans are picking up where they left off in November, when they rammed through a law that allows for-profit hospitals, HMOs, and other health care companies receiving federal funds to bar their physicians from even discussing abortion with their patients...
...We don't need to wait for the Supreme Court to outlaw abortion...
...The end of abortion on demand has started," he said to the tens of thousands of people who attended the rally...
...The America of our dreams, where every child is welcomed in law, in life, and protected in law, may be some ways away, but even from the far side of the river . . . we can see its glimmerings," he told the crowd...
...Pat Cartrette, executive director of Pro-Life Mississippi One reason for Michigan's slide is that the state adopted a law last year that defines a fetus as a "legally born person" when any part of the fetus is outside the woman's body and shows signs of life...
...West Virginia is of concern to pro-choice activists, if only because of the sheer number of bills introduced...
...Congress is out of step with the pro-choice majority of America...
...The penalty for violating this law is up to a year in prison...
...It would prohibit anyone except a parent from transporting a minor across state lines for an abortion unless the minor had fulfilled whatever parental notification law may be in effect in her state...
...It is the only state whose Democratic Party platform opposes a woman's right to choose...
...Of the forty-six million abortions that occur each year, roughly twenty million are performed under unsafe conditions," according to Planned Parenthood...
...Decisions about medical care should be between a woman and her doctor, not legislators...
...And we can lobby our Senators when the nominations come down...
...Kansas's Attorney General Phill Kline is demanding that abortion clinics turn over the complete medical records-including the patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices, and psychological profile-of ninety females who had late-term abortions...
...The bill even provides the actual wording that the provider must deliver verbally...
...We can vote for Senators who we trust will oppose anti-choice nominees...
...State legislatures considered more than 500 anti-choice bills in 2004, according to the National Abortion Federation...
...Michigan got an F on a recent report card made out by NARAL Pro-Choice America...
...Several states, including Kentucky, Minnesota, and Virginia, introduced bills last year that would impose new requirements for parental consent for teens wanting contraception...
...The Administration is implementing a stealth campaign to limit women's health programs around the world because they include reproductive health," says Anika Rahman, president of the U.S...
...Then there is the "Federal Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act...
...We need, on a daily basis, to convince our fellow citizens of the importance of this right...
...But between those events, we cannot rest...
...The law effectively bans second trimester abortions, as no hospitals in the state perform the procedure after sixteen weeks...
...According to those groups, "a doctor would be unable to provide a woman with an abortion even if she suffers from diabetes or cardiac ailments and needs an abortion to protect her health...
...And the irony is that these funds could also "prevent two million unplanned and unwanted pregnancies that result in 800,000 abortions annually...
Vol. 69 • April 2005 • No. 4
