As I'm sure you all know, health care reform passed recently. The health care reform battle has triggered a lot of debates concerning abortion, and people everywhere have been sharing their opinions. To my dismay, some of these people, who call themselves pro-choice, have actually been supporting Stupak and his attempts to dump abortion coverage from health care reform. The question that I have for them is this; why?
Pro-Choice: The belief that all people should have the right to decide what is going to happen to his or her body, particularly as it pertains to pregnancy. I would hope that all pro-choicers would agree on this definition. The thing is, without access to abortion, the legality of the procedure is meaningless. Operation Rescue knows this, that's why they're trying to exterminate abortion providers. Stupak knows this, that's why he tried to eliminate all federal funds for abortions during the health care reform battle. Anti-choicers know this piece of information, and they're using it as a weapon to eliminate women's rights. However, are pro-choicers aware of this fact?
I would say that, for the most part, pro-choicers are aware of the fact that, without access, the right to abortion means nothing. However, it seems as if a good number of self proclaimed pro-choicers either don't realize this or don't care. These "pro-choicers" say that they support the legality of abortion, but only if the woman has a good enough reason, or only if this is her first abortion, or only if she's not using it as "birth control". The types of "pro-choicers" that I'll be writing about today are the ones who support the legality of abortion, but do not support the funding of abortion.
I'll say it again. Without access, the right to abortion is meaningless. There are a lot of women that, if they had to, could get by and have an abortion without financial assistance from outside sources. For me and for many of you that are reading this, $400 dollars isn't that much to pay. We would be able to pay for an abortion out of our own pockets.
If you are one of those people, then you are privileged.
Many other women aren't as privileged as you are. Many women have to keep on rescheduling their appointments, over and over again, because they can never gather up enough money. This poses as a major problem because, as you know, abortions become more expensive (not to mention more risky!) as the pregnancy goes on. Some women have to skip meals, or skip out on paying their rent for the month. Some women can't afford a hotel and are forced to sleep in their cars because of the anti-choice mandatory waiting periods. Others can't afford a safe abortion at all, and have to resort to going to unsafe clinics like Dr. Gosnell's clinic. Some take the matters into their own hands, and throw themselves down a flight of stairs, or ask their boyfriend's to beat them up in order to induce a miscarriage. To those who are "pro-choice" but do not support the funding of abortions, I ask you; what of those women? What of their choice?
I was talking to one of these "pro-choicers" on Twitter, and I asked her about those women. I asked her what a woman should do if she can not afford an abortion. Her answer? "if you can't afford an abortion, then you are going to have a baby. Period."
How the hell is that pro-choice?
That woman is "pro-choice", but only for the people are are privileged enough to be able to afford an abortion. Otherwise, she isn't much different from anti-choicers. She supports forcing women through pregnancies. What's pro-choice about that?
To all of the pro-choicers out there, you can donate to an abortion fund here. Please fight for the right to choose, even for women who are not as privileged as you are.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
14 comments:
***PLEASE READ***
Due to constant spam and derailing coming from a few antis, I am now making this blog a "safe place". This does not mean that I won't allow opposing views. It means that I'm not longer going to allow hateful or unrelated/spammy comments. This will continue on until the anti-choice spammers get bored with harassing me and the people who post here, and is especially relevant when it comes to the topic of rape. I hope this doesn't deter any respectful people from commenting. :)
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Great post. Saying that only those who can afford it deserve to have an abortion is so extremely classist.
ReplyDeleteWhen I had to have my abortion I got some assistance from the abortion fund but had to come up with $255 on my own. Luckily I was able to scrounge up the money by selling some stuff and borrowing a bit. And I even know that I was privileged in my situation.
Many, many women aren't as lucky as I was. It's not in the least bit pro-choice to say that poor people are just SOL.
Hey Pro Choice Gal! I love your tweets and your blog, and since you're talking about healthcare I wanted to ad another pro choice voice to the discussion.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the government should fund abortion at this point. But as I was writing this, I realized something wrong with my arguement. I don't think the government should fund abortion ONLY because I don't want to spend tax dollars on abstinence only programs, just like antis don't want to spend tax dollars on abortion. Nobody should pay for things that are "wrong", although wrong is realitive. Now, my problem is that during Civil rights, nobody racist and stuck in their ways wanted laws to pass to fund Black people and their advancement in this country. Yet giving Black people rights were absolutely the RIGHT thing to do.
So I ask you: do we change the way people feel about abortion before we make them fund it, or do we make them fund it to help realize how decent and needed abortion is?
Brenda
ReplyDeleteI don't figure there are many places our tax dollars go that everyone agrees with. I hate the fact that my tax dollars go to fund war, factory farms and, like you said, abstinence only education.
However, abortion is a legal medical practice. And as long as it is legal, it's wrong to exclude certain women from having that right just because they're poor.
I see elective abortions a bit differently than other elective procedures. Most people aren't going to be desperate enough for something like plastic surgery to risk doing it themselves because they can't afford it.
However, wanting to end an unwanted pregnancy makes you desperate enough to try anything.
Thank you for this -- I was saddened to learn recently that even women who are seen as "pro-choice warriors" like Mary Ann Sorrentino fit into the group you describe, believing that abortion is a right as long as you use it the way they see fit. I supported health care reform despite the lack of abortion coverage because like many uninsured people I see the broken system every day, choosing between medication and food, unable to afford the care I need. But since the government is not going to do it -- at least not yet -- we who support the right for every woman to choose abortion for any reason without restrictions need to keep donating and supporting groups like the one you linked to that help women who can't afford abortions. My brain is fried so I don't know if that makes any sense, but anyway, thanks.
ReplyDeletevoicesofdissent-
ReplyDeleteWhen people say "but abortion is an elective procedure" when they're speaking to me about this, I like to tell them that going through a pregnancy is just as elective as ending one. If they don't want the funding of abortions just because they're elective, they would also oppose funding prenatal health care, too. :)
Brenda-
If you believe that people should be able to pick and choose with all of their taxes, I disagree, but at least you're being consistent, as opposed to picking just ONE procedure to exclude.
"So I ask you: do we change the way people feel about abortion before we make them fund it, or do we make them fund it to help realize how decent and needed abortion is?"
The process of creating a very pro-choice society is a long one. The truth will win eventually, but it's still a slow process. I don't think we should wait for that to happen before we take steps to ensure that all women have the right to choose.
Thank you for your comment, by the way. I appreciate respectful comments, even coming from those who I may disagree with.
On one hand, the abortion lobby says that abortion is a private decision in which the government has no right to be involved. Then, they demand that the government pay for abortions and force even pro-life taxpayers to buy abortions for other people. They defend this obvious hypocrisy by pointing out that government often requires taxpayers to pay for things with which they disagree. For example, people opposed to war have to pay taxes which fund the military.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the abortion lobby’s position is that government has no right to even be involved in the abortion issue. So why should government pay for something which the recipients of those funds say is none of the government’s business? After all, if we concluded that national defense was none of the government’s business, we would not use tax money to buy jet fighters.
Also, just because someone has a right to do something doesn’t mean the government has to pay for it. Americans have the right to own guns, but the government doesn’t provide free pistols to poor people. We have a right to free speech, but the government doesn’t buy public address systems for poor people. We are also guaranteed freedom of religion, but the government has no obligation to purchase Bibles for poor churches.
deathroe.com
Unfortunately, just because someone identifies as 'pro-choice' doesn't mean they're trustworthy. I admit I used to be against tax dollars funding abortions, but then I started thinking 'Abortion saves women's lives, right? Underprivileged women and families shouldn't be thrown under the bus just because some righties don't agree!'
ReplyDeleteAbortion IS supported by tax money in Canada but, unfortunately, funding has drastically decreased since Harper's been elected :(
Anonymous, I completely disagree with you. There is a fundamental difference between guns and healthcare, of which abortion is apart. The Supreme Court of Canada wrote in its judgment striking down Canada's criminal code section on abortion, "Liberty in a free and democratic society does not require the state to approve the personal decisions made by its citizens; it does, however, require the state to respect them…"
ReplyDeleteAs a result, the government should not be cherry picking which medical services it pays for. It should cover them all and keep their noses out of the decisions made by their citizens. The fact that anti-choicers would happily deny coverage to 30million uninsured because of abortion language is beyond me. It is a statistical fact that sex ed and public health care work to REDUCE abortions. But none of the anti's seem to get that.
Not Guilty,
ReplyDeleteWhy is what you state the Truth? What about the millions of people in America that disagree with your idea that abortion should be healthcare? Are they all wrong? What about my rights not to financially support that what I COMPLETELY believe to be murder? (Yes, I also disagree with my money supporting any war or capital punishment as well).
Where are you getting your numbers? Your stats are way wrong. Legalized abortion was supposed to lower the number of abortions in America. How many women now have an abortion in their lifetime compared to when it was illegal? Proaborts now PROUDLY use these stats (1/3 of all women abort in their lifetime so abortion must be OK) as another sick reason to SUPPORT abortion.
Legalized abortion was supposed to STOP child abuse. Child abuse has greatly INCREASED. Abortion was supposed to lower the children for adoption and in foster care. Children in foster care has astronomically increased! The numbers are the complete opposite of what pro-aborts predicted them to be. Have you ever really sat down and thought about why?
You will continue to LIE about stats to protect your beliefs and attempt to rationalize to others that what you support and do is not really killing and that you are really lowering the abortion rate in spite of stats PROVING you are not. You don't get this and unfortunately probably never will.
Anonymous / deathroe.com -
ReplyDeletePersonally, i don't think the government should be "completely" out of abortion. I DO think that the government has no right denying women the right to abort electively before viability or for life/health reasons after viability (my personal position). However, I do think the government should be involved in regulating health conditions inside of clinics, such as they do for hospitals. I think the government should provide factual, science-based education in schools and on their website about abortion. I think the government should be researching ways in which we can reduce unplanned and/or unwanted pregnancies, which can reduce the abortion rate. Lastly, I want the government to fund abortions, just as they fund other healthcare.
I want the government to stop making choices about my reproductive health, and instead support me in whatever choice *I* make.
To the second anonymous post (might be the same person, I don't know)-
The government cannot uphold every belief. They must stick with the facts. Abortion *is* healthcare- that's a fact. Do you want our whole country to go vegan because of the beliefs of vegans? Do you want it to be illegal to own a pet because of PETA? Do you want to bring back eugenic sterilization because there are racists who are afraid of the Latino and African American populations "taking away [their] country?"
Your personal beliefs are not reason to deny me my rights.
Anon, Stats Canada puts the abortion rate in Canada at 14.1 per 1000, which is lower than the US. And we have universal health care, and free and accessible abortion. So I'd say that my stats are not made up. Where are yours arguing an increase in child abuse, etc?
ReplyDeleteAbortion IS health care. It is a medical procedure. You can't deny that - it is a fact. You don't have to agree with it, or my choice. Your tax dollars go to war and capital punishment, but I doubt you are out there protesting the government about THOSE decisions. It's easy to pick on women. If you don't want an abortion, don't get one. But don't tell me how to live my life.
What the passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment would have done, among other things, is ban insurance coverage for second- and third-trimester abortions. First-trimester abortions, which are still unaffordable for many women, cost less than the deductible. So a lot of women pay out-of-pocket for abortion services anyway, even if they have health insurance. But second- and third-trimester abortions, which require a few trips to the doctor and possibly a hospital stay, cost thousands of dollars. Those are the abortions that would be covered by insurance, and those are the abortions that wouldn't be covered if Bart Stupak had his way.
ReplyDeleteAs for federal funding for abortion in general, the ban doesn't make much sense. People who are against federal abortion funding will probably tell you that they don't want their tax dollars to fund abortion. Chances are, they don't want their tax dollars to fund contraception, Head Start, food stamps, Section 8 housing, Medicaid, or SCHIP. And even if they do, they certainly don't vote that way. The same anti-choice legislators that are voted for by those who do not support federal funding for abortion are for the dismantling of most social welfare programs in exchange for massive tax cuts for the richest Americans and nation building. The only thing the Hyde Amendment does is increase the number of poor children. For all the pro-life rhetoric that these legislators spit, they certainly couldn't give a flying crap about the living.
herestheblood.com
ReplyDeleteI've read through some of the comments on here and watched the above video. I was in tears by the end of this video. If you can get through this video and feel nothing, your heart already has a hard protective shell around it. This shell is made out of anger, hate, bitterness, blame, and pride.
ReplyDeleteI compare the young pro-choicers here to that of the frog in the pot of cool water. The pot is put on the stove and the water is slowly turned up. The frog doesn't even realize that he needs to jump out or otherwise he will boil to death.
Pro-lifers (the true pro-lifers not the fanatic killers you like to lump in with pro-lifers) are not your enemies. Your unborn children are certainly not your enemies. You are your own worst enemies. You cannot see the damage you are doing to your selves and others by participating in any way in this terrible evil. Our hearts go out to you but you will not even accept that.
None are so blind as those who Choose not to see.