Are you aware that the biggest march in American history took place this past April? If not, you’re not the only one. On
Women’s access to reproductive health care is becoming more and more difficult since the current administration seized power. Restrictions to women’s rights have been tightening on a daily basis for the last three and a half years now and are more in danger now than ever before since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision gave women the legal right to have a choice concerning their own reproductive freedom. The Bush administration has been stacking the appellate courts with extreme anti-choice activist judges. Obviously the Bush administration is pursuing an agenda here to try to overturn Roe vs. Wade and since they haven’t had the opportunity yet to appoint any supreme court justices they’ve focused all of their efforts on the nation’s next highest court: the appellate court. By stacking the appellate courts full of anti-choice activist judges they can greatly restrict a woman’s legal rights. Since the U.S. Supreme court only has the capability to hear a limited number of cases each year the appellate courts significantly shape the law. So by appointing right wing anti-choice religious extremists to lifelong appellate court judgeships this administration can effectively pursue their anti-choice agenda. Some of these appointments that the Bush administration has successfully pushed through congress are absolutely appalling (see list of judicial appointments for details). The actual mentality of some of these judges is not only questionable but outright offensive. These people seem more suited for the reign of the caveman rather than presiding over sensitive issues and determining laws that greatly impact people’s lives. And on two occasions when the judicial nominations were so controversial that congress successfully blocked their appointments Bush appointed them while congress was not in session, successfully installing them without congressional approval. In bypassing congress Bush was able to install radical anti-choice activists, whose views are so extreme, that they would’ve never been approved and never sat in such powerful positions. Bush has pursued this anti-choice agenda to appease and solidify his right wing Christian support, waging the biggest battle against women’s rights this country has seen in decades. In fact not only are his policies so extreme that they enraged liberals but they have also alienated even conservative republicans. The two members of the U.S. Supreme court that had planned on retiring during this administrations term have put off their retirements in fear of who Bush would replace them with.
Justices Sandra Day O’Connor (72) and William Rehnquist (80) had planned on stepping down with the appointment of a republican president but have apparently been disenfranchised with Bush and his policies to the point where they would rather wait and retire under a democrat. In the 2000 election when Gore looked to be (and really was) the winner Sandra Day O’Connor said, “this is terrible” but after almost a full term under the Bush administration O’Connor and Rehnquist had not followed through with their plans on retiring. Apparently they would rather take their chances of being replaced under a Kerry administration then to chance two Supreme Court seats going to the extreme right wing zealots that Bush would surely install. According to USA Today, "Sandra Day O'Connor has told people close to her that in her two decades on the court, she's never seen such anger over a case. O'Connor, more than any justice, has seemed disturbed by the public wrath directed at the court" Speaking about the 200 election and the supreme courts decision to give Bush the presidency. This combined with the last three and a half years of countless lies, secrets and fear mongering to justify two wars and thousands of deaths seems to have been enough to convince O’Connor and Rehnquist to stay on longer than intended.
It’s not only in the area of appointing justices that this administration has been waging war against women’s reproductive rights. From their first days in office this administration has been pushing their extreme right wing Christian agenda not only on the women of this country but on women all over the world, especially in the third world. Immediately after taking office this administration imposed a world gag order, threatening to cut funding to any humanitarian groups that either offered abortion services or merely mentioned the option of abortion to women, pushing instead to combat the soaring rates of teen pregnancy and population growth problems with the teaching of abstinence, censoring even sex education or the use of contraception. Considering that the one continent (Africa) that these policies affect greater than any other it is criminal to cut the funding for the groups that are trying to educate people on ways to protect themselves from a life threatening disease (Africa had the fastest growing and highest number of HIV cases in the world). This administration is denying people the information that could ultimately save their lives. Unfortunately the harsh reality is that these already under funded groups can’t afford to have what little funding they receive cut so they adhere to these gag orders. As a result we have we have groups that are being forced to act as surrogate Christian missionaries, teaching abstinence-only education rather than practical sex education that could genuinely succeed in combating the spread of AIDS and actually save lives. Censoring sex education in the name of abstinence-only education is not only being pushed in the third world but here in the U.S. as well. It seems hypocritical for these anti-choice groups to be simultaneously fighting against abortion and censoring sex education. The most practical way of reducing the number of abortions that are performed is by sex education and making contraceptives easily accessible and affordable. If we taught sex education to our children, taught them how to protect themselves from unplanned pregnancy we would surely see a decline in the number of unwanted and teen pregnancies, which would in turn reduce the number of abortions performed each year. But because of the influence of the Christian right in American politics we’re told that sex education promotes sexual activity and promiscuity. So rather than engaging in open dialogue with our children, we as a society are opting to turn a blind eye and naively embrace abstinence-only education. Abstinence-only education does not work. It’s not only unrealistic to believe that we can keep our children from being sexually active by not discussing sexual activity but it is also irresponsible. Sex education does not promote sexual activity, what it does is provide our children with the knowledge of how to protect themselves from becoming pregnant or contracting sexually transmitted diseases. It empowers them to have more control of their own bodies and their lives. And empowerment for women is precisely what the right wing Christian agenda is fighting tooth and nail to prevent. The larger and more insidious issue that is at stake here is women’s rights. Empowerment does not fit into the sexist subservient role that the Christian right tries to maintain for women. In the Christian right wing agenda women are meant to subordinate themselves to the authority of men, so the less rights that women have the better. The Christian right fear equality for women and have been fighting since the dawn of Christianity to prevent it. This is what the fight over women’s reproductive freedom really boils down to. This is the reason why sex education, contraception and the morning after pill are not being pursued as a way of reducing the number of abortions that are being performed. This is why the Christian right wing agenda also targets groups like Planned Parenthood, which provide sex education, birth control, contraceptives and health care for women. A group like Planned Parenthood is doing much more to reduce the number of abortions that occur than all of the anti-choice groups in the world. But they way that they go about it, empowering women, is contrary to the Christian right’s agenda for the role of women in our society--submission. It’s ironic and enraging beyond words that groups like Planned Parenthood are not only scrutinized and villanized for their commitment to women’s reproductive freedom but are threatened, intimidated and targeted for violence as well. These groups that provide abortion services are targeted because they provide these services for women, yet abortion services are only a part of what these groups provide. They provide women with options. As I said before they help to empower women, they give women options to make their own decisions and have control of their own bodies and that is threatening to the Christian right. It’s threatening to the hierarchy of a male-dominated society. It’s threatening for these men to lose their control over women, to lose their place at the top of that comfortable power structure. And groups like Planned Parenthood have been at and continue to be at the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights. Other groups like the National Organization for Women. NARAL and the Feminist Majority have been along side of Planned Parenthood and many other groups. It’s groups like these that find themselves under constant attack from the Christian right. It’s these groups that are blamed for the “feminization of our society” by the very same Christian organizations and politicians that are determined to keep their male-dominated hierarchal structure intact and the issue of abortion is only a small part of that agenda. These Christian groups are not “pro-life” they’re anti-choice (which is why they are referred to as such). They’re anti-woman. They’re anti-equal rights. They’re not out to save the unborn they’re out to oppress women which is exactly why they’re so obsessed with taking away a woman’s right to choose. It’s the reason why they don’t pursue the more practical ways I mentioned earlier to try to lower the number of abortions performed. It’s the reason why they don’t try to stop sexual assault, rape or domestic violence like they try to stop abortion. But I suppose that when you believe that god made women for men, to be servants and property that the abuse of women is not nearly as pressing an issue as denying women their empowerment, equality and liberation.
So in keeping with the tradition of showing more concern for a politicized fetus than for the woman actually carrying the fetus, congress has passed the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act”, also known as the Laci Peterson law. This is the law that was pushed by the anti-choice movement after Laci Peterson was murdered while pregnant. This is the law that claims to protect pregnant women from violence and offers “fetal protection” by punishing anyone causing death to a fetus through injury to a pregnant woman while committing a federal crime. This law was pushed, not to protect pregnant women from violence but to advance fetal rights and redefine the fetus as an unborn child. The language used in this law covers “a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development,” so that even zygotes, blastocysts or embryos are included in the definition. This new definition gives rights to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses, ultimately setting the stage to legally overturn Roe vs. Wade. This bill does absolutely nothing to enhance the protection of pregnant women. This bill merely is an under-handed approach that allows abortion foes to chip away at women’s reproductive rights. Violence against women, pregnant or not, should be prosecuted as a crime. But again, these anti-choice Christians as showing that they don’t value women (their rights or safety) as much as they do a politicized fetus or their patriarchal hierarchy. They don’t support women’s equality instead they fight to prevent it.
The sponsors of this law were Rep. Chris Smith(R-NJ and co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus in congress), Lindsey Graham(R-SC) and Charles Canady(R-FL) all hardcore reproductive rights opponents. None of these representatives are co-sponsors of the Violence Against Women Act which would help protect women from violence. If these representatives were really concerned with protecting women from violence they should support the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The best way to protect a fetus is to protect the woman carrying it. But again when you’re only trying to set a precedent for outlawing women’s reproductive rights you can’t be concerned with the little things like taking steps to protect pregnant women that will actually work. Steps like increased funding for education or enforcement of crimes of violence against women.
Another misleading piece of legislation is the deceptively named “Partial-Birth Abortion Bill”. The wording in this bill leads people to believe that this bill refers to a procedure called “partial-birth abortion” but this is not the case. No such procedure called “partial-birth abortion” exists. “You won’t find the term ‘partial-birth abortion’ in any medical dictionary—instead try looking for it in the ultraconservative rhetoric manual,” said Kim Gandy (National Organization for Women president) “Contrary to what opponents of abortion rights would have you believe, this bill is not about a specific late-term procedure. This bill, like each of its predecessors, is purposely worded so vaguely that it could criminalize even some of the safest and most common abortion procedures after twelve weeks and well before fetal viability.” This bill is another attempt to send us back to the days before Roe vs. Wade, the days when countless women died from “back-alley” abortions. This bill is not supported by the American Medical Association, the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists or the American Medical Women’s Association.
“This legislation has nothing to do with the best interests of medicine or women’s health. In fact, this ban does not even include a constitutionally required exception to preserve the health of the woman,” Gandy said. “Senators who otherwise support reproductive rights allowed themselves to be caught up in the political rhetoric instead of standing firm in their commitment to women’s rights. Senators who voted for the abortion procedures ban disappointed voters in their own states and across the country.”
The term “partial-birth abortion” was coined by the National Right to Life Committee when it drafted a model anti-abortion ban. This organization opposes all abortions. The proposed bans defined its fabricated term as “an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally” a living fetus before causing fetal demise. Virtually all abortion procedures involve bringing the fetus through the vagina. So this argument can be used to outlaw all abortions. It’s just another step towards their ultimate goal of outlawing reproductive rights for women.
Another step that was taken recently was the successful attempt to stop over-the-counter availability of emergency contraception. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has refused to permit the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraceptives that prevent pregnancy if used within 72 hours. Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists approve the change to over-the-counter status. It is estimated that over three million American women have unplanned pregnancies each year, and more than half of these end in abortion. Emergency contraception prevents pregnancy but does not terminate a pre-existing pregnancy.
“Emergency contraception is designed to respond to emergency situations—emergencies that are a result of unwanted sex or contraceptive failure. Once a woman is raped or a condom breaks, the clock is begins ticking—emergency contraception is most effective for only 72 hours after sex. So over-the-counter availability is the only way for some women to obtain emergency contraception in time to prevent pregnancy” said Kim Gandy. “Women who will benefit most from over-the-counter availability of emergency contraception are women who can’t afford a doctor visitor can’t reach a doctor in time—women without health insurance, young women, low-income women and rural, isolated women—any woman who is unable to quickly reach a sympathetic physician and pay for his/her services to obtain a prescription,” noted Gandy. Rape victims are particularly vulnerable to the difficulties in obtaining emergency contraception, since more than half of the country’s hospitals do not make it available even in cases of rape.
More than 300,000 women are sexually assaulted each year in the U.S. of those an estimated 25,000 will become pregnant as a result. About 22,000 of these pregnancies could be prevented if all women who were raped used emergency contraception. The American Medical Association has stated that women who have been sexually abused should be counseled about the risk of pregnancy and offered emergency contraception. Many hospitals neglect their responsibility to offer emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors as an option for reducing the risk of pregnancy.
In Pennsylvania, for example, only 28% of hospitals routinely offer and provide emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors, and 12% do not provide any emergency contraception services to sexual assault survivors at all. A study of sexual assault survivors who were treated in emergency rooms found that less than half of the women at risk of pregnancy received emergency contraceptives (Amey & Bishai, 2000). Another study found that as many as 1,000 sexual assault survivors per year left New York State emergency rooms without having received emergency contraceptives (FPANYS, 2003). It is unconscionable that health care systems and practitioners unnecessarily place women who have been sexually abused at risk of the additional trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. And it is unforgivable that women are ultimately being forced to become pregnant because of not being able to receive emergency contraception, then having to go through the abortions that these anti-choice groups are stop. Emergency contraceptives have been shown to be safe and effective, and it is unethical to withhold it for any reason from a woman who has been raped.
Yet the FDA has caved in to the political pressure, from the Bush administration and the religious right who oppose birth control, and denied women access to safe and effective over-the-counter availability to emergency contraception. The FDA is playing politics with women’s lives. Even though a joint panel of FDA advisors voted 23-4 to support the nonprescription availability of emergency contraception the FDA has blocked its availability. The over-the-counter proposal was also strongly supported by FDA professional staff.
One of the few negative votes came from the controversial Bush appointee, Dr. W. David Hager who was recently reappointed by Bush to serve for at least another year. Hager has reportedly refused to prescribe birth control, not emergency contraception, but birth control to unwed women in his private practice. He has also spoken out against the use of condoms and birth control outside of marriage. Scott Spear, national medical committee chairman of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said that someone with Hager's viewpoint does not belong on a science-based panel that advises the FDA.
"Dr. Hager's ideological agenda compromises the scientific integrity of the FDA," he said. "Americans rely on the FDA as a trusted and objective safeguard. When science comes second, public health suffers. President Bush should appoint an unbiased expert who values science above all."
It’s this type of religious extremist that the Bush administration has been installing time and time again to important medical, scientific, public health and judicial positions—positions that shape public policy--people that are more concerned with forcing their extreme religious beliefs on others than in performing the jobs that they’ve been appointed to do. But this is the whole point of what this administration has been and is continuing to do. This is the whole problem. This administration is appointing extremists with anti-woman views to positions that greatly impact women, their health, reproductive rights and their very lives. If they succeed in banning abortion, the only thing they will have really accomplished will be in denying women access to safe and legal abortion services. The women’s movement will be stepping backwards over three decades and we will see women forced to return to the back alleys for the abortion services that they’re legally entitled to now. We will see desperate women die unnecessarily because they had to resort to medical procedures in an unsafe environment and under unsafe conditions. We will see necessary medical procedures criminalized because of the reach and influence of religious extremists into government, science and health care—three places where religion has no place, especially religious extremism. How is it possible to be in a position of power that shapes public health policies and medical procedures when these people’s extreme religious convictions outweigh the interests of public health? How is it possible to effectively do a job based on medical science when their blind faith contradicts medical facts? The answer is that they can’t and they don’t. This administration has made it a top priority to fill all of these positions of power with people that have no concern with women’s reproductive rights, best interests or even their safety. Not only do these people have no concern for women’s rights or safety but they are determined to deny those rights by any means necessary. These people are effectively denying the best interests of the people that they are intended to be serving. Until they can overturn Roe vs. Wade they will continue to deny women their reproductive rights by denying women access to health care facilities, emergency contraception and birth control. Everyday I read another story about another step taken to deny women of their reproductive rights. Everyday I read another story about religious zealotry infringing upon women’s rights. I read about doctors and pharmacists that deny women birth control pills because they’re either not married or simply because their religious views don’t believe in birth control. What the hell is going on here? How does this continue to occur? This type of mentality has absolutely no place in any position that can ultimately deny a woman a medical procedure, emergency contraceptives or the birth control that she’s entitled to. Every time another incident like this occurs it sets the tone for becoming the norm, it paves the way for more and more restrictions to be set in place. It justifies a more and more adverse and hostile environment for women’s health concerns. It also encourages violence directed towards health care clinics and clinic workers. By adopting the stance and rhetoric that abortion is wrong and criminal by extension it justifies religious fanaticism in trying to stop it. And one may argue that these extremists’ stands don’t encourage clinic violence but not only does it encourage it but the U.S, government has refused to classify violent anti-abortion groups as the terrorists that they obviously are. Why? Why aren’t groups like the army of god, who have murdered and maimed doctors and clinic workers as well as bombed clinics, labeled as domestic terrorists? The Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, two groups that have never murdered or even injured anyone, are known as the biggest domestic terrorists in the U.S. but the anti-abortion groups that have killed and maimed are considered by the government to be extremists—not terrorists. Clayton Waagner, who mailed out hundreds of anthrax letters to Planned Parenthood and women’s health care clinics, is considered an extremist, not a terrorist. Although when the government and the media initially believed Iraq to be responsible for the anthrax letters it was regarded as terrorism. So why is it still no considered terrorism? Why? Because holding the same anti-woman, anti-choice views as the current administration does wonders for your legal status. I mean, come on you can’t have the Bush administration having the same views towards women as terrorists, Right? What would that do for their public relations? If these anti-abortion extremists were to be labeled as terrorists, if these views were seen as extreme and contrary to public interests, then maybe this administrations views towards and their reproductive rights would be harder to morally justify. And it is this supposed moral high ground that justifies their sexist policies. It is their religious beliefs that justify denying women their legal rights and their equality. I know one thing for certain; if men were able to become pregnant abortion would not be an issue whatsoever. If men were able to become pregnant these proponents of abortion would find a way to morally justify it. They would find a way for god to justify it. I’m sure the men that wrote the bible would’ve been sure to include a passage in there somewhere justifying it. And even if they didn’t the men who followed would’ve found a way to conveniently interpret the bible to justify it, interpret it to justify their political agenda, much like they do now. But because, obviously, men will never have to worry about becoming pregnant it is solely women’s cross to bear. Men have the luxury of taking the moral high ground on a situation that they will never ever have to experience themselves.
Men have the luxury of taking the moral high ground and using it to justify their oppression of women and in denying their rights. This is exactly what’s been happening and it’s exactly what we need to be fighting against. There’s so many things that can be done, so many groups that could use volunteers for anyone interested. I’ve included a list of organizations that can be contacted, not only for opportunities volunteer but also to learn more about the issue of reproductive rights. There is so much that goes into this issue; so much that has been happening in the struggle for women’s reproductive rights, too much to tackle in a single article. These organizations are where I’ve gotten much of my information from. I apologize if this article was all over the place but again there’s so much that could be addressed so I tried to briefly cover a lot of different aspects and include the sources to follow up with. These are all great organizations that are on the forefront of the battle to safeguard reproductive rights. They are very reputable and worthwhile organizations that can always use volunteers. And, of course, every bit helps; educating, organizing, petitioning, campaigning, escorting at clinics. This is one of the most important issues of our time and if we don’t want to see reproductive rights completely taken away then we need to fight for them. The religious right will not let up until they are able to deny women of their reproductive freedom and they currently have their biggest ally ever presiding in the Whitehouse. So we need to step up our efforts and be determined in our struggle, because if we don’t shape public policy on reproductive freedom they surely will and we can’t let that happen.