Live and Let Liv: 2011

America has taken a giant leap backward in time in terms of women’s health care and women’s rights to their own bodies. The “republicans in the House of Representatives [who] are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families” (nytimes.com editorial). The only reason why they want to cut the funding is because of the fact that Planned Parenthood provides safe and legal abortions. The United States republican politicians who are in power are trying to control women’s rights to their bodies in any way they can. It is 2011 and any optimistic ideals of equality are being crushed by this country’s House leaders. Margaret Sanger fought for women’s rights to contraceptives and sexual health care as a way to avoid abortion which makes sense; but how can people avoid abortion if their rights to affordable birth control are being stripped slowly away? The fact that the religious republicans of the country are the ones trying to strip away the funding of Planned Parenthood as well as make outlandish laws regarding abortion. Morals are not more important than life itself and the religious right is trying to pass it off that way. The safety of the woman is not the priority of the people who are trying to pass these bills and laws that is stripping the rights of women away little by little and in that sense, completely endangering their lives. Everything that Margaret Sanger and her followers and activists who stood on her shoulders after her is being thwarted.

This can also all come back to separation of Church and State, just as the argument about same-sex marriage. The only reason there is any argument at all is because people cannot see past their individual views to see what is best for society. In this democracy, if someone focuses on their own beliefs without thinking of the whole, it can be incredibly detrimental. For example, if abortion was made completely illegal because of one person’s beliefs, it could be the end to many women’s lives everywhere. The “sanctity of life” as comedian George Carlin liked to refer to it as, is something that has been established not by the politicians and state leaders, but by the moral obligations of the Church. The Church has overlapped into this democracy allowing for clouded judgment and close-minded bigotry against women. “16 percent [of nations] permit abortion only to save the woman’s life, and another 46 percent of nations make it very difficult for women to have access to safe and legal abortions” and because of these tactics, “women who want abortions resort to illegal, usually unsafe abortions… 70,000 women die as a result of subjecting themselves to an unsafe abortion” (Tong 221).

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund was founded in 1989, but the movement began in 1916 with Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood offers “family planning and health services, particularly to low-income women, including testing for sexually transmitted disease (STD), sexual abuse and rape treatment and counseling, cancer screening, vaccination, access to birth control and abortion” (healthland.time.com). The bills that are being passed right now are directly affecting Planned Parenthood. There are many groups who are trying to destroy the non-profit group that has worked so hard to provide safe services and education to women and men everywhere. Planned Parenthood is trying to take a stand against these groups who are trying to sabotage the Planned Parenthood name by doing things like “sting” operations to different Planned Parenthood locations all over the country. A group called “Live Action” set out with six different men posing to be sex traffickers in January of 2011, claiming that they needed health care such as birth control and abortions for their sex workers, some as young as 14-years-old. Instead of these people taking all of their time and energy trying to make Planned Parenthood look bad – what if they used that time and energy to actually do something about stopping sex trafficking? The energy that people are using right now to try to “de-fund” Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides affordable or free women’s health care, could be used in much more beneficial ways that would move this country forward. One thing that the Planned Parenthood Action Fund is doing right now is a “Truth Tour” which is fighting against the “extremists behind the campaign to bar Planned Parenthood from federal funding [who] brought their lies to our communities” (plannedparenthoodaction.org). A woman named Lila Rose who is spearheading this campaign against the federal funding of Planned Parenthood probably didn’t realize that she was going to be not only followed by the truth tour while she was on her crusade, but that the activists with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund beat her team there to ever site that she spoke at. Each year Planned Parenthood provides 830,000 breast exams, 1,800,000 cancer screenings, and 4,000,000 STD tests and has 2,500,000 birth control patients (plannedparenthoodaction.org). Planned Parenthood makes these services affordable and safe through the federal funding that they have received as a non-profit organization. With this detrimental fund cut to the organization, it could be the horrifying first step to abolishing legal abortion and even birth control. This is the first of many unbelievable actions that are being taken in pursuit of control over women’s rights to safe and legal abortions, birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and much more.

The discussion of only allowing abortion for certain women under certain situations was the first thing I heard this year that really caught my ear. It is not hard to see where this idea is coming from. Federally funded abortions make some people in the public upset who do not believe in choice, but it would make it easier if people knew that the abortion was only being performed for people who need it under certain circumstances. There is an extreme misconception that some women use abortions as a form of birth control as opposed to proper birth control methods and that every time they get pregnant they have an abortion. Representative Chris Smith, republican of New Jersey introduced the “No Tax-Payer Funding for Abortion Act” “a bill that would not only permanently prohibit some federally funded health-care programs from covering abortions, but would change the language exempting rape and incest from rape to ‘forcible rape’” (thinkprogress.org). This would exclude statutory rape and date rape. According to Kansas State University, “Two-thirds of rape victims between the ages of 18 and 29 know their attacker and over 60 percent of rapes occur in residences” (k-state.edu). The idea of changing the word rape to mean anything but unwanted sexual violence is an act of violence against women as Representative Wasserman Schultz said. Changing the word’s meaning is making an excuse and placing the blame on the woman. If this bill passes a rapist could stand up in court and claim it isn’t his fault because the woman was dressed “too sexy” at a party and even though she said no, she obviously “deserved” it. Changing the word rape is the most misogynistic thing this already patriarchal country can do because it is giving power to the rapists and stripping the power from the women.

Another bill that has been proposed recently by the House of Representatives “has a provision that would allow hospitals receiving federal funds to refuse to terminate a pregnancy even when necessary to save a woman’s life” (nytimes.com). This bill not only undermines the progressiveness of Roe vs. Wade and women’s rights to their own bodies but has the ability to literally kill a woman. Roe vs. Wade spearheaded and created the right to a safe and legal abortion and the bill that would allow hospitals to refuse to terminate a pregnancy even when necessary to save a woman’s life goes completely against it. This takes the power away from the woman and practically hands it over to the old, white men in the House who are trying to control what women do with their bodies. I cannot grasp the logic behind why it is more important for both the woman and the child to die as opposed to terminating the pregnancy and saving the woman. A woman dying due to the restrictive morals of men is the reason why this country is so far behind in progressive equality between all people of this nation and why this country is viewed as a patriarchal nation.

There is no question that America has come a long way in terms of women’s rights and equality but it is heartbreaking to see it head in the opposite direction. Margaret Sanger was a huge influence in the rights to women’s healthcare and in this day and age, I believe that she, and her followers, would be utterly appalled by the attempts to destroy the Planned Parenthood organization. The women’s movement has paved way for equal rights from the 19^th amendment giving women the freedom to vote, to Roe vs. Wade, allowing for safe and legal abortions. To take a step away from these freedoms would put the movement back by decades. If men could have abortions it is certain that the subject of sexual freedom and rights to your own body would not be up for discussion. The Religious Right needs to be voted out of power and there needs to be more support for Planned Parenthood and other non-profit organizations that provide information and action towards safe and affordable health care for women and girls.

MLA Works Cited

Editorial. "The War on Women." The New York Times 25 Feb. 2011, natl. ed.: A18.

The New York Times. Web. 2 Mar. 2011.

26/opinion/26sat1.html?_r=3&src=me&ref=general>.

"Date Rape Drugs and Alcohol." Kansas State University, K-State Counseling
Services. Kansas State University, 19 July 2004. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.
.

Somanader, Tanya. "Rep. Wasserman Schultz: Bill Redefining Rape To Prevent
Abortions Is ‘A Violent Act Against Women’." Think Progress 1 Feb. 2011,
natl. ed.: n. pag. Think Progress. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.
.

"Stand With Planned Parenthood and Protect Access to Women's Health Care."
Planned Parenthood Action Center. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc.,
n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2011.
get-involved/2011-congressional-attacks-womens-health-care-1024.htm>.