A highly visible women’s issue continues to be the struggle for control over our reproductive rights, over our own bodies. At least half of U.S. women will experience an unexpected pregnancy during their lifetime and by age 45, one in three will have had an abortion.
The hurdles for women who choose to end a pregnancy are high. Forty-two percent of women seeking abortions have incomes below the poverty line, and 27 percent live on incomes up to double the poverty line—making less than $20,000 a year.
As of 2008, 87 percent of all U.S. counties had no abortion provider, with 35 percent of U.S. women living in those counties. And the average cost for a non-hospital abortion with local anesthesia at 10 weeks was $451.
These statistics do not factor in the social stigma promoted against women who choose to end a pregnancy.
The last decade has seen one attack after another on reproductive rights. The year 2011 counted the highest number of legislative attacks on women’s rights ever.
In 2011, new anti-choice laws were enacted in 26 states, the most since 1999 and twice as many as were enacted in 2010, while the House of Representatives voted on choice measures eight times in 2011.
Most notable was the introduction of HR 358, the “Protect Life Act,” a reintroduction of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment from 2010 which would allow hospitals that receive federal funds to turn away women in need of life-saving emergency abortions. Hospitals would not be required to transfer these patients to another hospital where they could receive treatment.
HR3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act,” would eliminate tax credits for workplaces that provide health coverage if the plans include abortion services, and would make permanent the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which banned the use of federal dollars to cover abortion and has been added to the annual appropriations bill ever since it was originally passed. HR 3 also included a provision that would allow the IRS to audit women who receive a tax credit for medical costs related to an abortion, requiring proof that they had suffered from incest or rape or that their lives were in danger.
The Blunt Amendment
Originally, the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act included an exemption for churches and houses of worship from having to provide contraception coverage. Obama had announced an accommodation to religiously-affiliated schools, universities and hospitals to also allow them to refuse to provide insurance plans to their employees that covered contraception. Companies would be required to offer coverage directly to employees without additional premiums. The Blunt Amendment would have allowed not only religious groups but any employer with moral objections to opt out of the coverage requirement.
While this amendment was defeated in the Senate on March 1 by a narrow 51-48 vote, one wonders what the outcome would have been had the timing not been paired with the congressional hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee on birth control. The hearing featured only men as witnesses and refused to allow a graduate student from Georgetown University (a Catholic school) to speak about her experience.
It was following this event that Rush Limbaugh proceeded to attack Sandra Fluke using the most offensive language possible, creating a groundswell in defense of women.
On March 29, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a state Senate-approved bill that criminalizes abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, even in cases of incest, rape or a dead or genetically mutated fetus. HB 954, the “fetal pain bill,” also known as the “women as livestock bill,” is yet another disgusting maneuver to turn back the clock on women’s rights.
Georgia will join six other states with similarly harsh bills. The name “fetal pain bill” misrepresents the facts, as science shows, that fetuses do not develop neurologically to the point of feeling pain until at least 24 weeks and likely closer to 28 weeks.
Another prominent assault on women has come in the attack on Planned Parenthood, as the federal government debated cutting funds to the organization. Planned Parenthood serves 5 million people across the country every year, conducting hundreds of thousands of breast cancer checks and cervical cancer screenings while providing about 2.5 million people with various types of birth control.
While Planned Parenthood was “under investigation” to see if they used federal funds to provide abortion, the famous breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen Foundation initiated a “new policy” to bar funding for any group under investigation. Grants from Komen to Planned Parenthood over the last five years had provided for 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals, mostly for low-income women.
The decision was reversed due to the mass of angry voices who spoke up.
Fight back against the assault!
We cannot be cowed by the onslaught against women’s rights—we need to stand up and fight back.
The landmark Roe v. Wade decision was not made because Chief Justice Warren Burger—the conservative Nixon appointee—suddenly took pity on women who died from illegal abortions. Rather, it was the result of the power of the women’s movement that was part of a larger movement for people’s rights that grew in strength in the 1960s and 1970s.
Women’s reproductive rights are not a given under the capitalist system. They can be rolled back (like the rights of all workers and oppressed peoples) and used as negotiable tokens in the political arena. After every gain, we can expect to see some new angle of attack, just as reactionary forces immediately began to pick apart Roe v. Wade in the mid 1970s.
Women have a need, like all workers, to be able to take care of themselves and their families. Women need safe jobs, quality education, affordable homes, safe environments and accessible and comprehensive health care. Child care should be free and fully available. The PSL stands for a woman’s right to unconditional control over her own body. Women have a right to free abortions on demand and contraception options, as well as quality prenatal care if they choose to have children.
