Geez. RH Reality Check has the info, and I have to ask, will it never end????
Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation’s pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data. It now claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment (there’s no test to determine if a woman’s egg has been fertilized). Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she’s not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS’ new science.
[...]As the HHS proposal proves, the absence of fact or evidence does not slow anti-abortion movement attempts to classify hormonal contraception as abortion. With HHS’ proposal they have struck gold. Anyone working for a federal clinic, or a health center that receives federal funding–even in the form of Medicaid–and would like to prevent a woman from accessing most prescription birth control methods has federal protection to do so.
Nancy Keenan asks the next logical question, will McLame also define contraception as abortion, as we already know Obama would like to expand access to (rather than redefine and restrict) contraceptives.
Will women have to go underground to get access to decent reproductive health care? And if pharmacalogical methods of contraception are thus banned because they will be deemed abortifacients, will the religious right then turn and ban the same roots, herbs and crocodile dung that pre-pharmacology societies relied on for contraception?
As I’ve said often, I think the pro-choice movement took a wrong turn when it began listening to “moderate” anti-choice arguments. As a result, the antis have grown and prospered. What has improved–that a woman can make her own decision to have an abortion in New York but not South Dakota?
Far too much time and money has gone into fighting these ignorant people while we lose the battle on adequate sex education programs. RH Reality Check also features articles about the rise in HIV, particularly among women over 45. The religious right cares not a bit.
Before Roe v. Wade there was a genuine sense of outrage among women. We’d better find that pulse again in a less timid movement for control of our own bodies.
Glad to see this post and hope it means you’re feeling better. yours, naomil
It’s going to take a couple of weeks (at the least) to flush the meds out of my body, so I’m expecting a lot of ups and downs.
Naomi, I’ve been wondering where the outrage has gone. I was greatly influenced by the 60’s, when outrages brought people together to fight for their right(s). Now a days, it seems that people and groups have been reduced to being descriptive rather than prescriptive. What worked in the 60’s & early 70’s was fighting for change — being prescriptive. The backlash we saw (are still seeing) is a testament to the changes feminists and civil rights groups were able to make.
Being descriptive (defining and redefining ad nauseum) is NOT working against the religious right, and the so-called moderates (was it Kos that said women should lose the right to abortion to make the dems come together?). The outrages must be channeled prescriptively to not only recapture the rights we’ve lost but to also make headway for future generations.
At this point I’m at a loss to find could-be leaders that are willing and able to do that.