It has been quite a whirlwind of a week in the women's health community, hasn't it? Two major women's health organizations, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood, battled for women's respect and donations. Two days later the dust is settling and we're left to wonder what we should take away from the tangle?
Was it about fundraising? Women's health? Politics? I suggest it is about stigma, specifically abortion stigma that has been deliberately attached to a beloved national institution and household name, Planned Parenthood.
Despite data stating that only three percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood across the country are abortion procedures (compared with 16 percent devoted to cancer screening or 35 percent to contraception), conservatives have succeeded in making Planned Parenthood synonymous with abortion. And abortion stigma is contagious. It makes groups like Komen want to disassociate themselves from it and to leave Planned Parenthood alone in its quarantine. At Ipas, a group working only on the issue of abortion, we know a little something about stigma. It begins with identifying and isolating the stigmatizing condition.
It is well known that ever since Roe v Wade was decided in 1973, forces opposing abortion galvanized and have worked steadily and relentlessly to take away a woman's most fundamental right to freely decide whether and when to bear a child. Just months after the historic Supreme Court decision, the Foreign Affairs Act was amended to restrict any U.S. foreign assistance funds from being used to support safe abortion care -- even though unsafe abortion was then and continues to be a leading cause of maternal deaths in developing countries. But poor women in developing countries are an easy target. They don't vote in the United States, and they certainly don't donate to political campaigns. But what became known as the Helms Amendment legitimized the belief that we can cut off abortion from the rest of a woman's health care.
In 1976, a similar restriction was imposed on poor women in the United States. Women with private health insurance can avail themselves of their legal right to abortion. But because of the Hyde Amendment, women on Medicaid may not - even though we know that terminating an unwanted pregnancy is safer, and certainly less expensive, than carrying to term. But Helms already established a precedent, and while poor women may vote, they do so at lower rates than motivated anti-abortion ideologues, and they certainly don't donate to political campaigns. Now we see abortion cut off from women's health here in the United States.
Over the next 40 years, incremental efforts to carve out additional exceptions to Roe have succeeded in isolating abortion both politically and practically: In addition to parental consent laws (and the current trend: forced ultrasound and mandated counseling), abortion is often only performed in designated health care facilities (like Planned Parenthood clinics); medical schools are not even obliged to teach the procedure, for fear of offending those with "conscientious objections;" and federal and some state employee health plans are barred from covering abortion care.
But abortion opponents have perhaps had their greatest success in their efforts to silence and shame anyone or any group that dares to continue any sort of relationship with abortion rights advocates or providers. Their pressure is relentless and comes in many forms -- from the high level political pressure that Planned Parenthood has experienced from Congress during the past two years, to the discomfort that we all feel when electricians or printing companies -- or even other health-care organizations -- refuse to work with us.
And, really, how can we expect organizations like Komen to stand up for all women's health needs when even the most powerful nation in the world cannot cope with the fact that women wish to terminate pregnancies? Under this pro-choice president, not only do restrictive policies like Hyde and Helms remain in place, President Obama is clearly challenged to even utter support for a woman's right to abortion.
A question I am left with is whether the outcry would have been as swift and powerful if Komen had simply announced that they were ending support for any and all women's health programs where abortions were performed instead of targeting an important national symbol like Planned Parenthood. Would so many individuals -- 'Racers for the Cure' and celebrities alike -- rise up in protest? My guess is no, they would not -- and this is the power of the stigma around abortion.
When access to health care is limited by money or geography, we cannot afford to limit it further with politics. Yet we see it happen again and again when it comes to women's health. Given the success of the political attacks on contraceptive and abortion care in general, and Planned Parenthood in particular, you can see how Komen thought they could score an easy political win and placate abortion opponents by throwing Planned Parenthood under the bus. The abortion stigma card can be played at any time to scare off opposition.
The good news is that in this case, opponents to abortion overreached, and Komen's attempt to demean and isolate abortion providers backfired by alienating their own supporters. However, that doesn't change the game. When we acknowledge that abortion is a part of comprehensive health care - just as breast exams and pap smears are - then we will be able to move the goal posts.
Follow Anu Kumar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/IpasOrg
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I believe that the current nastiness exhibited in our national dialogue had its foundation in the anti choice movement. Women using any abortion clinic have been subjected to abuse for years, and that is seen as acceptable behavior, while even our pro choice politicians mumble platitudes.
Now, I work with abused children, and I see how many of those mothers continue to have children because reproductive health is politicized. If a woman isn't allowed make a choice about something so fundamentally basic as her reproduction, then we are saying that women are baby receptacles and that we should strip her of her ability to make medical decisions. Taking away choice also creates a potentially dangerous environment for children. If anti-choicers claim women should have children they don't want, then they should become foster parents or work with the ACTUAL CHILDREN, instead of screaming about the rights of a zygote.
Consider that Italy (Catholic), Spain (Catholic) and France (Catholic) ALL ALLOW ABORTIONS.
They just don't talk about it all the time. It's a male ego fixation and it's very tiring.
PP help women who are in very precarious situations (3% of their work) the rest of the time and money is spent providing a wide range of free healthcare to those in need.
The Right is trying to cut out healthcare for those who can't afford insurance, those in dire straights, those needing birth control advice (to prevent the unwanted pregnancy), cancer screenings and PROSTATE SCREENINGS FOR MEN.
The Republicans are against anything that would cover healthcare for women whether it's the Affordable Healthcare Act or PP.
My suggestion is to stop making pants with zippers so that they can't unzip - we are so tired of their whining.
Support PP folks
On the other hand, if men took responsibility for the children they create, supporting them and their mothers, abortion rates would plummet dramatically.
Women are not asexuated organisms who create children by themselves. I think it's time for the men to do the right thing for a change, taking full responsibility for their own actions, instead of pointing fingers at the women they impregnated and walked away from.
Before yopu dedicate all your energies to defending an organization and a concept, you would do well to explore its origins and history. Planned Parenthood is not just about protecting women's health and/or their civil rights--it is also about imposing a particular and paculiar set of standards upon our society.
It is because of what you are doing.
A plurality can be garnered to look the other way at it. They're glad it's available for when it's needed.
Yet we are almost all universally disgusted by the abhorrences that occur day in and day out in abortion clinics. Even the most pro-choice people I have ever come across seem compelled to say how personally disgusted they are by what goes on in the clinics.
The reason that abortion clinics are not advertised with giant neon signs is that they have been targeted by the religious right, who has no concern or empathy for women in the least. People have been shot, clincs have been bombed, people have been shouted at, people have been blocked from entering clinics. What part of 3% don't you understand?
Well, let me spell it out for you: 97% of all women who enter a Planned Parenthood clinic are going there for birth control, or maybe a pap smear and breast exam. My husband got his vasectomy at a Planned Parenthood. While in college, I got all my birth control at PP. And, although it's none of your business, my college boyfriend is my now husband. We've been together 30 years. We have one child, had one abortion and three miscarriages. THAT, my dear, is the life cycle of a woman. You don't have to like it. I honestly don't care. But to act all sancitmonious without bothering to acknowledge that health care for women of limited means should be made available, and that indeed "family planning" or "planned parenthood" is a good idea... an excellent idea... and that those who provide those services have been targeted... is a load.
Women's health has been politicized. It's a travesty.
It is time for progressives and pro choice crowd to demand THEIR tax money go for funding abortions for poor people.
It is also time progressives demand a law that requires any health care institution or provider with a government license to perform any legal medical procedure wirh no exception for conscience.
There could be an exception for a doctor who is also a Catholic priest.
Beloved might be stretching it but they are plucky underdogs and a welcome pillar of my community.
I'm sure I'm not alone--if it weren't for PP many people would not be able to afford birth control and basic gynecological healthcare.
The question is choice- pro-choice or anti-choice, and that is what we should be calling them.
Pro-Choice is simply that. For the right to choose. I respect your right to believe as you wish. But your belief doesn't trump my right to mine.
The huge flap over the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision to cease funding Planned Parenthood of America, PPOA, and then to rescind that recission is nothing more than a tempest in the abortion teapot. It’s also an excellent example of the power of bullying.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure is as dedicated to curing breast cancer as Planned Parenthood is dedicated to killing the pre-born. However, when the foundation pulled its funding of PPOA last week, it was a wake-up call, if one were needed, that libs are far more concerned for preserving abortion rights than they are with preserving the lives of women.
Under a torrent of incensed bullying attacks, the foundation quickly seemed to reverse its decision though not before libs launched a withering onslaught of abuse of Komen.
The bullying died down following the apparent reversal, which is ironic since the foundation simply decided to adhere to its previous commitment to pay PPOA over half a million dollars but would provide no additional funding because, despite its advertising, the nation’s most profitable and prolific abortionists doesn’t give a damn about breast cancer.
Komen caved to the bullying tactics then made it clear. . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=12591.)