Pro v. anti-choice? Women's health care loses with anti-choice

One of my favs mystery writers is Sara Paretsky, who authors the V. I. Warshawski series of books. But it seems she also writes some riveting non-fiction as well, including here at Huffington Post, about the totalitarian and authoritarian goals of the religious Right towards womens' reproductive health in her beloved Chicago:

My grandmother watched her father die when an anti-Jewish mob broke into their small home and shot him as he lay in bed with his wife. The mob was jubilant and exuberant at his death; their neighborhood priest in Vilnius, Lithuania, led the crowd through the streets chanting a Te Deum to show their thanks to the Lord at the death of someone they considered a nonbeliever.

Most members of that crowd called themselves Christians. I think of them when I look at the mob in Aurora that is trying to keep the Planned Parenthood health center there from opening.

I have been working around these protesters and their associates for 20 years, trying to help women get through their ranks into clinics for medical appointments. On a recent stint at an obstetrics-gynecology health center under siege on the North Side of Chicago, I was trying to escort a woman with ovarian cancer through the horde so she could see her doctor.

Part of the crowd surrounded us, chanting "Christ killers!" and "Baby killers!" Briefly, I felt the fear my grandmother must have known.

The hypocrisy of these folks seems without limits, yet their agenda is clear, while misrepresented. They claim to be against abortion under any circumstances, yet the clear goal is no birth control or any other reproductive rights for women. They're not only after Roe v. Wade, they're after Griswold v. Connecticut.

Don't remember that one? You should. Here's what a synopsis of major Supreme Court decisions on reproductive rights from FindLaw says about Griswold:

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). In this case, the Supreme Court held that the right to privacy, which flows from the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution), includes the right of married persons to use contraceptives.

Interesting the the far Right, who claim to value personal freedom and responsibility, and lack of government intrusion, feel a need to tell people that they can't even use birth control. No abortions, and no way to keep from getting pregnant. This makes the old Rhythm Method seem like scientific advancement. Oddly, the great rush to canonize marriage as a sacred act between one man & one woman by the Right doesn't seem to include a married couple's right to privacy in re: their right to birth control.

And think about the specifics of the case, that prior to 1965, a state told its citizens they couldn't make their own birth control decisions. And it wasn't until 1972 (Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438(1972), that:

. . . the Supreme Court held that a statute that allowed giving contraceptives to married adults but prohibited the same conduct with respect to unmarried adults violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the right of privacy means anything, explained the Court, it encompasses the right of all individuals, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether or not to conceive a child.

Not that long ago. We seem to have barely escaped from the dark ages. And now zealots on the far Right want to take us back there. Here's an article from Prevention Magazine that makes some important points about the Right-wing lies about birth control:

In the past decade or so, the "hormonal birth control equals abortion" view has quietly grown roots in the antiabortion underground. It's spread from doctor to doctor, through local newsletters, in books with titles such as Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? (written by Randy Alcorn, an Oregon-based antiabortion pastor and author), and through lobbying groups that have encouraged lawmakers in Arkansas, South Dakota, and most recently Mississippi to enact "conscience clauses." These legislative provisions protect health care professionals--in this case, pharmacists--who refuse to provide services they oppose on moral, ethical, or legal grounds. At press time, similar legislation had been introduced in 11 more states.

An Internet search turns up thousands of Web sites containing articles with titles such as "The Pill Kills Babies," "Are Contraception and Abortion Siamese Twins?" and "The Dirty Little Secrets about the Birth Control Pill." Hundreds of physicians and pharmacists have pledged not to provide hormonal birth control. Among them: 450 doctors affiliated with the Dayton, OH-based natural family planning group One More Soul; some members of the 2,500 doctors in the Holland, MI-based American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and a growing number of the 1,500-member Web-based Pharmacists for Life International, says Brauer. Not even anti-Pill groups know how many doctors and druggists are involved. And while the total is still a small percentage of the 117,500 family physicians and OB/GYNs and 173,000 pharmacists in the US, they are making their presence felt in women's lives and among law and policy makers on both the state and national levels. Their influence is far-reaching and disproportionate to their size--a quiet version of the public shock waves produced by the nation's relatively small number of antiabortion activists.

"Refusing women access to the Pill is a very disturbing trend," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The war on choice is not just about abortion anymore. It's about our right to birth control."

More from the Paretsky article:

Part of the crowd surrounded us, chanting "Christ killers!" and "Baby killers!" Briefly, I felt the fear my grandmother must have known.

The police were watching the demonstrators block the clinic but doing nothing to remove them from the entrance. After five minutes, they came to help the cancer patient escape her harassers and return to her car -- weeping and trembling. There was no way she was going to get essential medical care that day.

After the police left, one of the protesters said to me, "I suppose since you think it's OK to kill a fetus you agree that it's OK if I kill you."

This is ugly language, but no more hate-filled than the rest of the words and deeds of those angry people who want to keep women from getting reproductive health care.

Here's more about the Aurora clinic from the Chicago Sun-Times:

A handful of patients visited the new Planned Parenthood clinic as it opened Tuesday in Aurora, but they were far outnumbered by dozens of anti-abortion demonstrators who vowed to continue their efforts to shut the center.

Opponents in fact filed a new challenge with Aurora's zoning board of appeals, contending the clinic -- which offers abortion services -- shouldn't be open because it lacks a required special-use permit.

. . . More than 20 patients also made appointments Tuesday for visits to the clinic, which offers a range of health care that includes testing for sexually transmitted infections and providing contraceptives.

Read Paretsky's piece, and be afraid for your civil rights.

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Comments

[Dap]

Dear Steve,

That's why I heart ya, eloquently expressed and spot-on.

One of the *most* disturbing and objectionable things about this group of mental midgets is that they on (so called) missions to Africa have cause tens of thousands of human beings to die as a direct result of their antiquated ways, teaching people not to use condoms.

Agape.

[skyblue]

-they on (so called) missions to Africa have cause tens of thousands of human beings to die as a direct result of their antiquated ways, teaching people not to use condoms.-

Say what?!

[TheQuestion]

Trying to control other people's lives & beliefs is what this is all about. Trying to force your belief system on others is irresponsible. They just don't seem to have a grip on reality. They believe in things that make no sense & they think everyone else should believe it too.

This stuff is nothing short of insane. Check out the slate article about Alabama's ban on Dildo's & Vibrators.

http://www.slate.com/id/2175308/fr/rss/

Another example of a good country gone bad.

[aflusche]

Since when is having an abortion a "civil right"? Civil rights are given to people by the government, whereas human rights are inherent in us as people. Being able to peacefully dissent is the true civil right here; that's what the pro-lifers are doing in Aurora.

As for abortion itself, I can't think of a more basic HUMAN right than being free to be born alive.

[Anirban]

Watch the grammar of your question. A mass of cells takes time to be human , to acquire some rights , I suppose. The reason the issue will never be resolved 'cause the pro-lifers are simplly misguided idealists who never sits on the other side.

[1life]

There was nothing wrong with the grammar of aflusche's post. I think what you are harping on is the word choice. His word choice, however, is still fine. Simple facts state that too much goes on in the womb too quickly for it to be merely a "mass of cells". At 17 days blood vessels begin to form (Moore, K. and Persaud, T., p. 42-48, 76). Between 18 and 20 days the foundations of the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system are laid (Mitchell, B and Sharma, R., Embryology , New York: Churchill Livingstone, Dec. 2004, p. 4). And at day 21 the heart begins to beat (Moore, K. and Persaud, T., p. 77).

That is a lot of action for just "a mass of cells".

[Qbear]

These LOSERS who think they can control other people's health and reproductive choices, determine who they can love or marry, need a lesson in MANNERS.
If it isn't your body...MIND YOUR OWN G*D DAMN BUSINESS.

Kudos for your courage to stand up to these thugish busy bodies, escorting women to their appointments, (some of them really are unhinged.)Until enough pro-choice men and women make it clear to these folks they aren't going to win EVER. they will plague women's clinics. I helped lobby for safe legal abortions with feminist friends in MN before Roe. Keep FIGHTING!

[skyblue]

If the Dems could catch some courage, we might be able to shut these people up.

How dare anyone impose bad decisions on someone else. This just goes to prove (my) theory that these people couldn't care less about the actual life they're claiming to protect. This is all about controlling women.

[TheQuestion]

This is all about forcing beliefs on other people. This is a country of many people with many beliefs. All of whom have the right to practice what they believe without being told by someone else what to do.

It is also irresponsible in this crowded world to continue to try to block the use of birth control.

[skyblue]

Tell me about it.

I read the article on Slate. Kinda pathetic. You'd think at some point, it would occur to them that dildos and vibrators may lead to less sex, less unwanted pregnancies, less abortions.

But in their patriarchal thinking, maybe they assume dildos will only lead to a desire for the real thing, cause nothing beats the real thing, right?

Yeah, I get that it's about forcing beliefs on other people. It's just the way I see it, most often, these "other people" are women people.

Enjoy blue skys, TheQuestion.