Read the Women Blog!
Read the Women Blog
January 27, 2009
You can also read the Women blog on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° website. 
The President sets the right tone for reproductive rights debate
Rhetoric frames action. President Barack Obama has corrected Bill Clinton’s framework to define White House reproductive policy. This explicitly opens the conversation for the common ground that so many have longingly envisioned and which, in the past, anti-choice advocates have assiduously avoided.
A day after the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama lifted the International Gag Rule, an executive order with the force of law first imposed by Ronald Reagan. It extended the prohibition of U.S. funds for assistance to family-planning groups that, with their own resources, provide abortion counseling, referral or direct services. Thirteen percent of maternal deaths worldwide are due to complications due to unsafe abortion procedures, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Restoring funding for international family-planning groups was only the beginning of a broader conversation on family planning.
The new President’s aspirational message, preceding his reversal, assumes that “… we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.” This common sense call re-framed the widely accepted Clinton mantra to keep abortion “safe, legal and rare,” Mr. Obama rightfully called for policies that go to the heart of the issue, shifting the focus to where society can unite and work for the day when unintended pregnancies are rare, through accurate health information and affordable contraception, and abortions remain safe and legal.
The President’s statement removes the judgmental paradigm that has framed abortion policies of the Bush years and, more importantly, says women should not face the circumstances of an unwanted pregnancy. Oddly, White House and congressional Democrats’ abandoned their attempts to include expanded Medicaid coverage of contraceptives in the economic stimulus package. The measure, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, would have saved $100 billion per year in increased government support services resulting from unintended pregnancies.
Also included in the president’s opening statement was the recognition that Roe v. Wade protects “women’s health and reproductive freedom,” reminding Americans of recognizing the centrality of protecting women’s health. Given the Supreme Court’s 2007 Gonzalez v. Carhart ruling, which will allows states to ignore a woman’s health in restricting abortion, he’s setting the framework for debate that will certainly factor in when filling Court vacancies during his term.
Reproductive control is vital to a woman’s ability to forge a dignified and economically secure life. This potential can only be realized in a workplace that guarantees equal opportunity. On this issue, Mr. Obama will send another strong message by making the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, approved by Congress Tuesday, the first bill signed by his administration. A president who begins his term securing reproductive control and fair employment for women is a president who advances another step toward achieving true equality.
Cynthia Wolff says
I think this is a ridiculous characterization of the current situation. How exactly does it reframe “safe, legal and rare” in any way? It’s the same construction, and thankfully so. It’s also ridiculous to not call out President Obama for not making one arguement for the medicaid coverage of contraceptions if he really believes that “we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies” Your blog also makes it seem as if Clinton allowed the Global Gag rule to stay in place during his administration, which he did not, it was reinstated by GWB.
If people like you do not hold the President to task, especially when he’s got as much political capital as he ever will, then women in America are going to be sadly disappointed.
Lesli St John says
President Obama is trying to correct the wrongs of many years. The lifting of the International Gag Order is just one of the wrongs that has gone on far too long. No woman should have to have babies if she doesn’t want to. Every woman should have control over her reproductive life. That Control allows a woman to decide on wanted and loved children when she wants them. President Obama is dong amazing work with grace and he has only been in office since January. We all inherited problems of such a magnitude that most of us don’t understand them. One of the problems has been the lack of emphasis or interest in women’s issues. As women’s lives go, so goes society. For the last eight years women didn’t even have a platform - much less government funding for women’s issues. Women couldn’t be anymore disappointed than they have been under Pres. Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2. Go President Obama.
Zee says
Yeah, how “amazing” is his work now, you tools? Cynthia was right and the rest of you WRONG. SHAME on ALL of you for not calling him out LONG before he held his PRIVATE executive order reissuing the Hyde Amendment, with Stupak as an honored guest.
SHAME. on. YOU.