Read the Women Blog!
Read the Women Blog
February 04, 2008
For Hillary, a show of emotion was sufficient to attract women’s support in New Hampshire. For Obama, a coffee klatch of four in South Carolina was the visual evidence of his attempt to signal interest in the priorities of 54 percent of the electorate. On the Republican side, the inclusion of women in the candidates’ platforms could not be more detached from the realities of women’s lives. Something is wrong with this picture.
A day before Super Tuesday, when caucuses and primaries in 22 states will amount to a national referendum on party convention delegates, the front-runners still do not address issues of specific concern to women. So far, none seems willing to bring to national discussion the subject of preserving reproductive rights.
The rate of unintended pregnancies among American women continues to dwarf all other developed countries’. According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended; 40 percent are terminated by abortion. The rate is three to five times higher among low-income, black and Hispanic women. The Supreme Court returning powers to the states to regulate abortion is a new nail in the coffin of Roe v. Wade. The blatant omission of reproductive rights from the candidates’ policy agenda should be of concern to every woman, regardless of where one stands on the moral spectrum.
Contraceptive methods are varied and readily available. There is ample evidence that women, especially teenagers, are more successful than ever in preventing unintended pregnancies, even without acceptable innovation in male contraception since the condom was modernized. There will always be unintentional pregnancy and women determined not to continue. The need for medically safe, accessible pregnancy termination will remain a fact of life. The question is not whether abortion will be practiced. Throughout history, it has and will continue to be. The question is whether the practice will injure or kill women.
Reproductive rights have never been as vulnerable as they are today. Last April, in Gonzalez v. Carhart, the Supreme Court majority gave us evidence of its determination to reverse 35 years of the protections extended under Roe v. Wade. The Court sustained a state law prohibiting a procedure considered safe for women terminating a second-trimester pregnancy, allowing states to ignore the woman’s health. On the 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Michigan became the first state to exercise the new power granted by the Court.
Attacks on abortion rights are gaining new legislative steam. Over the past three years, 38 abortion bans have been introduced in 17 states. The Center for Reproductive Rights reports that “bans-in-waiting,” in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision returning abortion regulation to the states, would immediately criminalize the procedure. Most Americans, 58 percent according to the Center, aren’t even aware of what’s at peril. A comprehensive, national public education campaign that raises awareness of the state of reproductive rights and corrects the misperception about abortion practices is urgently needed.
Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, dismissing the danger of overturning Roe v. Wade, as theoretical, is a dangerous proposition. No woman should be the victim of political gamesmanship and the changing political ambitions of candidates and elected officials. The Court has given increasing powers to lawmakers whose moral and religious views can be imposed on a woman’s most private decisions. Whoever is sworn in as president in January will likely nominate new justices to the Supreme Court. He or she must appoint justices who work to protect women’s health and lives, free from legislative religious or moral dictates.
After Gonzalez v. Carhart was decided, the major presidential candidates in both parties quickly made public pronouncements for or against the ruling. It was then fair to expect that, at least on the Democratic side, protecting women’s reproductive rights would be explicitly included in their policy agenda for women. Such has not been the case. Hillary Clinton recently announced her agenda for reproductive health care. However, the specifics can be found in the confines of her campaign’s website, not on her national TV appearances. McCain and Romney only mention women in their proposals to reverse Roe v. Wade. Candidates don’t seem interested in promoting a broad policy agenda for women.
Women must hold candidates’ feet to the fire. The new president must include support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which guarantees reproductive rights in a broad policy agenda for women. Someday, there must be an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution that will finally protect women as a class of citizens. We can’t wait until November. The candidates must start to discuss their positions to make reproductive freedom an enduring guarantee for all women. Women’s lives are at stake. The clock is ticking.
Dr. Eileen Jackson says
Faye,
You have been my hero for years. Fellow nurse, courageous champion for a woman’s right to choose. I’m a nurse anthropologist and the author of an article, Whiting-Out Difference: How Nursing Research Fails Black Families. published in 1997 in the Medical Anthropology Quarterly. I just watched your appearance on CNNs 360 on race and gender and I have a comment. The classification of Barack Obama as an African American was made by White power-brokers. Having drawn the category African with no thought to the cultural and actually biological differences between a the descendants of slaves and African Emigrants. Having drawn up the sides as if All Black Americans were the same, is what I defined in my article as Whiting-Out difference. By doing so, African Americans are forced into the decision of defining themselves to align with someone who looks like them but who isn’t and who actually does not problematize the struggles of African Americans, and someone who is aligned with African Americans and shares the gender of half the African American population. I believe that it is important for African Americans to speak out along with some of us White Americans who will call the game. Thanks for all that you have done for women. I believe that this is an important perspective that needs to be spoken into the public space. Thanks for being there. When I can, I’ll send money.