Bush steps up attack on women's rights

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 1/23/04 | CHRISTINE R. CHARBONNEAU

[ppaul]

No one expects George W. Bush to protect a woman's right to choose -- he's been explicitly anti-choice since 1994. One might think, however, he could at least commit to supporting the kind of sexual health information and contraceptive access that reduces the need for abortion. The administration and anti-choice hard-liners in Congress actively are attacking family planning and medically accurate sexual health education, which are proven ways to reduce the number of abortions and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

This is but a part of a coordinated assault on women's rights, which began the day Bush took office and continues to gather steam. Ultimately, anti-choice politicians hope to stack U.S. courts with justices who will help them overturn Roe v. Wade -- but they're not waiting for that day to begin undermining the right to choose.

Incrementally erecting barriers to women's rights is an integral part of the anti-choice strategy. In early November, Bush signed the first federal legislation banning abortion in the history of the United States. The bill is clearly unconstitutional because it lacks a health exception for women who need abortions. The Supreme Court already has declared it unconstitutional to omit such protections. Three federal judges have barred the federal government from enforcing this law, declaring that Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations are likely to succeed in their lawsuits to strike it down.

Meanwhile, many state legislatures have passed laws that limit women's choices. Waiting periods before receiving an abortion impose a huge burden on women who must travel to access services while mandated disclosure laws force women to listen to biased anti-choice propaganda before they can obtain an abortion. Mandatory parental notification laws don't take the complexities of real families into account. These laws force adolescent girls who may be the victims of abuse or incest to testify in front of a judge if they cannot gain parental consent for an abortion.

Of course, some women, and all men, will never need an abortion. That doesn't mean they don't suffer when anti-choice forces are allowed to succeed. Let's be clear: Anti-choice efforts also target contraception and sexual health education as well. In some states, legislatures have ended all family planning programs, creating an immense roadblock for lower income women to access birth control.

Fortunately, in Washington, the Legislature has a long history of confirming reproductive choice. In the current session, the Legislature is considering the bipartisan "Health Information for Youth Act," which declares adolescent health promotion and pregnancy/STD prevention to be a public health priority. A new coalition, Plain Truth for Washington Youth, is organizing widespread community support for this important legislation.

However, there are those in Olympia who would try to revise history. Already, five different bills have been put forward to impose restrictions similar to those described above. As we observe the 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must maintain our vigilance or our rights can be impinged even here.

The desire of anti-choice hardliners to withhold information from the public and put roadblocks in the way of women facing private and personal decisions exposes one of their most deeply held beliefs: Women cannot be trusted to make their own sexual health decisions. Anti-choice lawmakers want the public to believe that it is appropriate for them to impose their ideological vision on U.S. society, eliminating reproductive choice and disrespecting women.

Women do not need the government to make medical and moral decisions for them. Women deserve nothing less than the right, respect and freedom to make their own life decisions.

---

Christine R. Charbonneau is CEO/president of Planned Parenthood of Western Washington.

[ppaul]

Women deserve nothing less than the right, respect and freedom to make their own life decisions.

What?
To murder their own babies?
These people are so-o-o-o sick.

[anniegetyourgun]

Christine is so far off the edge on babykilling that she probably cuts heads off dolls in her spare time. She's a flaming feminist who loves her blood paycheck.

[Brilliant]

So he's against women's rights because he won't give them free contraceptives? This one needed a "Liberal Media Alert."

[Glenn]

These laws force adolescent girls who may be the victims of abuse or incest to testify in front of a judge if they cannot gain parental consent for an abortion.

Hopefully assuring the "perps" due punishment. If they could keep it all under wraps, just how would that happen?

[DefCon]

"...Women cannot be trusted to make their own sexual health decisions..."
- - -
To many, pregnancy is just another possible side effect of sexual promiscuity. Like syphilis, gonorrhea, or herpes, there should be a 'treatment' available to take care of it.

[ppaul]

Like syphilis, gonorrhea, or herpes, there should be a 'treatment' available to take care of it.

There is.
The PP folks just give you a pill and send you home to bleed to death.
Two less human drains on our overpopulated Spaceship Earth.
Margaret Sanger would be proud.

[sauropod]

"Waiting periods before receiving an abortion impose a huge burden on women who must travel to access services while mandated disclosure laws force women to listen to biased anti-choice propaganda before they can obtain an abortion."

Methinks, Christine, thou protest too much.

[Lil'freeper]

Ultimately, anti-choice politicians hope to stack U.S. courts with justices who will help them overturn Roe v. Wade -- but they're not waiting for that day to begin undermining the right to choose.

I wish. Nothing the 'anti-choice nazis' have done is substantive- and they move like molasses. Hurry up with personhood for the unborn already!!!!

[WaterDragon]

That abortion movement isn't about women's 'rights.' It's about death and the degradation of women. Why degrade women? Because historically women are the civilizers and keepers of civilization, the nurturers and teachers of the following generations. Degraded women lose interest in these vital tasks.

[ppaul]

Thursday, January 22, 2004, 12:00 A.M. Pacific

Guest columnist
Top 10 reasons why pro-choice side is wrong

By Sylvia Sullivan
Special to The Times

Today marks the 31st anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Its legacy is the deaths of over 40 million babies.

While pro-lifers mourn, the pro-choice side celebrates. They have the courts and the laws. We claim the truth. With this top-10 list, the gauntlet is thrown down to the pro-choice side that they have been horribly wrong.

10. Abortion is a very complicated issue. Actually, it is simple enough for a child to understand. Nationally known speaker Janet Folger reduced the debate to its essence, stating, "Live baby good. Dead baby bad."

9. It is a byproduct of conception, a blob of tissue and not a baby. Medical advances such as ultra-sound, unavailable in 1973, demonstrate that the fetus is indeed a fully formed unique human baby.

8. Abortion will help reduce child abuse, since every child will be a wanted child. This is another of the unfulfilled promises of Roe v. Wade. Abortion has cheapened life, resulting in skyrocketing child abuse. For example, infant homicide rates more than doubled and reached a 30-year high in 2000, after 27 years of legal abortion.

7. Abortion must be available for cases of rape and incest. Legalization of abortion was demanded because of hard cases. Alan Guttmacher Institute research paints the grim reality. Only 1 percent of abortions are done due to rape or incest. About 93 percent of all abortions are for social reasons. This includes fears the baby will interfere with work, school, relationship with husband or partner, economic situation or social status.

6. To be pro-choice is to be pro-woman. Ironically, a cruel twist in this debate is that generally men are more pro-abortion than women. Young men ages 18-25 are the most pro-abortion. Sidewalk counselors at abortion clinics frequently witness the man pushing the woman to abort. Abortion remains a convenient escape of parental responsibility for men.

5. Legal abortion is safe for women. That abortion is dangerous is a secret kept by abortion supporters. Aborting women suffer more subsequent ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, premature births, handicapped children, infertility, chronic depression and suicides than women who carry their baby to term. Especially disturbing is the connection between abortion and breast cancer, as observed in 27 of 33 studies worldwide.

4. Abortion will solve the problem in the woman's life. Actually, many women undergoing abortion lose their lives to the abortion. Consider the Blackmun Wall, which is a Life Dynamics Web site that lists women killed by legal abortions, along with the facts of the circumstances of their death. Although the site lists 347 women dead due to abortion since 1973, it is only the beginning, as they have many more names to be added. They found that an overwhelming majority of abortion-related deaths still remain to be verified. The RU-486 chemical-induced abortion death of 18-year-old Holly Patterson is particularly heart-wrenching. Her parents watched helplessly as she died tragically.

3. America is pro-choice. The polls are consistently showing that Americans are becoming more pro-life. A poll conducted by Zogby International reported that by a 53-percent-to-36-percent margin, the public supports the statement, "Abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter." A recent Gallup poll found that 72 percent of young people between ages 13 and 17 believe abortion is morally wrong.

2. Pro-lifers are the radical extremists. Pro-lifers believe that all human beings have God-given intrinsic value deserving of respect and protection. They believe in loving options such as adoption and crisis pregnancy centers to help moms and babies. The pro-choice side fights to keep abortion legal at any time, for any reason and at taxpayer expense. They battle to preserve the barbaric procedure of partial-birth abortion. They support Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who wrote, "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." In the same spirit, Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, when asked by a New Hampshire newspaper if abortion should be allowed all the way up through the baby's head coming out of the womb, responded that was up to the woman and her doctor.

1. Abortion on demand has improved society. We can never replace the over 40 million little ones taken by 31 years of abortion. Children bring such joy, like my little granddaughter. Kylee, 2, is full of life, with bright eyes, and happy smile. She melts the coldest heart as she hugs and says, "I wov you." It hurts when the least of them is snuffed out. Mothers, fathers, and families deserve better. We can choose life as we live out the vision of Thomas Jefferson, who stated, "The care of human life and not its destruction is the first and only object of good government." Our children are waiting and God is watching.

Sylvia Sullivan, of La Mesa, Calif., is president of the East County CRA, a conservative grass-roots volunteer organization, and a member of the San Diego County Republican Central Committee. E-mail her at sylvias@usa.net

[WaterDragon]

These laws force adolescent girls who may be the victims of abuse or incest to testify in front of a judge if they cannot gain parental consent for an abortion.

The law forces adolescent girls to testify against those who abuse and rape them.....to get justice and protection. Why would testifying before a judge to get an abortion be worse for the girl? The attack on the parental notification laws are another assault on the sanctity of the family by cutting parents out of the loop. Some parents are happy to be cut out of the loop because they don't want the hassle of parenting anyway. Letting children (because that's what they are) get abortions without parental consent enables hot adult studs to knock up a minor, then help her get an abortion, and nobody the wiser that he's a pervert. How many of the pervert politicians are salivating at that thought?

[nicmarlo]

Women deserve nothing less than the right, respect and freedom to make their own life decisions.

Then, why aren't these women, who are so concerned with a woman's choice, speaking out for Terri Schiavo to live, who's husband wants her dead? Why are these people so quick to say that Gov. Bush/government is "intruding" into our personal lives when it comes to protecting a life from a murderer (Michael Schiavo)?

[anniegetyourgun]

Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who wrote, "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."

THIS IS WHAT THE DEM PARTY SUPPORTS. I GUESS 'LIFE' IS JUST A TERM OF ART FOR THEM.

[independentmind]

Congress actively are attacking family planning and medically accurate sexual health education, which are proven ways to reduce the number of abortions and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

I'd like to see the evidence that "accurate sexual health education" reduces the number of abortions and sexually transmitted diseases.

[auboy]

Excellent article!

Pro-choice = pro-death. Pro-life = pro-life.

[ppaul]

I GUESS 'LIFE' IS JUST A TERM OF ART FOR THEM.

It is for Wesley Clark, for sure...

Click on pic:

OFFICIAL PERVERT CANDIDATE

[ppaul]

I'd like to see the evidence that "accurate sexual health education" reduces the number of abortions and sexually transmitted diseases.

You've got a better chance of winning the lottery.

[gunnedah]

This is your so called "Mainstream Media" and their brainwashing of America.
The media like the legal profession has no moral code or standing any longer. They can say anything that comes to mind and the uneducated in America take it as the truth.
They have the art of persuasion and perversion down to a tee and along with our bastions of higher education are taking America down a path of destruction from whence they cannot return.

[Pietro]

"Congress actively are attacking family planning and medically accurate sexual health education, which are proven ways to reduce the number of abortions and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV."

Where has this been "proven"?

If abortions have declined in recent years its not because of the sexual health industry but rather public awareness that the sexual health industry is an oxymoronic, self-perpetuating fraud.

The libertines w/i the "elite" social strata have no problem w/ the underclasses, that would be us, wasting their lives on meaningless sexual misadventures, nor do they mind exposing our children to dangerous and deadly sexual practices.

This fraud has been exposed and more people every day are rejecting the message that sex is a cost free entertainment.

[imintrouble]

Seven years ago I was asked to talk to a young woman who was married to my neighbor's son. The marriage had taken place because she became pregnant and they went ahead with the legal proceeding and the couple were enriched with the birth of a beautiful boy.

She became pregnant again a year later and wanted to have an abortion, giving marriage problems and financial difficulties as the reasons.

We discussed that women are still in the dark ages about birth control - which is readily available to all modern women - yet they still opt for the crude method of abortion as their "choice".

The young girl eventually decided to continue through the pregnancy and delivered a beautiful female baby. Whenever I look at that breathtaking little person, I see her mother looking at me and without any words, we "know" the right choice had been made: that this child was not to have been destroyed by a scalpel in a cold clinic on a bleak afternoon. This child was born to be celebrated as she gives so much pleasure in return.

Abortion is not birth control. Medical science has given women the real choice, and they continue to insist they want the final choice - which is the destruction of a life.

The choice here is not the government's laws governing a woman's body, but rather the woman's innate sense of right and wrong. Woman are fighting for the wrong answer.

They should be fighting for the woman's real choice. Control and decision as to when the time is right for her to become a mother.