Recently I wrote a story about the tragic deaths of over 80 women directly caused by Nicaragua’s total ban on abortion. This is an important story and I highly suggest that everyone check it out. Those women died because of the religious right’s war on women’s rights to control their own bodies.
I learned today while reading a great piece by Melissa McEwan at Shakespeare’s Sister that making abortions illegal does not reduce their numbers. Stop and think about that for a second. The central argument for taking away a woman’s right to choose is that it will reduce abortions and save lives. Now that we know this is wrong want to guess how many anti-choicers will change their mind? I’m betting 0 as they are not exactly an open minded crowd.
Now, after reading the results of this 8 year study we find that this whole argument is worthless. It bears saying again. MAKING ABORTIONS ILLEGAL DOES NOT REDUCE THEIR NUMBERS. The only thing these fanatical right wingers will ever accomplish by robbing these women of their rights is to make abortions less safe and more degrading. This is backed up by the research which shows that worldwide 70,000 women die each year due to unsafe abortions.
So while it is not possible to prevent abortions by making them illegal there are some things that will help to reduce the need for abortions. This study found that poverty and lack of access to health care were the most common reasons for abortions. Both of these causes can be greatly reduced by our government but the religious right is opposed to them. I find it very hypocritical to say you want to prevent something while at the same time opposing everything that would accomplish that very thing.
Maybe one of you all will be able to clue me in on why the religious right says they want to save lives yet a) opposes all social services that would reduce the financial need for abortion; b) keep pushing the bullshit abstinence only programs which all studies show to be expensive and worthless; c) push for children to be born then promptly oppose any measures to provide them with adequate health care causing infant mortality rates to soar; and d) fail to care about the tens of thousands of women who would die as a result of making abortion illegal.
Planned parenthood’s victory rings hollow, since orginal subpeona evidence was withheld. Also Judge Moriarty acted in a seemingly biased way in several instances. For example he allowed the fox to guard the hen house, so to speak, by letting planned parenthood selectively produce records. The judge allowed planned parenthood to submit a spreadsheet which makes me think that alot of relevant info was not presented on the Jane Does. “It is hard to believe [their decision] is based on evidence, since the only evidence they saw is a spreadsheet of what Planned Parenthood, the object of the investigation, approved of them seeing,” said Mary Culp, director of Kansans for life.