National Day of Action

I am outraged over the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. People need to help fight this attack on women's reproductive rights. There will be a rally in Washington D.C. on December 2nd, sponsored by the reproductive justice community as they raise a collective voice and lobby Congress for health care reform that ensures the full-range of reproductive services for all women, which includes access to abortion services!

They[Congress] want to pay for the war and send more troops to Afghanistan.....but not pay for health care! What's the difference? War robs people of their humanity! All those dead soldiers are people's children.

Here's the distinction, the impact and the tough questions: One is a decision affected by the woman and her partner-private and little impact on the economy. Critics claim they don't want to pay for other women's abortions.not to mention the cost for legal vs illegal abortion? Yet war is imposed on both men and women and their families who are sent to fight and ultimately die- public and a drain on the economy!. We all pay for that! Why are we still fighting? Where are those war amendments?


In Roe v. Wade opinion,the Supreme Court decided a series of significant cases in which it recognized a constitutional right to privacy that protects important and deeply personal decisions concerning bodily integrity, identity, and destiny from undue government interference.

In addition to the impact the reversal of Roe would have on medical safety and health of women, it also would have considerable ramifications for the other private decisions protected by Roe’s recognition of the right to bodily autonomy.

The Consequences of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton: Hearing Before the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary,Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, 109th Cong. (2005) (testimony of R. Alta Charo)states:

"Roe v. Wade is at the core of American jurisprudence, and its multiple strands of reasoning concerning marital privacy, medical privacy, bodily autonomy, psychological liberty and gender equality are all connected to myriad other cases concerning the rights of parents to rear their children, the right to marry, the right use contraception, the right to have children, and the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. Overturning Roe would unravel far more than the right to terminate a pregnancy, and many Americans who have never felt they had a personal stake in the abortion debate would suddenly find their own interests threatened, whether it was the elderly seeking to control their medical
treatment, the infertile seeking to use IVF to have a child, the woman seeking to
make a decision about genetic testing, the couple heeding public health messages
to use a condom to reduce the risk of contracting AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases, or the unmarried man who, with his partner, is trying to avoid becoming a father before he is ready to support a family."

Why are we inserting politicians in the doctor- patient relationship? Supporters of this amendment claim that 'abortion services' is not health care. Why not? It is a medical procedure, performed by a medical doctor.

Furthermore,the 'right to choose' is more about the ability to control the paths of our lives, and to weaken this protection in any way would open the door to other government intrusion into not only reproductive rights but all other areas of personal life.

Go back to the campaign of 2008. President Obama campaigned heavily on the abortion issue. Now, he's about to sign a bill that will do exactly what he accused McCain of planning to do.

President Obama also claimed that illegal aliens will not be eligible for care at the expense of the Medicare we already paid into, so we would have it in old age. 'Taxing the rich'sounds great until you notice that prices are already rising to cover the cost. Who do you think will pay the tax on health insurance policies? There is no way to tax anything or anyone without the cost being passed on to the consumer. Taking care of our own will cost enough. Taking care of citizens from other countries is too much. Pretty soon there won't be a 'middle class' to save.

So the issue is, given the importance of the Health Care Reform bill, should the President sign the bill with this amendment attached to it? NO! If they want to fund a war in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, where are the amendments to that? It's also about choosing our battles.

Let's talk about hypocrisy. If the President signs this bill with the amendment attached,will he be accused by some of being a hypocrite? Yes. But the same could be said about pro-life groups who are largely Republican. They talk about protecting life in the womb,but then vote against/ or underfund legislation that support poor children after birth. The "No Child Left Behind" law is an example of this.

We are all affected by this Health Care bill, on both sides of the aisle. The winds of change are here. Roe v. Wade is in jeopardy. The winds are blowing at gale force. The pivot here is to take action, while we still have a choice !