Lies and the Lying Doctors

Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Let me tell you about South Dakota, where I lived from age 2 to 33. It’s a lovely state with lovely people. I had a reasonably idyllic childhood and received a good education. If I were interested in raising a family, it wouldn’t be a bad place to do it. No matter where I go, my heart will always be in Spearfish Canyon.

That goes for you, too, South Dakota Legislature. (Stormbear/Flickr)

The entire state of South Dakota has fewer people than the Las Vegas metropolitan area. It also has one – count it, one – clinic that provides abortions, a Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls that has to fly doctors in from Minneapolis because nobody local will perform them.

This clinic is about seven hours by car away from cities on the other side of the state.

South Dakota also has one of the most virulently anti-choice legislatures this side of the Dominican Republic. Seriously. Every legislative session seems to be aimed at how lawmakers can shut down Planned Parenthood and turn the state into a mecca for blastocysts:

• In 2011, lawmakers considered a measure that would have had the effect of making it legal to kill abortion doctors. Mercifully, the bill was defeated.
• In 2011, lawmakers passed and Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed into law a bill that requires women to wait a longest-in-the-nation 72 hours before having an abortion. Women also must also receive mandatory counseling at a “crisis pregnancy center,” most of which are run by anti-choice religious organizations. That law is currently tied up in the courts.
• In 2006, the South Dakota Legislature passed and Gov. Mike Rounds signed into law a bill banning abortion. South Dakotans responded – and defeated the abortion ban at the ballot box by 11 points. In 2008, anti-choice forces AGAIN tried to ban abortion – this time through a vote of the people. Once again, the people responded, and the ban failed. Yay for common sense!

Bad news came yesterday in the form of a federal appeals court ruling that upheld a 2005 South Dakota law that REQUIRES doctors to tell women seeking abortions in South Dakota that if they go through with it, they face an increased risk of suicide. Even though it’s not true.

In short, the court ruled that doctors can be forced to lie to their patients in South Dakota. This is in America, folks.

The 2005 law also requires that doctors tell women that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” and that they have a constitutionally protected “existing relationship with that unborn human being,” whatever that means.

So here’s a reminder as we fight for women around the world to have access to contraception and safe abortion: Those same rights are increasingly under attack right here in the United States, and we need to make sure that we're fighting back.

Better Get Out Your Aspirin, Gals

The House released a health spending plan yesterday that arguably might be the least healthy for women ever!  Way to go, boys! (Sarcastic clap.)

Funny, they forgot to mention "for contraception."

Here’s a rundown (If I can quit rolling my eyes long enough to type):

• Eliminates Title X. The bill would scrap Title X. Title X is that radical family planning program begun by that most radical of presidents – Republican Richard Nixon. It provides contraception and preventive health services to mostly low-income Americans through community-based clinics. The horror! In all seriousness, every dollar invested in Title X saves almost $4 in government spending (mostly Medicaid) the next year, so if you’re looking to save money, scrapping Title X is a really moronic way to do it.
• Attacks Planned Parenthood. AGAIN. The bill would disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funding whatsoever. So all you women who rely on Planned Parenthood for cervical cancer screenings? Well, there’s always other Title X clinics. OH, WAIT.
• No Funds to Implement “Obamacare.” Are you looking forward to no-cost reproductive health services under the Affordable Care Act? Me too! Well, that won’t happen in the House gets its way. NO PILLS FOR YOU!
• But Boy, Do They Love Their Abstinence Education! The bill would cut funding for comprehensive sex ed – you know, the kind that actually works – and shift the money to “abstinence-only” programs. In other words, just hold aspirin between your knees, gals.
• Puts Your Boss Between You and Your Doctor. Gross, right? The bill also would allow ANY health plan or employer to refuse ANY coverage for ANY reason. In other words, if you work at Bob’s Delicatessen, and Bob opposes birth control (or mammograms, or Pap tests), you’d better stock up on aspirin.

Speaking of aspirin, could you hand me the bottle? I feel a headache coming on. 

Wanted: $1 billion for women

By John Seager, President, Population Connection

Editor's Note: This guest post appeared July 10 on the reproductive health blog RH Reality Check.

July 11th is World Population Day – arguably the most important made-up holiday we’ve had in years. Why do I say that? Because it’s the final World Population Day before the 2012 elections, and the choices Americans make in the voting booth will have lasting consequences for people and the planet.

We have two options: We can make family planning a priority and invest the money needed to give women control of their own lives and futures. Or we can allow our nation – and our world – to slide backward.

John Seager

I did not expect that we’d be in this position today. In my 16 years with Population Connection, I’ve never seen anything like the attacks on contraception we’ve witnessed in the past year.  Silly me: I thought the fight over contraception was resolved back in the 1960s. What I hadn’t counted on was the growing political power of people determined to turn the clock back to the ’50s – preferably the 1850s or 1750s.

The examples are numerous and egregious:

• The U.S. House votes to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and for Title X family planning programs (created by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970.)

• The House convenes an all-male panel to decry the Obama Administration’s rule requiring insurance policies to cover contraception.

• Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke is publicly attacked as a “slut” and a “prostitute” after testifying in favor of the Obama Administration’s rule.

• A House committee votes to end funding for the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, a development program that offers reproductive health care and voluntary family planning services to 500 million women around the world each year.

• At the recent Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, the Vatican succeeds in removing references to gender equality and reproductive rights from the final document.

We can expect some of the same right-wing reaction over the London Summit on Family Planning, which begins today.

These actions affect women’s lives and livelihoods – and the health of our world. Adding 80 million people a year to the Earth’s population puts incredible strain on our natural resources. Experts project that in less than 50 years, we might add another 2 billion to 4 billion people to our planet. All of those people need food, water, clean air and space – necessities that are already running in short supply in many areas.

So what can we do about it? First of all, demand that your representatives support policies that ensure women around the world have the power to choose the trajectory of their own lives. About 222 million women around the globe want to delay or end their childbearing but have no access to modern contraception, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Universal access to contraception would slow population growth, give women and girls more power over their own futures and help communities and nations build a better quality of life for all of their people.

Advocate, advocate, advocate. Ask everyone running for Congress to support the Global Democracy Promotion Act, introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Nita Lowey. This legislation would create a permanent repeal of the odious Global Gag Rule that hurts the world’s most vulnerable women every time it’s reinstated. Let them know how important it is to provide aid to UNFPA and to ensure universal access to contraceptives. Demand comprehensive sex education and the elimination of “refusal clauses” that allow pharmacists and other health professionals to deny treatment.

The United States also must increase funding for voluntary family planning programs. An investment of $1 billion represents our nation’s fair share of the total cost of meeting unmet need for family planning worldwide. It’s a sound investment in our shared future that will save the lives of women and improve everyone’s quality of life.

If you agree, join us and other organizations that work on behalf of these issues. And don’t give up. If we want to achieve women’s rights, a stable population and a healthier planet, we must keep fighting not just on World Population Day, but every day, every week, every year.

“Controversial”? Why?

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Wednesday is World Population Day. It’s also the start of a family planning summit organized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And even though women have been looking to avoid getting pregnant for as long as there have been women, for some reason, contraception has now become “controversial.”

REALLY?

It shouldn’t be. Family planning saves lives, as this great new video featuring Melinda Gates shows. In fact, a new report by the Guttmacher Institute finds that providing contraception for all the women around the world who don’t currently have access would prevent 54 million unintended pregnancies, 26 million abortions, 21 million unplanned births, 79,000 pregnancy-related deaths and 1.1 million infant deaths. What’s the controversy in that?

By providing access to contraception, we’re providing access for women to determine the course of their own lives. They’re able to have the children they desire and care for the ones they have. Each child can get the food she requires, the attention she craves, the education she needs, and the future she wants. Families, then villages, then entire nations can rise out of poverty – all because women have a choice. What’s the controversy in that?

Family planning didn’t used to be controversial. In fact, Richard Nixon – that hard-core liberal – once said: “It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.” In 1967, that other hard-core liberal, George H.W. Bush, said the federal government should “work even more closely with going private agencies such as Planned Parenthood” to provide contraception for every American woman.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for today’s lawmakers to say such a thing.