If men could get pregnant, abortion clinics would be funded to the hilt.
20
Looks to me like republican women have been coerced by the men in their lives because there is no other rational explanation for this group of women going against their own interests.
And the reason men do this....It's for the CRUELTY.
15
It’s perfectly OK to disagree with policy; it is not perfectly OK to lie about it.
No one “forced” PP to abandon family planning efforts, provided that they didn’t refer to abortion services, which represent only 3% of their services. They chose to walk away from 97% of what they do rather than forswear abortion referrals. (The assertion that they labor under an ethical obligation to do so is not merely laughable, it's obscene. Any pregnant woman can google "abortion" and PP never had to say a word.)
Abortion is not health care. (Nor, for that matter, is birth control) Ideally, government wouldn’t be involved in the latter at all; people who want it should get it and pay for it. If they can’t, PP has millions of dedicated, often spectacularly wealthy donors who would likely step to the (collection) plate. Instead of spending tens of millions on politics, PP could spend it on actually providing services.
It might be impossible to stop abortion, just like it’s impossible to stop any other evil act. But that does not require endorsing it.
And you have a lot of chutzpah, asserting that you speak for “some of the most vulnerable members of society” while advocating for killing them.
Let the Bloombergs, the Steyers, the Gateses, the Soroses, the Buffetts of the world put their own money where their gonads are. It is simply not the responsibility of the taxpayers to fund PP.
7
@Michael
Birth control *is* health care. The pill treats a wide range of hormonal issues for many women. Perhaps it would be more acceptable to you if we called it hormone regulation therapy?
The assertion that abortion and birth control are not healthcare is simply misogyny wrapped in a pretty pro-life bow.
113
@Michael Actually, in my case, abortion WAS health care. I needed to have an abortion in order to preserve my life (after my husband compromised our birth control in an attempt to prevent me from leaving him). He knew, had been told directly that attempting to have another child was life threatening to me, and did it anyways. He was willing to leave our two healthy living children without a mother. Don't talk to me about controlling men, or sex outside of marriage, or these things work out, basically you are saying that my life was worthless, and being there for my children was worthless. Abortion many times IS healthcare.
44
Oh,for Pete’s sake.
1
There is no GOP War on Rich Women. They can do what they want.
11
Ah, the Republican war on women!
7
This is part of the Republican war on women. Vote blue in 2020 and put a stop to this medieval practice.
15
It isn’t possible to stop women from getting abortions; it’s only possible to stop them from getting legally procured ones.
It isn't possible to stop pederasts; it's only possible to stop them from raping legally.
It isn't possible to stop bank robbers; it's only possible to cut way down on their numbers. And so on.
6
Republicans want to control women but not guns.
18
The Planned Parenthood clinics that closed are in minority neighborhoods. This is just another Trump attack on people of color! Trump doesn’t want minority’s to have abortions because he is a white supremacist. And minority’s not having abortions means there will be more people of color! And what white supremacist want more then anything else is more minority’s! Right?
5
Is there a reason the Editorial Board isn't explaining what the "Title X family planning program" is? Are we supposed to know this already. Title X of what? And who is funding what? And what are the evil changes Trump made to the program?
You gotta supply a little context, NYT. This omission is either very sloppy writing, or is intended to serve some propaganda purpose because an actual explanation would not sound bad enough.
It's also funny that the article says evil Trump "accelerated" the closing of two clinics. In other words, they were closing anyway. And their funding from the mystery "Title X" program was only "sporadic," anyway.
But if anything bad happens anywhere we can rest assured that it was somehow due to Trump's general evilness.
3
The undermining of the Title X family planning program underscores the fact that this isn’t a war for unborn babies. It has always and only been about keeping women barefoot and pregnant—and thus under the control of controlling men.
15
Republicans are a “pro-birth” party. They don’t care about what happens to women and children before and after birth!
9
Like the Taliban. Women are not supposed to be educated, but females can't see male doctors. What then? Women are supposed to have as many children as their husband's finances (and virility) can manage, then die.
Trump would approve.
13
Seems like Republicans would rather pay for welfare and prison rather than pay for birth control.
10
Women, remember this on election day and vote Democrat all the way down the ballot. These people hate you. Show them they can't get away with turning their hate into law.
11
"Undermine" is the entire playbook of this poor, wretched excuse for a POTUS.
8
This editorial is a real-life Handmaid's Tale, writ large in GOP cruel hypocrisy.
12
Welcome to Gilead.
10
This is an outrage. It’s almost impossible to believe that this country would be led BACKWARDS when it comes to women’s health. Forty years ago, I relied on PP services to receive affordable birth control and gynecological exams. I was a college graduate, but had no health insurance at my job and didn’t make much money. Planned Parenthood helped me to live responsibly as a young adult. I am not a proponent of abortion, but this organization does so much more than that.
Shame on the mostly male, white, archaic politicians who are trying to destroy one of the most important health resources for American women.
This is a huge step backwards for all women. Disgusting.
195
Last week I went to my attorney and changed my Will. Everything I have now goes to Planned Parenthood, except my dog, should I own one at the time, who will go to friends with a comfortable stipend in order to care for him. The house, jewelry, art, investment accounts...boom...all of it.
At 65, it pains me deeply to see the progress on women's health access, which my generation fought so hard to secure, being obliterated by a bunch of hypocritical misogynistic bores who no more care about these unborn children than they do for the ones already born who need good schools, healthcare and decent food.
517
Blessings to you! Thank you
47
@Lauren\
BRAVO: My will is 20% PP
20% fistula foundation
20% doctors without borders
but concept similar
34
@Lauren
You probably meant "boors," but many of them are boring, too. And thanks to you for your wonderful action.
11
I am a Boomer, Roe vs Wade was decided when I was in college in the 1970's. It seemed at the time women were gaining an equal place in America. My first job was at Xerox, the Apple of it's time, I was one of 5 women sales excutives in my city vs 60 male sales people. I was unique. Some people called me a feminatize simply because I wanted to make the same income as a male in the same profession.
Forty plus years later, women are still being cheated of income and we are constaintly under attack by men and religion. I find it preposterous that women are still fighting for the right to choose and equal wages.
How is it possible that the NRA's rights are more important than the personal rights of adult women who are still fighting to receive their right to privacy, control over their own bodies. and whether they want to use birth control and/or end an unwanted pregnancy. Add the loss of Planned Parenthood healthcare. What about the 51% of the US. They deserve equal rights under the Consitution....life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness does not only apply to men and their guns.
Save America -Vote for Democrates
528
@RENEGADE DESIGNER, totally agree. The GOP are hypocrites...they say they care about human life but in reality, they only care about the potential of life, only until it comes out of the womb. I am a Boomer too, but a bit older, so I remember being a young married woman when Roe was passed. Since then, we’ve had the fight of our lives to be equal, to be allowed to use birth control, to decide when and if a pregnancy should be continued, or at a basic level, to be paid equally to men.
I truly believe that the GOP cares “sooo much” about a fetus BECAUSE it is another way to control women. If that weren’t the case, why not expand support for birth control? That would solve, in many cases, the need for an abortion. Why wouldn’t they fund centers that provide access to women’s health services, so that either you don’t get pregnant if you don’t want to OR if you are pregnant, you get the care that results in a healthy child.
No, there’s only one right answer to this issue. Republican leadership (and many of their constituents) want to keep women down, let them know their place, be sure they don’t take too many jobs from men. So, keep them pregnant, pay them less, treat them worse, objectify them, do WHATEVER IT TAKES. And that, fellow readers, is why we must get to the polls by or on November 3, 2020, or sooner by mail, so that we can take control of our country, our lives, our futures. At 70 years old, I am volunteering for only the second campaign ever...it’s that important.
43
The reason the GOP is winning the war on women's health is because women continue to vote for the GOP. You can't fight for equal pay, equal opportunity and equal representation and then entrust that fight to people who don't wish to see any of that come to fruition. As one Trump supporter said of the Democrats "It's all Russia, Russia, Russia and racism, racism, racism. It gets old." That is because Republicans refuse to see what's in front of their eyes. Whether it's Russia, racism or a war on women, none of this should need to be pointed out. The war was lost when 60% of white women thought it would be in their best interests to join their oppressors.
384
@Rick Gage
Yep, those good old suburban soccer moms vote solidly GOP while claiming to be pro choice, in large part because they know if they or their daughters ever needed an abortion, they could always get it, whether it is another state or going to Canada.
52
@Rick Gage I did not vote for Trump, but I know other white women who did. They bought his story that he would put their unemployed or underemployed husbands back to work. They were tired of holding down jobs and holding down the fort at the same time all by themselves. And, fortunately or unfortunately, many of them wouldn't have known a snake oil salesman if he bopped them in the nose.
47
@Rick Gage We should clarify that it is mostly white women. Black women (thankfully) vote for Democrats in astoundingly large margins.
9
The GOP attack on women- blocking paths to birth control -only sows more need for abortion. The logic of expanding birth control options eludes them because their issue is control of women's bodies- way beyond abortion. Handmaid's tale, we are here.
6
Anti-abortion laws are the establishment of a specific religious belief, something prohibited by the US Constitution. These clinic closings are happening in other states as well, and the result is less healthcare for poor women who often do not have access to health insurance. When Texas forced the closing of 81 clinics, almost all of which did not perform abortions, solely to punish Planned Parenthood, maternal death rates spiked. Because Texas law does not allow for sharing data, there’s no information on why death rates spiked or on whether cancer increased or whether fewer women were allowed birth control or received prenatal care. These laws are about forcing women to bear the full weight of an unwanted pregnancy as punishment and as a means of keeping them out of the workforce and thus competing for jobs with men. It’s the patriarchal view of women as no more than chattel for men to use and control.
6
Why is it that the party who wants to keep America white objects to women having access to contraception and abortion? If they REALLY want to engineer white supremacy, they would realize that the babies being born in this country as a result of their efforts to block reproductive choice are not always white babies. Personally, I welcome every baby who is born, and I respect the choice of every woman/girl to decide if and/or when she becomes a mother. There is no scenario where it is acceptable for a bunch of white men (and their white handmaidens-to-narcissism) to directly or indirectly block access to women’s health services for ANYONE within or without our borders. One would, however, think these bozos might apply the logic inherent in the Census Bureau announcement in May 2012 “that non-Hispanic whites now account for a minority of births in the U.S. for the first time.”
4
Welcome to the nation where only the rich, the elite and political owners have "reproductive rights."
GOP death panels at work and succeeding. Only their rich elite patrons are now entitled to women's health care, contraceptives and, yes, abortions. Just ask Broidy. They get to use the equivalent of concierge abortion services for the rich with an assist and referral to an abortionist for the rich from the trump empire.
If only the anti-abortionists fought the NRA with the same fervor and concern they have for a clump of cells, perhaps there would be fewer gun deaths of fully formed living and conscious human beings. But there is the rub. They hate living humans that aren't rich and thus entitled to everything. There's a reason the trumps and Epsteins of the world get away with all they do - including abortions. Indeed, they love doubling down and compounding the tragedies and misfortunes of others - just look at their policies! Their hatred is spelled out in writing - in law! I do not understand this fetish they have - common to 80%+ Republicans.
If women in Greenland, N.H. are being victimized by Republicans, why would women in Greenland also allow themselves to be sold into Republican oppression?
5
Planned Parenthood has plenty of money. They could keep their clinics open if they wanted.
3
This administration has really opened the daylight on the WAR ON WOMEN! We must vote and diminish the GOP until they disappear or morph into a viable party for all people. Lets get everyone to the polls who cares about equal rights for all citizens!
5
Let’s call this what it is: A war on women. Man ‘splain all you like, but the simple fact is, all this legislation is designed to keep women in their place. How dare they think themselves worthy of an equal place in society, work life, politics, or anywhere else?
What I don’t—and cannot—understand—is why so many women also support these same policies. And then they came for us....
5
The misogyny of the GOP is glaringly apparent. Cracking down on abortions is a threat to public health and safety.
7
It's all about controlling 50+ % of people who vote. It's all about retaining white, make supremacy. This is NOT about the right to life, this is about retaining controlling power over society. If you can retain control over women's bodies, you're halfway there .
5
So more STD, more high risk pregnancies, more poor children and families, more unpaid medical bills, more emergency room visits by women who've had no prenatal care and more financially stressed or bankrupt hospitals. MAGA!
8
I swear, PP should reorganize as a church/mosque/temple and claim religious persecution.
6
it has never been about abortion. it has ALWAYS been about subjugating women to be subservient to men and barefoot and pregnant. full stop.
7
To E, would you provide a citation for this statement? I have not heard of the case you refer to
E
Usa1h ago
Why doesn't the Times report on the $3 million settlement PP reached with a whistleblowing employee? She was fired in retaliation for reporting medical malpractice.
2
Given the biblical admonition to be fruitful and multiply, I wonder what would happen if the same war were waged on any Urologists performing vasectomies?
4
On the one hand, republicans decry the fact that white women aren't reproducing fast enough to maintain white people as a voting majority. On the other hand, they defund Planned p
Parenthood, a place were lots of poor people of color get their birth control. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
3
The undermining of the Title X family planning program underscores the fact that the GOP’s anti-abortion zeal is far less about “protecting the unborn” than about keeping women “barefoot and pregnant”—and their power thus marginalized.
4
Don't you get it:
Republicans WANT women to suffer.
That's their PURPOSE.
8
This is just one more example of Republicans taking things away they do not like. They are faced with the consequences of their decisions and offer nothing to take the place of the services they have cut. No abortion. Yay they say. Cancer screenings, pre natal care and the like? Throw their hands up....What can you do? Throw people from the health care rolls.....Oh well. Rip children from the families at the border. So what? And on and on. The Dems need to , over and over, point out....you may not like our policies 100%. But consider the alternative...... which is nothing. Trump has a 'mental health plan'? A hospital in Glens Falls, N.Y. just cut out completely mental health services. Leaving 2000 people with no where to go. What can you do? Nothing, really. The Republican answer to each and every American problem. The "DO-NOTHINGS".
4
Where is Ivanka when she’s really needed?
3
It must make every American feel proud that this country's maternal death rates are the same as that in third world countries. And for citizens in Texas, their chests must be bursting with pride that their state is the most dangerous for expectant mothers.
What is it that makes legislators hate women so much that they purposely put their lives in danger. Would they do that for their wives and daughters? They are certainly doing it to other peoples wives and daughters.
5
To be clear that these policies have nothing to do with saving the lives of unborn children. The GOP has proven time and time again -- from kidnapping the children of migrants to denying basic healthcare, housing education and food subsidies to American families -- that they care nothing for children. These polices are about the subjugation of women. Period. Anyone who argues "Christian values" is, at best, a hypocrite.
5
If you don’t want to have a baby, don’t get pregnant. You don’t need any money to do that, mine, yours or anyone else’s.
2
More and more the Trump Administration and his Party sound like the Taliban, an organization (a feudal group) that treats women horribly, even viciously. These are very dIsturbing times. We must vote against GOP candidates that would harm women.
4
The Republicans absolutely plot against everyone who is not an affluent white male, period. If you are white, male or female, and not rich, you're voting against your best interests by voting Republican. If you're a minority of any stripe,regardless of sex or wealth, you have no business voting Republican. When are the lost souls in that party going to figure it out??? Being a Republican is not being part of a political party, it's being a member of a cult social club where people become members for superficial myopic reasons - to heck with the consequences.
3
I am a Christian.
I worked for and donate to Planned Parenthood.
I very much support all women’s rights, *including* the right to choose abortion.
Abortion is never the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancy. The best way to prevent unwanted pregnancy is access to equity, education, and contraception. That’s what Planned Parenthood does.
Any of my Christian brothers and sisters who truly want to support women and prevent termination of pregnancies would be advised to find common ground with a leadership organization that is really preventing abortions.
And please, friends, don’t assume that all Christians are conservatives or evangelicals. Many truly progressive voices speak inside church walls. I read frequent criticisms of “Christians” from professed unbelievers that Jesus would be appalled at our hypocrisy and hatred: well, His radical love for all is pretty obvious to many inside His faith as well, and we are working hard to spread that good and gentle news of love and tolerance within his Church.
102
Thank you for this comment. There has always been a strong progressive movement within Christianity. I agree that it represents the true message of Christ.
30
Whenever legislation is introduced to restrict abortion, both pro-choice and "pro-life" legislators who know that it takes both a sperm and an egg to create a pregnancy MUST introduce a PATERNAL RESPONSIBILITY (PR) amendment requiring that the paternity of every child born be determined.
Instead of focusing entirely on requiring women to risk her life bearing a child and derail her future while the man skates off scott free, the Paternal Responsibility clause would spread the consequences for the pregnancy more equitably between the biological father and the biological mother--since BOTH were necessary to create the situation.
To avoid men shirking Paternal Responsibility, the gov't should establish a DNA database of all men who have reached reproductive age, so that the biological father can be determined. Then the government can garnish his wages and/or put him in a labor camp if he refuses to pay his share of the costs of the pregnancy and birth and/or if he refuses to pay child support for the next 18-21 years.
It takes two to conceive a child, even in a one-night stand. Why put the entire burden and focus all the attention on the woman?
Do Republicans believe that all the additional babies they are requiring to be born were conceived by immaculate conception???
292
@SusannaMac
This is about as likely as that the NRA and gun owners support a national gun registry and training before allowing any purchase of a gun; or a buy back of assault weapons; or even universal background checks. As long as men are in charge, especially those whose primary interest is to stay in power, your idea of making them 50% responsible for the children they sire will never happen.
56
@SusannaMac - I agree. I have thought for years that the government should play a larger role in making fathers take their responsibility for creating a child.
Many years ago, I worked with a woman who had recently gotten divorced. She and her husband had two boys. He was what we call a "dead beat dad." He would promise his sons birthday gifts and would not even show up on the birthday. He would regularly miss child support payments. My friend took him to court to get the child support that was part of the divorce decree. But, he was a brick layer and his work was seasonal. So when the case was heard in court (in winter), the (male) judge sided with the father. His response to my friend was "He's not working, what do you want me to do?" She got nowhere with the "justice" system.
43
@SusannaMac
I could support forced sample collection from the partners of a pregnant woman to establish paternity but a compulsory paternity registry? I think there could be some constitutional issues there. Incarceration of deadbeat dads? I could get on board with that.
7
This is outrageous. Just taking away and taking away.
I have a friend who had to provide an H.I.V. test result for a travel document, and there was nowhere else to go to get this within the time frame than PP.
Our medical system just continues to break down, faster and faster.
It's not so easy to get these tests, people. Sometimes your doctor's office will look at you askance if you say you'd like one; that happened to me. PP is realistic and non-judgmental. They operate with the understanding that people can do things that have unforeseen consequences, and they need to deal with difficult situations. Public health crises can be averted if folks take care of themselves, such as get appropriate tests. Right? Can we agree that getting an HIV test is the right thing to do if you think you may have been infected? This is just an example. HIV does not seem to be such an issue right now, partly because of organizations like PP. I'm so sorry that we are in this maelstrom, that responsible health care is being taken away from all of us. This is a non-partisan issue- we all need health care we can afford, and PP among others offers part of that. Our government should be supporting this sort of organization, not making it harder for them to operate.
9
I remember, as a child back in the 1960s, trying to comprehend the phenomenon of blacks who supported the candidacy of George Wallace. Now I find myself similarly baffled by the phenomenon of women who vote Republican. Of course, the anti-woman agenda of the radical right, which now controls the Republican Party, extends well beyond the issue of women's health, as Trump has proved. Trump, who not only boasted about committing sexual assault, and who has had numerous credible allegations of sexual misconduct and assault lodged against him, has also nominated for his cabinet and other positions in his administration apparently a greater proportion of men with similar accusations against them than any modern-era president. And yet Trump won the white women's vote back in 2016 over an imperfect yet hugely qualified woman candidate. It's impossible to fathom. Is it self-hatred? Is it the same sort of psychological state that lures women into abusive relationships and traps them there? When appeals to such a woman's self-interest fails, one's only recourse is to point out the harm being done to her children. Similarly, it may be necessary to remind women who vote Republican that they are facilitating a party that harms all of us - not just them. Only can only hope that, in 2020, women will vote to liberate themselves - and the rest of us - from the misogyny of the Republican reign of terror.
17
@SH really? You live in this country and you don't want your tax dollars used for abortions even if they are necessary? What about birth control? What about sex education? Donations do not make up for government funding.
I don't like my tax dollars being used to pay President Trump or Mitch McConnell. Perhaps, if you don't mind paying them you can donate part of your tax dollars to them. I don't like seeing my tax dollars funding certain aspects of the armed forces. Yet I have to pay for that.
As a citizen of America you have a right to your views. You do not have the right however to condemn others to suffer because you don't like where your tax dollars go. If you don't want an abortion don't have one. And if you don't like your tax dollars going for abortion at least support paying for programs to keep abortions down, keep children and families well and together.
20
Women will suffer from the paucity of health services of all sorts but women are not the only victims. Every man alive has been born by a woman and owes not only his life to his mother but his nurtured potential as well.
Unwanted children whether boys or girls suffer diminished intelligence and a diminished future compared to those in wanted pregnancies. Society as a whole suffers when the very lives of the women cut off from care suffer from undiagnosed but preventable diseases.
An unbalanced dystopia which raises up men and pushes down women hurts all of us. Planned Parenthood in Cincinnati is just the caged canary in the coal mine.
13
This feels like a war on women in general. What better way to ensure that they go back to being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen than to decrease access to affordable contraceptives?
9
If it would be men’s health at stake, the defunding never would have happened.
Men’s Viagra has been improved by some insurances while oral contraceptives for women have been nixed.
11
The headline is incorrect. The Republican attack is on poor women's health observation. Abortion and other opportunities for family planning will remain available for those who can afford it and have the education and community support to use it.
4
Louisiana has 2 clinics left. Alabama soon to be 0 presumably. Texas has lost many. Ohio is down. Does Missouri has 1 or so? It’s not a red state or blue state thing. There are very few clinics left performing abortions. Do you think if you have a pregnancy that goes terribly wrong and you NEED an abortion that your obstetrician does this at a hospital? Not necessarily. Many of them aren’t trained in the procedure! Many others can’t because they are affiliated with hospitals owned by religious institutions. These doctors refer out... to a clinic. That is what happened to me 2 years ago. And I couldn’t access an abortion to avoid a potentially catastrophic high-risk health outcome necessary to preserve my health. It was like living in a 3rd world country. I flew across the country and paid $8,000 out of pocket for necessary medical treatment. Wake up! Control over your own health is quickly disappearing. This country has been hijacked by science-denying religious zealots. Founding fathers are turning over in their graves. I’ll vote for Sanders or Warren or any candidate that will guarantee my civil freedom to LIFE, LIBERTY and HAPPINESS.
16
This is all about the patriarchy controlling women. Anyone can get a gun, but try to get an abortion? You have to jump through hoops. We need more women in Congress and hopefully the presidency who say enough!! Women can and will make their own decisions about their bodies and their own reproductive rights. As a 64 year old woman I thought we fought this back in the 70s, but we are still fighting it.
11
We have come so far backwards in such a short time. It is terrifying how decades of hard-won gains have been wiped out in the blink of an eye.
Vote
12
This entire fiasco is unconstitutional. The only argument anti-abortionists have is based in religious doctrine. If there is a separation between law and religion, the argument dissolves.
Get your religion out of civic life, out of my life, out of law and order!
12
While the withdrawal of abortion clinics is sad, it seems that the mail order Mefipristone (RU486) is a vastly cheaper change in technology. Ohio would have to inspect the mails to stop it. Now women need gynecologists just because they get sick and a network of gynecological services is important to health care in Ohio.
1
@Anon - A Dutch doctor had been prescribing Mifepristone for US women, but the FDA recently seized a shipment of those pills shipped from overseas, according to HuffPo. You can bet they'll step up those efforts to try to catch any and all incoming shipments.
1
If women don't have access to health care, we all suffer - families, communities, alike.
8
If you don’t like abortion then provide birth control. Women will ever stop getting abortions. The question is whether or not they will be safe.
10
This war will continue as long as women continue voting for Republican misogyny.
7
Why call it a "war" on women’s health? It could just as logically be called a war to save the life of the unborn. Both metaphors, however, create a “we”/”them” dynamic destructive of finding common ground. The common ground is reverence for life’s sacredness. Responsible parenthood, its meaning and practice, is a good starting point for some progress in a common effort.
1
@Rhett Segal
Millions of atheists and antitheists do not accept the notion of reference or sacredness. Thus, there is no common ground to be found. And the subject here is not about being a parent, it's about not being a parent.
14
@Rea Tarr - Most religions also don't take a stand against abortion. My very mainstream christian denomination is one of 40 members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and has been since about 1976. They support full reproductive health care for women, including contraception and abortion. The problem is that rightwingers have tried to hijack all of christianity and claim to speak for all christians. They don't.
7
So why make it difficult to obtain birth control? This makes no sense!
5
As I read this, I wondered what possible good could come out of not only making it difficult for women to have an abortion but to even attain birth control, so they won’t need an abortion to begin with. This goes along with the Republican dreams of taking away Obamacare, Medicaid, food stamps, childcare, along with money for schools to educate these kids. Certainly people will be become more desperate. Then I realized that’s the point. They want people to be desperate.
Desperate people will work at any job, no matter how low paid. They will be the new low paid farm workers or restaurant workers and home health aides now that immigrants are increasingly not welcome. They’ll be the ones who will work at the Amazon fulfillment centers, drive Uber’s and Lyfts. Forget about any unions. Some Republicans want to abolish minimum wage? Why not? There will be plenty of desperate people to work for very little.
What’s more, there will certainly be an uptick of crime, which is just what the Republicans want. Who else will fill the private prisons? In fact, they’ll be able to build more. It’s a win win situation for them and a loss for the women that didn’t want or couldn’t afford the children and be a big loss for everyone else.
19
This also will fast track our loss to China. China is educating all their people while we go back to the Middle Ages. Unbelievably short sighted!
11
While I was prepared and willing to argue in the 1970’s for a woman’s right to medical care, and individual decisions, I never thought I’d still be hearing the same conversation 20 years into the next century. Of course the inauthenticity of the conversation is that for those who can afford it, there is no conversation—only the ability to do what you want. The hypocrisy is when it’s a right by class and wealth only.
17
More people need to be involved in the fight for separation of church and state. So many of the laws which control reproductive health are influenced by the personal religious beliefs of the men in the legislatures who make the laws.
So many women who fought hard for the right to have safe and legal abortions which were accessible to women of all income levels are horrified to find out that the overwhelmingly male legislatures of so many states are passing increasingly restrictive abortion laws which have no basis in science or the real lives of families.
So many women who fought hard for the establishment of Planned Parenthood clinics to help them be in control of their own reproductive health choices are distressed that the GOP men in state and national legislatures choose to control the health of women in the USA by doing away with funding for Planned Parenthood clinics that are the source for information and testing for STDs, birth control and the diseases of the reproductive systems of women.
Our daughters and granddaughters and their partners have less freedom for reproductive health choices due to the platform of the GOP which is influenced by the fundamental religious beliefs of the men who wrote it. It is time to change the pictures of who is writing our policies from all GOP men to include Democratic women whose religious beliefs are more friendly to women and families.
13
Private for profit clinics that have been depended on substantial continued government support for their existence are bound to close when government runs out of money. It is not a good model for a business or private non profit to be totally depended on public funds for its operation. Efficient government run clinics providing essential services to low income women who cannot afford for profit private clinics as required by law could be a way forward.
The budget of the Department of Health and Human Services is the highest of any Department and yes is greater than the budget of the Department of Defense. There is a serious problem if the budget is not optimally managed and certain services are falling through the cracks. The way the government system is currently setup there is a number of private institutions receiving lucrative over valued contracts supported by public funds with an unfairly large profit margin and waste. In a bipartisan manner both the GOP and the Democratic party should cut the massive profit margin and fund essential services for all Americans.
1
@Girish Kotwal
Open government-run clinics and pregnant women will run for the back alleys and kitchen table tops by the droves. Have you ever watched the folks working away in your friendly government offices?
1
I am a pro life woman and proud. I cannot wait for the day until every single Planned Parenthood across the country closes its doors for the last time. They will never stop performing abortions which is a big money maker for them. They have contributed to the deaths of 60 million of our unborn since 1973. That is positively shocking and hard to comprehend.
Pro life groups have seen their efforts realized with the closing of many of the Planned Parenthood facilities. It is a miracle that they have been able to accomplish such a feat and will continue with their efforts. There are many more pregnancy centers around the country that are excellent and provide the much needed services to women except abortions. We should be concentrating on these and giving them our support.
The Republican Party has been a good friend to us and so has President Trump. Other presidents have said they were pro life but were all talk and no action. Finally we have a president who listened and took action. There are many women out there like me who approve of the actions of the Republican Party and their stand on pro life issues. We will no longer remain silent and will continue to fight to save the life of the unborn. Strength is numbers is what it has taken and we will not give up. We have come this far and will continue fighting the good fight to end abortion. We will not go back.
1
You are on the wrong side of history. Women should have the right to decide for themselves & they will. The abortion pills can be sourced from anywhere. Most abortions are early in pregnancy & can be terminated with pills. There are many organizations that are promoting the use of the pills with tele-communication of patients with blue state doctors.
14
If the elimination of abortion is really your goal, then why prevent women from getting proper preventive care and education? Why close centers whose only business is to provide health care to women in need who may otherwise end up with an unplanned pregnancy and have to face a terrible choice. If you are truly pro-life don’t you care about those lives too?
12
@KMW - Most PP locations don't even provide abortion, especially in states with more than one clinic. Example: the two clinics mentioned in this article. When TX closed 25 PP clinics a few years ago, abortions were provided at only 4 of them. The rest ONLY prescribed contraception and conducted STD testing and treatment plus cancer screening (and sometimes prenatal care, etc.). Following the closure of TX clinics, they saw an epidemic of STDs. Indiana closed a number of clinics and had an epidemic of HIV. Is that really your goal? Because it's certainly what these policies/actions achieve.
6
THESE VIOLENT, ILLEGAL, DISCRIMINATORY CHANGES Deprive women of essential health care. So women who relied on birth control, family planning, routine OB GYN examinations and treatment for sexually transmitted infections are being shut out of receiving life-saving care. Equal access precedents have been used by GOPper extremists to force public schools to house religious clubs. The Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause prohibits preventing any class of people equal access to the law. The current brutal practices (I refuse to call the "laws," when they violate basic human rights) discriminate against women in general and more specifically women who struggle with poverty and those who are of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Clearly these acts of discrimination are illegal. But they will stand. What can be done to counter is having online physicians prescribing home abortion kits. Such transactions can occur internationally online. The Internet is used for the sale of other medications, so there is ample precedent. Online doctors do the prescribing. Yes, it's more dangerous than being examined in person. But it's better than forcing women to go to butchers who will maim and kill many who continue to need abortions. The number of abortions has NEVER changed. What has changed is safe, legal abortions being available. Yet further evidence of discrimination against women. What would Kavanaugh do about it? DON'T ASK! Survivors of his assaults have spoken clearly!
12
The United States is already 2d or 3d world as concerns infant and maternal mortality among women in SES classes never described in those meaningful terms - education, economy, family - but always in terms of "race".
Any decline in the availability of clinics will surely change those statistics for the worse in parallel with decrease in American life expectancy in certain SES groups.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
17
Only Rich women should have unlimited access to abortion. Restricting abortion is just another way to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich.Do not worry. The benefits will Trickle Down eventually.
7
Planned Parenthood stopped being a “women’s health clinic” a few years ago, and much of this is because birth control and morning after pills are very much over the counter, decreasing women’s need for Planned Parenthood’s services. To stay afloat, Planned Parenthood needed to become a sexuality planning clinic, which is what it is today. For example, gender dysphoric people can walk in for an easily ascertained dose of cross hormone. Likewise, so as not to offend the transgender community, Planned Parenthood now refers to “pregnant women” as “pregnant people” on their website, and “women with cervical cancer” are now “people with cervical cancer”. Stop claiming that Planned Parenthood is a women’s clinic. They’re not. Planned Parenthood started erasing what it means to be “female” a while ago. Fine by me - a pro choice feminist - that they don’t get Title X anymore. It’s not a women’s clinic today. It’s a political gender clinic. Many other clinics, sincere to women only, are available.
6
Someone who wants to see Planned Parenthood clinics close doesn’t sound like a pro-choice feminist. How do you propose that women receive reproductive healthcare like contraception? (Birth control pills require a prescription—they aren’t over the counter. Long-acting reversible contraception, or IUDs, require an expensive procedure).
Your description of what Planned Parenthood does bears no resemblance to reality. While Planned Parenthood has always treated both men and women, it’s overwhelmingly an organization treating women’s reproductive healthcare. Any claim that they’ve changed their mission is absolutely false.
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@Step - Hormonal birth control is NOT available OTC. It requires a prescription obtained from a doctor, at a cost of about $200 or so annually for just the appointment.
4
The attacks on women's healthcare and Planned Parenthood have been constant. After a doctor was killed for providing an abortion methods changed. Anti-abortion believers calling themself pro-life created subtle attacks like the TRAP laws which require women's health clinics to meet the same standards as large hospitals before they can perform abortions. But attacks also have centered on the issue of when life begins, finally making the claim that life begins at conception. Birth control methods have also become targets. Women have fought back. Women have marched in the streets. Wendy Davis stood and talked for hours in a filibuster in the Texas legislature. When we got a president who said what ours said on Access Hollywood there was no longer an effective way to fight back. Lately there are many Americans who it seems will have to lose hard-won rights in order to learn how valuable those rights are. What a waste of time. White supremacists want to fight big minority families with big white families. This nonsense also plays a role in taking women's rights away here in the 21st century. It has been extremely disheartening to watch men oppress women once again and get away with it.
23
Men would never tolerate government intruding on their private physical autonomy. How can Republican women even stomach this?
26
Or maybe people could start being responsible and start paying for the services they receive. Want health services? Pay for them. Don’t have one in your area? Drive or fly to get the help you need. No free lunch in life. No hand outs. Everybody pays.
3
I trust you don’t use taxpayer-subsidized insurance from an employer.
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?@Patrick Campbell
How about the people helped by ARC and groups such as Citizens Advocates and other agencies working with the disabled and the sick? Or are you maybe thinking gas chambers?
2
@Patrick Campbell
Sure, everyone pays. If you're poor, you just pay with your life.
4
Earlier commenter Simon says,
"Make good choices. Period."
There you have it. Simon has gotten down to it. The real issue is forced continuation of a pregnancy as PUNISHMENT for premarital sex. The baby issue is a kind of convenient aside.
Woe to the child born to the resentment and dysfunction of parents 'forced to be married.' I'm old enough to remember 'forced to be married.' As a matter of fact, I'm the biological product of such a philosophy.
The result was ruination and sorrow.
Simon sez, 'I know what's best.'
Mother-May-I sez, 'Simon take two steps back and attend to your own concerns.'
35
No woman in her right mind will vote for any Republican for any office at any level. The GOP is diametrically opposed to all that is in the best interests of women and of their families.
29
@aj then I must ask, what mind must she be in?
Voting GOP is voting against oneself.
6
And fair play. No one should be required to fund those sorts of things if it goes against the moral code. Similarly the same should be said about the military. Now, where do I get my money back?
25
@Coots Or funding religion - their tax exemptions amount to funding in my book.
4
I am pro choice, but I feel many pro-choicers fail to see pro-life’s viewpoint: that once there’s conception, there is then a baby / human that should have the right to choose to live.
The argument is no longer about the woman and her rights after that. Their view is this new life’s rights.
Taking care of a poor child doesn’t equate to them to keeping it alive and giving it the right to live. That’s not their responsibility nor their concern.
However, their hypocrisy comes in when they are all mostly pro-capital punishment.
And it seems the ones usually making these arguments are white men.
7
In my experience the same anti-choice folks are okay with illegal abortions, even increasing the rate of abortions overall. Many are anti-contraception. None of these attitudes is consistent with a concern about fetuses or embryos as people. I just don’t buy their stated rationale. I think this is the same crowd who argued that the Pill would destroy the family in the sixties.
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@M.
How can you be pro-choice if you accept their viewpoint?
27
They are welcome to their viewpoint and if they are against abortions then they have the right to never have one. What they don’t have the right to do is dictate what I do with my life or make decisions for me about reproduction.
Against abortion? Then don’t have one.
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Planned Parenthood needs to stop performing abortions and referring women to clinics that do if they want to receive funding to their facilities. Why should taxpayer dollars be used to fund abortions or abortion services in which many Americans disapprove. If people are upset about this, they can make personal donations to support these clinics. Let's see how long they will agree to give their money to the cause. I have better things to do then to send money to an organization like Planned Parenthood which is the largest abortion provider in the country. They perform 330,000 abortions every year. That is astounding and upsets me greatly.
6
@KMW
If everyone who pays taxes looked hard enough they could find something of which they approve that their tax dollars are supporting.
Want another war? Hold a bake sale.
94
You’re tonight many Americans do disapprove, but this is a democracy, and the overwhelming majority do approve of a women’s right to choose.
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@KMW Texas put Planned Parenthood out of business and claimed that the state would create its own clinics to attend to women's health. Has it happened yet? NO. Will it happen? NO. Most of those Planned Parenthood clinics didn't even perform abortions, but that didn't matter. It was that the organization somewhere did. And now there are thousands of women who are now without cervical cancer screenings and mammograms and birth control. Oh, but birth control is also abortion, right? This is all about denying poor women health reproductive healthcare and about keeping them poor.
115
Funny, I read something the other day after one of the Pew polls came out with people's attitude toward religion, and the heads of religious groups upset that among those under 40, when asked of their reaction to the world "religious or religion" came back with words like ignorant, backward, hateful, mean, bigoted and yes, stupid. Does it dawn on them that maybe, just maybe, young people are observant and they see things like the pro life movement and the evangelical Christian and Catholic conservative lock step with the GOP for what it is, that most of religion these days is concerned with demonizing people, rather than helping them lead better lies. All you have to see is these churches, that put so much into 'sin' and 'moral character' and "responsibility' embracing Trump who routinely breaks almost every tenet a human being is supposed to follow and practice, yet they love him......
And yes, they see what closing Planned Parenthood offices means, they know it means cutting off the only access to family planning and women's healthcare a lot of women can get, they see it for the meanness it is. The religious right don't just hate planned parenthood because of abortion, they hate planned parenthood because they don't share Christianties obsession with sex as dirty and a shameful thing, they deal with sexuality and sexual health as scientists, not bronze age religious fantatics.
70
@music observer - " ... All you have to see is these churches, that put so much into 'sin' and 'moral character' and "responsibility' ... "
These folks are desperately frightened that, given a chance, everyone else will behave the way they do.
14
I have supported Planned Parenthood for all of my adult life -- UNTIL the president of PP endorsed Hillary Clinton during the Democratic Party PRIMARY! Totally wrong-headed to get political during the Democratic Primary, and especially wrong to endorse Clinton, who said that she could "imagine" instances when abortions should not be permitted vs Bernie Sanders, who said without reservation that all women should have the right to decide for themselves in all matters that concern their own bodies.
26
I don’t know what Bernie Sanders meant, but obviously there are restrictions on abortions after viability, as there should be.
12
@mjpezzi Whether or not PP should have gotten political, the organization serves a vital role in the lives of American women. Those women should be foremost in our decisions about whether to support PP.
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@mjpezzi
So you don't support Planned Parenthood because a woman said she could imagine instances when an abortion should not be permitted. And a man said that a woman should have the right to decide. So a woman said something and you didn't like what she said. Right?
25
I personally believe that those considering themselves “superChristians” want to say that it is God who directs their actions. I believe the men of the Christian right now join together under the mantel of the “church” to encourage this false approved dominance that allows men to take control of their wives’ earnings, opinions, clothing, and, of course, sex and procreation decisions.
They remain insecure cowards, hiding behind a falsely conjured image of a God who does not make males the leader, but makes all equal in his/her/their eyes.
How many of these controlling men force their wives to allow them into their most private arena (consider, the voting booth) and take their right of choice away even there. Anyone remember Donald looking over into Ivanka’s voting booth.
59
According to Planned Parenthood's 2018 Annual Report, the organization received a $220 million surplus in revenue for the most recent year, and there are $1.295 billion in Planned Parenthood's reserves/endowment. The closing of these two clinics has NOTHING to do with loss of federal funding.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/4a/0f/4a0f3969-cf71-4ec3-8a90-733c01ee8148/190124-annualreport18-p03.pdf
15
I read the link. Assets such as property and equipment are illiquid so of course they cannot pay the light bill, so to speak. Additionally, some reserves are restricted which means they are not available.
47
@Tim. Reserves and endowment are not meant for everyday operating expenses. Because of the services it provides, Planned Parenthood should be awarded Federal funding. There can be no arguing the point that Planned Parenthood is one of the largest and most effective health organizations in the US today. It’s role in providing health services for women is unparalleled, and in many poor and underserved communities is the major source of health care for both men and women. To cavalierly dismiss the closing of these two clinics misses the point. Reproductive freedoms and women’s health care are under attack. Poor underserved areas are losing essential services for both men and women. Access to Family planning information, routine pap smears, mammograms, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, shouldn’t be denied for political and ideological reasons. This is a war on women’s health pure and simple. There is no other way to look at it and it is unconscionable.
292
The fact that nearly half of American women voted for Trump, and his misogynistic regime, shows just how effective the GOP propaganda machine has become.
They are killing the earth, amassing all the middle class wealth, and siphoning away women’s reproductive control, and ripping the children they do have away, putting them in concentration camps at the border. This all makes Trump’s pre-election genitalia grabbing seem almost quaint in comparison.
Meanwhile Americans are focused on problems that really don’t exist like race, religion, guns, immigration, and gay wedding cakes because they believe FOX News is really news.
Love, honor, and obey the ruling class elites. Under his eye!
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@✅Dr. TLS ✅
There are commonly a few things that can be said of a person or group which exhibit the tendency to act against their own interests and well being.
Without too much sub-categorization the words ignorant, stupid, and insane come to mind.
Now all the women discussed in this piece need do is select which of the 3 describes them best
1
It is so sick, so perverse, so sexually predatory, and so deranged ~ for anyone to even think they can have the right to control a woman's body, her autonomy, and her personal life.
But this is, in fact, the modern hateful world of Republican Trumpism that we are living in~ with a few too many of those in power who have the perverse wish to control all women's lives.
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@Lolostar The fact is that a majority of women in these places voted for this outcome.
Don't forget to blame them too. Unless you don't think they're smart enough to figure it out
So, how about a massive PR campaign by Planned Parenthood? Put across the message that Planned Parenthood is protecting women's health. Run TV ads, send out mailers, do phone calling, all to raise money. If need be, ask some big donors to fund these activities. It is time to take the offensive. We need a major push if we want to change the politics on this issue.
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@sd
PP is making an effort to fight back, but must use its donations to provide services AND run communications campaigns. Hard to do when you've been cut off from Title X funding.
Michael Bloomberg made a large contribution in the past few years - maybe he and other billionaires should step up. And why doesn"t he throw his hat in the ring to peel off Never Trumpers and unaffiliated voters who don't like The Dotard but can't bring themselves to vote for a D?
19
@sd
There is such a campaign going on. Please look into it and help.
14
Just today, the young pregnant woman who comes twice a month to help me, was telling me about the preparations she has in place for her new little girl, due the first of November. She proudly announced she has two months of rent saved, as well as two months of utilities, car insurance covered and has shopped at garage sales and purchased the large items needed to welcome baby. Red flags started waving: “Baby daddy is helping you with this, right?” I asked. She then told me he walked out on her six months ago and is not taking any responsibility for the baby.
I asked about Medicaid to help with maternal health care, well baby checks, etc. “I applied months ago, but have not heard yet whether I’ve been approved or not.” she said. She continued, “I know I need to keep calling, but I can’t be on hold for two hours while I’m working, and I work during their office hours.” It’s very challenging and frustrating she said.
Ohio’s Republican government and Republicans in general have thrown up so many roadblocks that she is struggling to remain standing. By closing down local clinics, the pro-life movement is making it extremely difficult for women to have a healthy pregnancy and healthy babies—what, I ask, is pro-life about that?
This young woman will be working right up until she has the baby, will be off eight weeks and then right back on the job. Way to love women and babies, right?
Vote Democratic like lives depend on it, because they do.
595
@Hope Well
"Pro-life" is a lie, like the names of many right-wing political groups and causes. How about "Right to Work" laws. "Americans for Prosperity" (serving the financial interests of the Koch brothers).
25
@Hope Well
Is SHE voting Democratic?
7
@Hope Well Unfortunate, but isn't it the father who should be assisting?
5
Add Ohio to the list of states in which companies relying on well-educated young people will not site their facilities. The red states get redder, not because there are more red voters, but because blue-leaning voters have the sense to move out.
Sez this former Ohio resident.
89
@Steve: US states practice economic and cultural war on each other while they stuff Congress with drones who turn blind eyes to unequal protection of the law.
24
@Steve
Unfortunately, they will still have two senators.
12
I am a loyal blue dot in a red state. Our cities vote blue, but we are still generally outnumbered at the state level.
Be brave. Be the change you want to see. Don’t just go somewhere that everybody thinks like you. Go where your family had some roots, or where it seems like pretty countryside. Move to the country and help people find a better way.
The best way to flip the Senate is for the urban people to return and rebuild the red states.
4
The GOP hates women. That includes female members of the GOP. It's called internalized misogyny. They want women fully dependent on a man or on the government so they're under control. The best way to do this is to ensure they have lots of babies and fewer financial options/resources in the workforce. I've yet to hear the GOP or the anti-life folks calling for any type of policy or legislation that holds the men who impregnate women responsible to any degree (and don't respond to me about child support; many men get away without paying it).
49
I grew up thinking the war over abortion was over and the issue settled. Now, I have a daughter and I worry for her and her friends that this fundamental right is quickly vanishing at the same time access to birth control and health care are rapidly becoming available only to those who can afford it.
For all the advances American women have made over the last few decades, there seem to be a group of powerful men (and not so bright women) doing their best to reverse progress and punish women for it.
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@BMD
mobilize and vote democrat in every state. Dont worry get busy and support democracy and a womans right to be in charge of her own body. Old white men are taking away our rights, get busy and make sure everyone you know votes.
50
“Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich was especially fervent in that mission, signing more than a dozen bills targeting women’s health care during his tenure. Among them was a major rollback of public financing for Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. By 2018, Ohio ranked 48th in the nation for publicly funded women’s health services.”
Thank you for reminding readers of John Kasich’s long-standing war on women’s reproductive rights. It made me want to scream during the 2016 campaign when he was spoken of as some kind of reasonable, moderate alternative to Donald Trump. Although Kasich has never been accused of sexual harassment he is as intent on keeping women locked in reproductive chains as Trump and the rest of the GOP.
641
@Susan
Like you, I vomited a little when Kasich was touted as reasonable moderate, and I am a man. Kasich is, like Pence, a biblical true believer and thus an existential and real threat to our democracy and Constitution.
82
To Susan in Paris- thanks so much for reminding us all about Kasich. I had forgotten and indeed, in my mind he had morphed into a Centrist. I’ll not make that mistake again!
32
@Susan - Kasich the Folksy Faker. The media never calls him out on his position.
15
To KMW and other commenters sharing his view - 20 people die each day awaiting an organ transplant. Let’s propose a new law: every American male must register as an organ donor and go through all the testing that will determine the compatibility of your organs with those patients in need. When a patient needs an organ and yours is a match, you donate it. Failure to be tested and donate your organ is a felony and you will be subject to severe penalties for your refusal to comply.
What’s that you say? This law infringes on your agency as a human being? You’re being forced to give up the right to control your own body? They’re taking your heart and it’ll kill you? Too bad: you must legally give up your rights, and maybe your life, to save another human. You should be happy to do that, as you’re all about the sanctity of life.
Oh, one more thing. The medical expenses for donation will come out of your pocket if you survive the procedure, health care being a privilege, not a human right.
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@Claire Elliott
Reminds me of Monty Python's Life of Brian movie, where medics come to a man's door to extract his liver against his will.
6
It is hard to understand the fight against family planning. What is the end plan? Data shows these policies lead to higher rates of STDs, unplanned and teenage pregnancies. Provide the appropriate funding for women to control our bodies.
27
I think there are a huge chunk of these women who don't vote. There is a large portion of the citizens in this country who don't know who the Vice President or Speaker of the House are much less who their representatives are. They don't care. They are not aware of these issues until they personally walk into a clinic and realize that issues they did not care to find out about now affects them. A little too late now to not have voted.
22
@Ellen: so true - I know a couple of them, and men, who simply don't vote because they think it isn't their responsibility, isn't necessary, and/or simply don't care and don't pay attention to elections. And yet, one of their liberties is that they may decide to not vote. Ironic. But still I think it is selfish, arrogant, and negligent and stupid.
@Ellen I must remind you that white women voted for Trump by, I believe, 51-43. They turned out, but missed their JFK/Obama moment. I couldn't tell you why.
I am sorry about the clinic closures. But I am assuming that a good portion of women serviced by those clinics are Trump supporters and will first hand find out what their favorite President brought upon them.
18
@InTheKnow A goodly portion are, but a larger portion of the women served by those clinics did not vote for Trump. They are losing access to health care through absolutely no fault of their own, and that must be the first and foremost thought.
40
@InTheKnow It is also the case however, that the last two governors of Ohio, Kasich and DeWine repeatedly restricted women's health care. If the women and men of Ohio aren't going to care, neither is anyone else. They did this to themselves.
24
@InTheKnow
Why would you assume that? Hamilton County, where these clinics are located, voted for Clinton in 2016.
@kaneable: What about the many Ohio women who voted against Trump, Kasich and DeWine, and who actively campaigned against them? We most certainly did not "do this to ourselves."
4
I think Democratic party should pledge 10% of political fund raising proceeds to provide for losses Planned Parenthood took on because they refused to take pledge to not provide women with info about abortion providers.
9
Would you object if the government got between you and your doctor? Is that a good precedent to establish?
Planned Parenthood is standing up for an important principle that affects you too.
9
Every pro-life and evangelical I have talked with have all used birth control.
61
@Independent And many of them have abortions since, when their lives are involved, it's "different."
1
@Independent
Yes. Many Catholics, too, will oppose public funding for contraceptives, but when their daughters become sexually active they make sure they have some. So, really they are opposing poorer women from getting access.
1
If males had to carry a pregnancy to term - the second amendment would have guranteed abortion rights, not gun rights...
61
You can be opposed to abortion. That does not mean that I have to be. Likewise being opposed to evolution or climate change science or believing the earth and universe were created in 4004 BC. You can believe those, but I don't and don't have to. When you refuse a medical alternative for religious or other moral reasons, that does not give you the legal or moral right to impose your morality or views on medicine on your neighbors.
Suppose I work with folks like me to prevent you from getting medical treatment or attending schools I don't like or stop you from helping helping others who request and beg for your help. I don't think you would like that one bit. "Do unto others ...
"If you oppose abortion, don't have one!" -Wanda Sykes
82
@Speakin4Myself Never had one but I support the private and personal decisions of all women...we can oppose abortion but honor free choice---this is a personal and private matter and not in the purview of government nor of those who are not and never will be pregnant.
4
It’s all about keeping poor women poor. Ask any anti abortion type what the plan is to keep women of means from getting abortions and all that will be offered is silence.
24
Why would any woman vote for Trump and these GOP extremists? An anthropological study of these Trump and GOP voter base for self harm could get many PHDs!!
25
Women will suffer, and also girls - some as young as 12 years old. Babies, too, will suffer, particularly when the mother is unready to care for him or her.
There sure is a lot of punishing going on out there! It's something religious conservatives believe in. Theirs is a black and white world.
45
Yes, yes, yes. Planned Parenthood is often the only provider of any kind of healthcare in rural communities. My daughter worked at one such PP clinic, where they covered everything from contraception and cervical screenings to diabetes and opioid addiction.
Prenatal and postnatal care and well-child care are a huge part of what PP does.
27
@pkbormes
For Conservatives, the answer is very simple. Get rich, and have all the abortions you want. No Conservative will bother you in the least.
3
The GOP let the game go when they revealed that they didn’t consider a fetus in a lab setting equal to an identical fetus inside of a woman’s womb.
It was never, ever about women or children. It was only ever about control. Men HATE IT when a woman controls her own body. Even a lot of supposedly “woke” men can’t stand it.
Groups of men all across the country gather in country clubs and parlors all across the country and race jokes are bad taste, but they’ll sit there and tell misogynistic jokes all day without seeing the irony.
58
This is the fault of Ohio voters. The Repubs have to be voted out.
13
Make good choices. Period
3
@Simon that's good advice. However, life sometimes takes turns that are not of our choice. Like an infection that makes the planned, desired pregnancy a life threatening situation. Or the fetus that has a defect incompatible to life, the choice could be to continue the pregnancy even if when the fetus emerges it would die in agony within a short time or it could be to terminate the pregnancy. Or a birth control failure that puts the woman at risk because she has a condition that pregnancy would seriously jeopardize her life? Choices, yes, good choices but life doesn't always work that way.
29
Simon sez, ‘Make good choices. Period.’
Now we’re getting somewhere. Punishment for pre-marital sex.
I’m one of those ‘precious’ babies born of an unplanned pregnancy. Father a sailor from Pennsylvania in port in Key West. Mother a Floridian of Cuban ancestry. In the 1950’s you ‘had to get married.’
The result was a short-lived marriage, divorce, mother’s mental breakdown, a burden to grandparents until age of seven, then a burden to father and stepmother.
I’ve had some good times here and there, but I don’t think my main purpose in having been born should have been to punish my parents or to provide the NYT with another frequent commenter.
With all due respect, Simon, mind your own business would be a good choice for you.
12
@Simon
Stuff happens. To everybody. Regardless of what choices they make. Real life.
4
A majority of white women voted for Trump in 2016. Who did they think they were voting for? This is what he planned to deliver to the folks who voted for him.
26
A majority of white women did not vote for Trump. Perhaps you mean a majority of white women WHO VOTED voted for Trump.
1
It seems as if the opinion of the Administration in regard to female sexual activity is along the lines of "Just Say No!" After all; it worked so well with drugs!
24
Go online to the New England Journal of Medicine’s website (nejm.org) and read ‘Perilous Politics—Morbidity and Mortality in the Pre-Roe Era.
24
Ladies - round up your mothers, sisters, friends, etc. We all need to go out and vote in 2020.
38
Women. SNAP beneficiaries. Transgender kids in school. Latin Americans fleeing violence. It is not that hard to find a reason to register, to vote and to help a neighbor do the same.
25
The US may have the largest economy, but it is far, far behind when it comes to human value. It will be your undoing, and I am not talking just about what shows on the surface. I am talking about the systemic myopic thinking for the past, oh, seventy years in this country. Its hypocrisy, arrogance and willful ignorance of everything that is not "you." Identity politics is just the latest fad in a long line of small thought.
Yes, you have a very small minority of people who are actually awake and understand that holistic and inclusive thinking is not just some softie, lefty way of thinking. It might be this country's only way to survive.
In political science, a democracy is considered strong when all human rights are supported, that especially includes women's health. This deliberate attack on Planned Parenthood is another attack on poor, minority women by a bunch of old, white misogynists. How incredibly boring and pathetic and cowardice.
29
@anniec3: so true. USA is so behind on so many things it's hilarious considering the large dose of hubris it doles out - but it's not funny - not funny at all.
1
What makes the Trump Administration's war on women even more despicable is the incredible level of hypocrisy.
Michael Cohen testified to having aided and abetted Republican donor and former RNC deputy finance chairman, Elliott Broidy, in paying his mistress to have an abortion. Apparently, Donald Trump didn't feel the need to declare his deep, religious objections at the time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/us/politics/elliott-broidy-michael-cohen-payout.html
(Many have speculated that the father of the baby was none other than the condom-shunning DJT, but that's another story).
The anti-choice posture of the Trump Administration has nothing whatsoever to do with morality or conscience. It's all about pandering to his base. Period. Full stop.
NOT my president
32
Just to show where priorities are, it is far easier in this country for a man to buy a gun, even one that is designed for murdering hundreds of people at one time, than it is for a woman to get an abortion. "Pro-life" is very selective.
102
@Jackie
It’s easier for a man to buy a gun than for a woman to get a prescription for reliable birth control.
4
@Jackie: Very true, but "pro-life" really isn't about life at all. Every so-called "pro-lifer" I know fully believes in and supports the death penalty. They hate food stamps and even WIC, so any kind of assistance to poor women and children must be eliminated.
What they are pro-birth; after that, they don't care and from their policies and beliefs, they'd rather you die.
4
I wish I could recommend that comment 200 times.
3
Imagine if they turned their attention to murder with guns.
29
Women voters need to be informed about attacks on women's health issues by the Trump admin so they may counter the evangelical voters who seems devoted to our lying, sexual predator draft dodging fraudster President. The payoff to them would be the federal govt enforcing the dogma of this religious group which includes tv preachers who fleece the public of millions to support their private jets and mansions all tax free.
15
I don't care why the GOP hates women and children and poor people in general. It's disgusting and it must stop immediately. If reason won't prevail, then they must all be removed from power by voting every Republican out of office.
25
Poor, poor Planned Parenthood. I feel so sorry for them, of course I’m kinda happy for all those babies, oh I mean fetuses, that will have a chance to live.
6
@Thomas Aquinas Planned Parenthood PREVENTS abortions by education and contraception. Planned Parenthood prevents miscarriages by providing prenatal care.
29
Outlawing abortion doesn’t make abortion go away. Making it more difficult for women to get contraception and prenatal health care doesn’t help anyone
What about the babies ripped from the arms of their poor desperate mothers and thrown in cages ($750 a day per caged child)? What about those Yemeni children killed by bombs made with your tax dollars?
What about the proliferation of military style assault weapons that can kill dozens (yes children too) in seconds.
The hypocrisy of forced birthers is disgusting.
4
@Thomas Aquinas
How do you feel about all the unplanned babies that are going to need your tax money to survive after they are born because their mother's couldn't get contraception and can't afford the babies? Not too happy about supporting the poor? If not, you are not pro-life, you are anti-abortion. There is a difference.
4
Ohio needs a new state motto:
Singles, come visit Ohio! Come home with the STD you're likely to get because we've made it harder for our residents to get tested and treated!
16
I think this is more knuckle dragging and primal than most commenters are capturing. I think these men are going to stop women from killing their seed no matter what.
There is a certain segment of the male population that thinks they are god chosen and any woman who thinks she can murder their off-spring has another thing coming. This is about them. This is about grunting over as many women as they can manage.
They are INCELS with god on their side. Whatever they do is fine. Think about someone like Jeffery Epstein thinking he'll get girls to his ranch to spread his DNA. That sounds crazy but I'd bet if you got a few of these men alone and talked to them, they'd spew this. Or something like it.
It's flat out crazy.
There is something deficient in these men. It's like they are missing a gene that makes them human.
22
@mj. It reminds me of Monty Python’s song “Every sperm is sacred.”
2
The republican party barely tolerates white women, and only when they're subservient and willing to lie for the cause. Even then they hold these women in contempt. The republican party absolutely despises all other women, especially women of color. Their contempt for these women knows no bounds. Vote your conscience in 2020.
24
Women, by the millions, voted for this hooey or stayed home and allowed the MAGA hatters to choose for them. What a sorry denouement, much of it self-inflicted.
15
Can't think of anything to do but cry. How long must we be dragged backward by this horrible administration that no one will stop!
16
These actions should be the final proof, as if more was needed, that the GOP has no real interest in improving the lives of women, children, families, or any other people in America unless those people are very rich, donate tons of money to the GOP, and flatter them to no end.
I do hope that when the orphanages here are overrun with unwanted children or children that parents could not afford the GOP decides that America should not emulate Romania. Their children were often neglected in every way possible in the orphanages and the damage was considerable. Perhaps they could find it within their conservative compassion to fund decent programs for the children they are forcing women to have. I doubt it but one can attempt to hope.
9/9/2019 6:34pm first submit
19
@hen3ry Don't hold your breath.
1
This president is the culmination of a long game by the GOP. If you think we can't ever be like the Hulu show The Handmaids Tale you really haven't been paying attention.
19
I suggest that the issue be reframed. Instead of "Right to Life" vs "Woman's Right to Choose," we should think in terms of locus of control. Are decisions regarding human reproduction, specifically, who gets to decide if a pregnancy should be terminated or go to term? Is it the State, or is it the individual?
Should a faceless bureaucrat make that decision, or the pregnant individual?
The "Right to Life" contingent wants The State to make the decision. Their position is that pregnancy should go to term no matter the individual's preferences. In this position they are in agreement with the Communist government of China, which for many years had a strict one child policy. The government now authorizes some two child families, but it is still in charge. The individual, even if she wants more children, is obliged to terminate any pregnancy after either one or two children.
So it's not about the sanctity of the "unborn life" at all. It's a demand that the State makes these decisions, not the individual.
27
So-called "pro-lifers" try to prevent women from getting birth control, pre-pregnancy health counseling, prenatal care and treatment for STD's. Every songle one of those things saves women, fetuses and newborns from death and disability.
They are the opposite of pro-life.
49
@Naomi
Lol good luck framing that as logic. Women who want abortions see it as a get out of jail card, they couldn’t care less about the baby. Simply out of site out of mind murderers that are too preoccupied with living their best life. Do the deed and live with the consequences, or simply use contraception.
1
Elections have consequences. Young people have avoided voting for decades. While I still care about the status of women's health care, I am no longer going to fight for it - it is not my fight any more. Been there, done that.
If young people, especially women, want self-determination to control their own bodies, then they will have to fight for the right to have what was available to their mothers and grandmothers.
If they continue to be complacent, they risk putting oversight of their bodies in the hands of elderly white men.
I have voted in every election for the past 45 years, for better or worse. At least I can say I participated in the fight against the oppression of women by the old white guys club.
Can you?
42
There is a lot of passion in these comments. It sounds like the majority here are more than happy to have their tax dollars used for abortions. I prefer mine do not. If that is the case, you always have the option of donating to your local PP to help ensure they provide the services you support.
5
@SH
And I prefer that my tax dollars aren't used to cage children or give military aid to Saudi Arabia. What's your point?
43
@SH studies show ,most people are for what you're against. I''l take majority rule!
17
I prefer that my tax dollars don’t go to build another warship or ballistic missile.
10
This fight is bout more than the struggle for the individual right to have an abortion—it’s about women’s rights and human rights. The Republican Party believes in the traditional patriarchal family, where the man makes decisions for his wife and daughters, completely out of step with the majority of Americans and social, political, and economic trends of the 21st century. Cutting women’s clinics will impact minorities and the rural poor the most, reflecting the Party’s racism and class oppression. These decisions are made by the White House and a small group of state politicians—the Party’s base is a minority, so it exercises power in an authoritarian and arbitrary manner. The Republican Party has taken this path since opposing the Equal Rights Amendment and Roe v. Wade in the ‘80s, and Trump’s ugly misogyny and uncaring devastation of women’s health is the outcome.
52
The women of forty five countries are less likely to die giving birth than Americans. Most countries lose three, four , five or six women per one hundred thousand births.
At 46th America loses fourteen women and the government seems to want worse results by driving services for pregnant women out of business.
"Right to life?"
105
@carlyle 145: Years and years ago, I read an interview/article about the men running operation rescue, and when asked how they reconcile letting women die because pregnancy isn't risk-free, these men where perfectly happy to let women whose health or lives were at risk if they were to be forced to continue the pregnancies. That's when I realized that they don't care about life at all. If they did, they'd focus on the lives already here (the women), and make sure that women get the healthcare they need, and yes, sometimes that does mean an abortion. They'd also make sure women have access to birth control (they also opposed birth control).
8
These moves will only accelerate the inevitable. Pharmaceutical abortions with the drugs available via mail order through the internet. Already these abortion bans on not bans on all women getting abortions, only poor ones. Well off women will just go to another state or country where abortion is legal. What this war on women's health and health self determination will do is cause needless complications and deaths due to denial of urgently needed services and probably have the perverse effect of increasing unplanned pregnancies and likely abortions.
55
@Honey Badger Agreed. I think the foot soldiers really believe they're following some religious mandate, but they powers moving the strings just want to keep poor people poor. Nothing like a 16-years old girl getting pregnant to prevent her from getting a higher education. Or a mother getting pregnant again from getting a better job.
Rich people need poor brown / black people to (1) dupe white poor people into thinking they're better than them and (2) preventing them from getting richer.
18
If states began chipping away at other legal acts in this country the way that they have chipped away at access to abortion, there would be riots in the streets. Imagine if states started imposing special tests and procedures for voting, such as forcing all people to sit and watch a video promoting the policies of a certain political party. Or, if children could go to public school only if they watched a video first that promoted prayer in public school. Don't want to watch the videos? Then you can't vote, or go to school.
So why - WHY - has it been allowed for states to chip away at the original Roe decision and craft it to their obvious desire to eliminate it altogether? No one has ever explained this to me.
57
@DLM: No Supreme Court judicial nominee has ever been required to state what they believe an "establishment of religion" is in the context of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" by the atrociously malapportioned Senate that vets judicial nominees.
3
@DLM New York is busy chipping away at the Second Amendment, a real right rather than a made-up one. No riots as of yet... but we'll have a Million Gun Owner's march for our rights in Times Square some day.
@cannoneer2 The Second Amendment refers to the right to form militias against outside threats in a period of our history when there was no National Guard and no municipal or state law enforcement agencies. Twisting this to mean that people have an unfettered right to own assault weapons is right up there with believing that God created the world in six days, 6,000 years ago.
8
Republicans are literally wiling to kill women via health care neglect if it means that these women won't have access to an abortion. From that perspective they are successful.
51
As a danger to women's health,..Get him, and Pence, out of here.
38
@Getreal The misogyny in the U. S. goes way beyond the current administration. Getting rid of trump, pence et. al is a good beginning. Then there's the GOP...
18
And the Republican senate.
2
Welcome to Gilead.
33
So. It just women. We already know the GOP hates us. They have proven time and time again they do not care if we are raped, sexually harassed, paid less, denied healthcare, you name it, they don't care. Not even a little.
Anyone that doubted it before, cannot doubt it now. We will vote accordingly.
66
@Jills. They don't care because they are the ones doing it!
5
I know my history. Get ready for a lot of dead babies in trash cans, dumped in rivers, and buried in shallow graves.
24
@sjs Don't forget the women and girls, dead from a lack of healthcare.
2
The old white male (and some women) ideologues who pass these laws don't think that their pure Jesus loving wives and daughters will not be affected by this. But having lived in Colorado Springs, ground zero for right wing evangelicals, purity balls don't prevent pregnancy, abstinence only education doesn't prevent pregnancy, Bible thumping pastors don't prevent pregnancy. Girls and women get pregnant because they have hormones and are around dominating men and boys with even more raging hormones. Sometimes to please Daddy and the pastor they marry for lust...and get divorced shortly thereafter. This is going to be an epic tragedy for women. Time for them and the men who love them to get out and vote these ideologues into retirement.
43
@Peter actually, those things increase the chances of teen pregnancy. Read “red sex blue sex” in the New Yorker.
7
@Peter
Honestly, the richer these people become the less they truly follow in their religion. They realize it for what it is, a tool, so the masses can lift them upon the shelf. They sought heaven on Earth, and expect the privilege to extend with results every ancient warning ever formed has long told them will be quite disappointing.
1
Maureen of Boston,
Do not blame pro life groups for women being denied cancer screenings and other services at Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has done this to themselves. If Planned Parenthood gets out of the abortion business and discontinues referring women for abortion, these services will be restored. In the meantime, there are other clinics and pregnancy centers who offer excellent care and services except abortions. These women can seek these services there.
5
@KMW
"there are other clinics and pregnancy centers who offer excellent care"
In many, especially red states, there are not.
67
@KMW Abortion is a legal medical procedure, and people like you who want to see it ended should spend a day in the lives of the often-poor women who seek abortions. I don't see anyone stepping forward to make life easier for women, who often have few choices about getting pregnant. But really, no one needs to validate their reason for terminating a pregnancy. It is a legal medical procedure.
And if you think that affluent women who need abortions are also being denied them, guess again. Most hospitals will provide abortions for well-connected patients. I learned this 25 years ago at my first newspaper, while doing a story on the long anti-abortion stance of the local hospital, which was owned by the city. The wife of a prominent doctor there had steered the policy to prohibit abortions.
During my reporting, the (female) publisher of my newspaper told me this story - which was clearly not meant for publication and was told in an off-the-record conversation. Well into her 40s, she thought she was pregnant. She went to her doctor for a pregnancy test (this was before the days of reliable OTC testing) and her doctor told her, well, if you are pregnant, we can schedule an abortion. She almost passed out in shock and said to him, But how? It's not done at Meriden-Wallingford Hospital. He assured her that abortions were routinely done there, for patients like her. Meaning rich, influential and well-connected.
57
@DLM During the same time period, and even before Roe, wealthy women would fly to Scandinavian countries and have abortions, and treat it as if they had dental work abroad. Wealthy women will always have access to abortions. So many people who are "pro-life" lose their ability to care about babies born to poor women once they make that trip down the birth canal. It drives me crazy. And as for PP having "made their bed and now having to lie in it," and the call for wealthy men to support it (including, once again, the name of George Soros, the man conservatives love to hate), how does anyone expect them to counteract the money spent by the Koch Brothers and Mercers to stop efforts to support health care for women?
41
All of society will wind up suffering due to this fundamentalist, misogynistic Republican policy. Unwanted children do not get raised well, and generally wind up rejecting the society that doesn't seem to want them. They turn to drug use and crime more readily than children whose parents intended to bear them.
Eighteen years after Roe v. Wade, violent crime decreased, because of a drop in the numbers of unwanted children, thanks to legal abortion. Eighteen years after this Republican effort to make birth control and abortion more difficult to obtain, we will see a rise in violent crime again.
51
I'm just appalled that control of a woman's body can be voted on by any man.
As the author stated, no one can stop a woman from having an abortion, however, we can all determine if its safe and legal.
Alas, we live in a patriarchy that lacks empathy, compassion, understanding the fundamentals of female anatomy and last, but certainly not least, all circumstances that lead to unwanted pregnancies such as rape and incest.
For those okay with those circumstances (Alabama) please consider if that happened to YOU.
41
It is always abusive men in power, with the resolve of condemning women's right to have control of their own body, that calls upon their hypocrisy; we men being the direct cause of women's pregnancies to begin with. But trying to close clinics that would help women avoid an unwanted pregnancy (a necessary condition to seek an abortion) is an insult to sanity.
35
Another reason why no one should consider John Kasich as a moderate or reasonable Republican. He's just as anti-woman and dangerous as the rest of them.
46
@CW. Was unaware of his role in the PP closures and laws in Ohio. Scratch him off the list..any list except that of misogynists and hypocrites.
5
How about some billionaire Democrats using their money to keep Planned Parenthood open and possibly expand?
6
@stone
How about governments not actively undermining the gains that have been made in women's health? How about the GOP not reversing decades of progress? How about Republicans supporting women rather than putting them back 50 years?
60
@BibleBeltOfSantaCruz
And the GOP should also pay for their own recessions. And Corporate bankruptcies.
8
@stone maybe after republicans pay for their own wars.
19
Ohio and the rest of red states better prepare for a massive surge in crime, infanticide, child abuse, child abandonment and the rest of social ills that stem from forcing people to have unwanted kids. It’s not just a poverty issue as many claim. Even if some benevolent GOP fairy offered me free medical care and child support in exchange for not aborting an unwanted pregnancy, I would not take the bargain. It is about my human dignity, not free diapers. Unwanted children don’t fare well even if the parents are not poor because they remind the mother that she was forced - by the state, her family or her own religious prejudices -into compromising her agency and free choice. I can’t imagine a worse fate than being a child whose mother abhors its very existence. And this is what the GOP calls “protecting the children”!
27
Amazing how the GOP is so ready to come to the aid of the unborn but as soon as those unwanted children are born, they want nothing to do with providing any assistance in their upbringing. Oh, and why is the GOP so against birth control when easy access to it would be the most effective way to reduce abortions? Hypocrites, the lot of them.
52
Can you think of a Fortune 1000 executive who will want to move their family to Ohio (or any one of the states with similar laws)? And you ask why the poor states just keep getting poorer...
18
Women suffering seems to be the goal of the GOP...
Reduce workforce participation, increase unwanted pregnancies, decrease the health of anyone who doesn't have health insurance at work...
In other words barefoot, pregnant, and back in the kitchen.
43
There has never been a war on women. There has been a war on the unborn since 1973 when roe v. Wade was passed. It has been the dedicated work of pro life groups who have made a tremendous difference in promoting these important policies to curb abortions in the US. We have aborted 60 million babies and this is very upsetting and unconscionable to many Americans. It has been the Republicans and President Trump who have put the brakes on abortion policies that not only kill babies but harm women. As a pro life woman, I am happy that these laws are being put into place. We do not need to see any more of the unborn die from abortions. Now hopefully more babies will be spared from the gruesome act of abortion.
3
@KMW
No, you will see them die after they are born because once they are born, you deny anything to help them.
Plus you are denying women prenatal care which also kills.
The US has one of the highest rate of prenatal and infant mortality rates due to women not being able to get health care.
You are not pro-life, you are anti-life.
28
@KMW
How many of these unwanted babies have you adopted? How many poor women have you supported? I am pro-choice. I would, personally, not want to have an abortion but I see the need to have them available. I chose to have two biological children and one adopted child. How have you contributed? If you haven't, you have no right to judge or impose your beliefs on others.
4
It is upsetting to many Americans that anti-abortion activists seek to force others to live according to their religious beliefs.
“...but harm women.” Up is down, black is white.
2
Here in Mississippi, the religious right sees LGBT health programs as the morally repugnant equivalent of women’s reproductive health programs. If the religious right views something as sinful, they will sacrifice everything and fight to shut down the programs that help society’s most vulnerable. There is a hatefulness and cruelty in their methods that I think the rest of the country is just beginning to understand. You cannot reason with the religious right. Oh, and they adore guns too, including assault weapons, and they despise healthcare for all. And Trump is their king. I can’t make this stuff up.
42
I AM PRO-CHOICE:
Every single US female of childbearing age should have free access to the birth control of her choice.
35
@As-I-Seeit
An excellent idea.
5
Barefoot and pregnant. That used to be the term.
Republicans don’t have a plan to support these mothers or their unwanted babies.
They turn their backs on these women.
And most men won’t carry the responsibility here...it all lands on the woman.
Then there’s the cases in which one party knows precisely what they are doing and entraps the other. Again, the woman bares the brunt.
We’re done with it.
Vote!!!
35
So, for anybody who thinks John Kasich comes across as reasonable compared to other Republicans...
18
ah yes of course its the republicans, don't bother mentioning how obama couldn't put merrick garland on the court, nay, this is about "effective republican strategy" not the very weakness, lack of commitment, overestimation of the dignity and honesty of the republican fear and above all a fear of "divisiveness" from democrats that this paper admires and endorses.
1
@Concerned Citizen
Obama couldn't put Garland on the Court because Moscow Mitch and the Republicans denied his right to do so.
8
They don't care. It is about making sure they can keep women in their place, which means at the mercy of men. The evangelicals and the Catholic Church have given them the religious weapons and they are using them well.
23
Ultimately, I think there are two real causes for this. 1) Conservatives yearn for the day when men went to work and women stayed home to serve them and raise the kids. 2) Religious conservatives have major, major hangups about sex. They think it is dirty and sinful, and that women should be punished for having it. In their minds, birth control and STD prevention and treatment keep women from being properly punished for daring to have a sex drive.
32
@E Single issue voters vote in droves and don't care about any other policy points--that is the ONLY reason for these policies. The speed with which a "pro life" politician would procure an abortion for his mistress or daughter would give you whiplash.
10
Vote for Democrats only for: Congress, Senate and President.
18
I have little sympathy for Planned Parenthood whose doors are closing after performing millions of abortions over the years. I do have sympathy for the many millions of babies who have lost their lives to abortion since it became legal in 1973. There has never been a war on women or controlling their bodies. What the war has been on is the innocent lives of the unborn. Now that is a travesty. Hopefully this terrible injustice is coming to an end.
5
@KMW, the excellent nonprofit healthcare provider Planned Parenthood will be here to serve innocent patients long after the unjust enemies of their sacred civil, human and Constitutional rights are rightfully relegated to the dustbin of history.
27
You are either tragically misinformed, naive, or both. In a world where womens’ options are restricted across the spectrum, you have not given one thought to the fate of women whose lives are potentially altered due to an unplanned pregnancy. The range of examples include victims of rape or incest, certainly, but also many women who have already completed their families and want no more children; college students in committed relationships who have contraceptive failures; women who never want to have children, and women whose pregnancies have turned into life-threatening risks for either them their fetus. Even the best-case scenario that you prefer, adoption of a to-term pregnancy, still carries substantial risks for a woman’s health and a potential loss of economic power, freedom and choices that may never be regained again within her lifetime.
29
@KMW - Hogwash. You have no sympathy for the children gunned down in school shootings, no sympathy for the children being kept in cages, no sympathy for the children suffering from polluted air and water (e.g. Flint), no sympathy for the children who don't get adequate nutrition or health care because of Republican policies.
All you care about is feeling superior to poor women.
24
The question should be why is The GOP winning? Women make up more than half of the population so it does not compute why men have so much control over their health choices. Could be women need to start voting in their best interest instead of their prejudices.
18
@Steven McCain
Support for abortion or Planned Parenthood doesn't break down neatly along gender lines. There are plenty of pro-choice men and pro-life women.
4
@Steven McCain
Republican males of a certain economic station have been voting their prejudices instead of their best interests for 50+ years, why shouldn't Republican females?
6
@Steven McCain
We have a president that did not win the popular vote and many gerrymandered districts. It’s not that women don’t vote, but that many of their votes don’t matter.
19
Title X doesn't just support women's health services in the US. It also funds -- or once did -- programs like Planned Parenthood to provide education and contraception to developing countries where women are desperate for options other than bearing up to 8 children (and often dying as a result).
The proven strategy for curbing explosive population growth is education and reproductive healthcare for women so they have the opportunity to work, earn income, and provide economic stability for their families.
Women who gain access to economic stability have fewer children, and the children they do have survive and thrive.
Every nation that provides an educational and economic path forward for women has seen fertility rates drop along with average family size.
I remember an anecdote from Faye Wattleton when she was head of Planned Parenthood who often traveled to Africa and Asia to advocate women's health to political leaders. Along with an invitation to visit, many political leaders when asked how Ms. Wattleton can help, would reply "please bring a shipment of contraceptives."
If developed nations don't provide assistance with women's reproductive health, explosive population growth in developing countries will result in future wave upon wave of refugees and migrants.
The reality is that the fate of America, the fate of the earth, rides entirely on the fate of women.
43
Another 40 Days for Life campaign starts in just a few days and I intend to take part. This important group has many thousands of participants around the world and in every state and has had a large impact on saving both babies and mothers from the terrible fate of abortion. This worthy cause is made up of men and women young and older folks who take the pro life cause seriously. Their work does not stop at the birth of the child but continues long after offering housing, employment and job training.
We stand outside of Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities and quietly pray to end abortion. There are compassionate sidewalk counselors who offer alternatives to abortion through pamphlets and other information. They are never coerced but just informed that help is available to both mother and baby. Many lives have been saved due to the genuine concern for mother and child. Those who chose life will often return so happy they did not abort their infants. Many even join in the pro life cause and become serious advocates. Who better to represent the pro life movement then a women who has decided to keep their baby. They certainly have had a major impact on many mothers not choosing abortion.
1
Now all those pro-life women out there protesting have cost most women access their to birth control.
That ought to decrease the need to choose abortion. Great plan increase unwanted pregnancies to decrease abortions. It will be interesting to see if this GOP plan works.
35
@KMW Women are not receiving cancer screening and other vital services when these clinics close. Is that "pro-life"? Living, breathing women don't count, do they?
51
@KMW why don’t you leave women alone? How would you like to be harassed when going about exercising your legally protected rights? If you had genuine concern for anything other than harassing women into doing things they way you would, there are at least a million better ways to go about it that don’t involve harassing women. And don’t kid yourself - that’s exactly what you do. Regardless of how softly you may speak while doing it.
35
The Washington Post has an article today and University of Virginia health system bankrupting patients who can't afford to pay prices that are inflated above what insurance companies pay. What's wrong with these people, who want to prevent others from getting health care, or take their homes to pay for emergency surgery?
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The GOP will fade away without the anti-abortion and pro-gun vote. They would never let the rights and health of women, or the lives of innocent Americans, get in the way of their grip on power so they can continue to give tax breaks to the wealthy and govern how people need to live their one and only life on earth.
The GOP loves to talk about protecting freedom, but if you don't happen to be male and a gun owner, you will never feel its warmth and benevolence.
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@David
Don't forget wealthy .
A reasonable policy by pro=choice groups are needed.There is a point when the state has a responsibility to protect life. Most are comfortable about a women's choice in the first trimester and a majority comfortably believe that the second trimester is fine to protect mother's health.At 37 weeks however the state should define when and how an abortion can be done.
Planned Parenthood provides spotty care and I would like to see women get care in private offices, medical school and community clinics.Medicare for all would help to provide women's care that is the same over all income levels.
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@Gdk Planned Parenthood provides NO care when they have to close.
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@Gdk, where do you get the idea PP provides "spotty care"? PP has been both my gynecologist and primary care provider for 40 years! I can get an appointment in less than 10 days, as opposed to 6 months at a private practice gynecologist and the cost is about 1/3 of a private practice which probably suits my health insurance company fine.
There is no excuse for this administration taking away gynecology and contraceptive services for women. From a fiscal point of view, it makes absolutely no sense!
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I can answer some of your questions. No state allows an abortion at 37 weeks. The notion that a viable infant can be aborted that close to birth is pure disinformation from anti-choice forces. If there’s a medical emergency for mother or child, labor may be induced early to provide care. The baby is given the same care as any other premature infant.
Every state places severe restrictions on abortions at 24 weeks, some states earlier. Usually abortions are done because of serious risks to the mother’s life or health, or because the fetus is not viable.
I think Roe is already a good compromise. Roe is the Democratic position.
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Control over women and reproduction, a la "Handmaid's Tale," is what this has been about all along. It's disguised as piety and religiosity, but it's about the patriarchy. I've been saying this for 40 years, but I am nobody famous, not a pundit or a syndicated columnist. I am a married, straight, cisgendeted woman, and I had to fight for my reproductive rights in the 1970s, back when you needed your husband's permission to obtain birth control. Let's please not go back there again.
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@Denise: Claiming to know what God thinks is the most coddled insult to intelligence in this land of lies that defies its own Constitution every day.
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@Denise: you did not need your spouse's permission to get BC in the 70s.
Certainly NOT in liberal California!!!!
Maybe the 50s or early 60s.
NOT THE SEVENTIES.
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First, California wasn’t liberal in the seventies. Second, she didn’t say she was living in California then. Her statement is accurate.
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This would be an opportunity for a person of means to step up and fund with some of the millions or billions that they would never be able to spend in their lifetime. This would be use of those resources that could really make an impact and a positive difference in many lives. This present Government has no empathy or sympathy for women on the lower end of the economy who are struggling to just survive. I hope there is karma in this life and they have an chance to know the stress and pain of challenge and struggle.
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@Sschmidt It's especially ironic considering that so many of these "right thinking" Republicans turn to their own family-physician buddies to help their daughters and sisters and wives out with an abortion if they get pregnant. Or they just have them vacation in states where abortion is freely available.
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The laws in Ohio contribute to the exodus of young people in the state. If my daughter chooses to move West, I will support her decision 100%. Who wants to live in the Dark Ages?
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Healthy moms mean healthy babies who require less healthcare.
Overall, this system is going downhill.
The traditional nuclear family has disappeared. Most are dual-income or single parent (Pre Research). Over 1/3 of children are latchkey kids.
Kids spent over 4 hrs/day on the phones (Weight of the Nation). A high % have no real in-person friends.
Nutrient levels in food are declining due to farming practices (USDA). The avg diet is 60% processed food (USDA).
The military is seeing fairly high rates of entry nutrient deficiencies (25% of women/9% of men with iron anemia)(Cropper) or osteopenia (Lappe; Rivero). The CDC NHANES documents declining BMD due to inactivity, etc.
Meanwhile the experts preach that multi-vitamins are useless while the facts say otherwise. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/9/8/849/htm#
So, it's a race to the bottom.
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@CW
Infant mortality here is already approaching third world levels.
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@CW
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/1-the-american-family-today/
https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2019/07/30/loneliness-friendship-new-friends-poll-survey
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/parenting-in-america/
https://www.slideshare.net/James8981/state-of-obesity-2018
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@CW
Rich women do not have these problems.
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I hope women get to vote this year in the cities where a Democratic vote can be meaningful. The Ohio Secretary of State has threatened to purge voter rolls.
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THANK you NYT for calling out the hypocrisy of these policty positions for what they are. I never thought I would live to see this day.
As long as women are denied control over their own bodies, we still live in a patriarchy--no matter how many women are in positions of leadership, no matter how many women star in movies, no matter how many women with Nobel Prizes.
Unfortunately, the women most harmed by these policies are the least aware of (or concerned with) politics and government, and the least aware of how these policy positions impact them. They are just busy trying to survive, many with less than a high school education (42% of US Americans have a high school education or LESS).
The white women who voted for Trump don't have to worry about having access to birth control or health care. They are still caught up in the myth of "self responsibility" as if having an unwanted pregnancy is all the woman's fault.
There's plenty of ignorance to go around.
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@PeteG
I'm surprised to see you put this comment in print...I would have expected to find it only in a Trump tweet or stump speech.
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war on women, and getting away with it to boot
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@John Mullowney
Perhaps. But lots and lots of women support the war on women.
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Unless you are a political junkie like me, for many women who are too busy to pay close attention to what's being done by republicans to their health care options - and yes reproductive services are very much part of general health - this has not hit home yet.
When it does, and it will, even republican, evangelical, and I assume the anti-abortion crowd will find that they too have been adversely impacted. Fathers and husbands will realize the health of their daughters and wives is being compromised by politicians pandering to religious extremists.
This ought to be painfully evident by November 2020. I hope and believe the backlash in the voting booth will be overwhelming.
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@Deb
When the first white women is executed in Alabama for "fetal suicide" after she could not prove her miscarriage was natural, you will see people burning down evangelical gathering places. With good, but deferred, reason.
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What is wrong with the GOP? What's wrong with the rest of the country? Why are we allowing a semi disenfranchised part of the population to break our rules and control our lives?
First, there is this thing of "freedom and justice for all" and the GOP is taking away a freedom (health care management) from a significant part of the population.
Second, this "freedom of religion" thing that everyone waves about when we all know the first amendment has a scrivener’s error where the second word was supposed to be "from" i.e. “Freedom from Religion”. Why are we making secular laws based on religious feelings or teachings?
Then there's this thing in the 2nd amendment about "A well regulated Militia". If you want to have a gun, you've got to be part of the Militia and that means psychological tests, weapons handling and training and all the other things done by a Militia.
From childhood (and naturalization, for those not born in the U.S., we have had the constitution drilled into our heads as the most important document in our country. We read about Nathan Hale in elementary school. We also read about Benedict Arnold - he tried to sell West Point to the British – a lot like selling a Trump hotel to the Russians.
Today's GOP looks a lot more like Benedict Arnold than Nathan Hale.
Their treason is mentioned above. When are we going to use constitutional law and powers to put an end to this fiasco and the political party that enabled its existence?
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@William
Thank you William. You make perfect sense.
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@William: Thank you. Very nicely said.
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Nothing more vividly proves that the Constitution isn't worth the parchment it was written on than the failure of Congress to comply with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
The US really is a comprehensive insult to intelligence.
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The Republican approach to women's health isn't all that different from their overall approach to many other programs and protections: REPEAL!!! And. replace?
For people who claim to promote family values, they sure aren't good about promoting and enhancing the value of families except with lip service. Or if they're wealthy families.
I stand with women because they're people too, and I literally wouldn't be here today without them.
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The anti-abortion war has never really been about abortion. It is about controlling women's bodies. How many times do we have to say this?
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Apparently we cannot say enough that anti-abortion is about controlling women. Unfortunately their scare tactics have managed to reel in a lot of well-meaning people who believe in the absoluteness of their position, and don't believe women can be accountable for their decisions. If you believe god is against abortion and birth control, at least let us take our chances.
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@jenn
Controlling POOR women's bodies.
Rich women can get any procedure they want.
20
Trump and his administration is simply pure concentrated evil. What did Amy Schumer day about her bouts with severe morning sickness- “the reason they haven’t found a cure is that men don’t get it” or something similar and men for the most part will never understand period.
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We live in a nation, controlled by old, white men, who have such utter contempt of women (who, just as a side note, were good enough to birth and rear such ingrates) that they don't even bother consulting experts in gynecology, obstetrics, public heath, and economics to ascertain what will happen to the health of their constituents--but!
God wills it! Except that God doesn't; the bible says nothing about prenatal care and family planning...unless you want to get into some great conversations about those old testament lines about onanism (riveting stuff, I tell you).
So, all you religious folks: help me to understand why, in the effort to "protect" the unborn, hypothetical children across this earth you would hurl their mothers into a ditch you've dug, having robbed them of services to ensure their unborn child's health and their own survival in our maternal health care system. Murder the mother to protect the child? Of course it's more complicated than that, but there's an incredible blind spot in dehumanizing mothers in the name of "protecting" the children.
The solution is where we're headed: elect many, many more women. Far more women than men. When women have more power in congress, we might actually see women protected in our health care system. Meantime, shame on us.
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@John
"The solution is where we're headed: elect many, many more women. Far more women than men. When women have more power in congress, we might actually see women protected in our health care system. Meantime, shame on us."
Based on the past behavior of female GOP senators I think your optimism may be misplaced. The only way your proposal works is if Congress is stuffed with Democratic women. The GOP women are no better than the old white guys.
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@John: "God" is only a narcissistic projection of human nature onto the whole universe to make the projector's demands non-negotiable.
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@John, It is complicated. First, don't forget that transmen are men, too. Second, both NY and CA have a white man as governor.
The GOP is comprised of white men who want to keep women "in their place" by controlling their bodies and career mobility. The best way for them to achieve that is to make sure they control women's reproduction options. All women need to keep this in mind when they go to the polls. Anyone with an (R) after their name is out to clip their future. Let's put an end to this misogyny!
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This is what America voted for. Americans blame the poor for all their problems, just ask them.
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@Mogwai WRONG. Hillary won the popular vote. This is NOT what the majority of citizens want.
7
Let me get this straight... Poor women shouldn’t have access to birth control, and when they (surprise) get pregnant, they can’t get an abortion. Then when the have the baby, after incurring massive expenses for the birth, the child should not get food assistance, medical care, child care, or housing assistance. Is that how this works? How do people fit through the hoops necessary to make this seem logical?
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@JK
Yes, you got it right, that's how this is supposed to work.
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@JK As far as I can see, they don't. It seems like the purpose is to keep "poor people" poor. I don't mind limiting abortion rights if we can offer equitable access to reproductive health care, birth control, sex education that isn't abstinence only, maternity care, day care, natal care. The list is on and on.
29
@JK
Also this tragedy is made incredibly worse in that Planned Parenthood also provides pre-natal and post-natal care
The lack of access to prenatal care is a major factor in miscarriages and lack of post natal care, well dont we have the highest rate of maternal deaths among so called rich countries? (oh and added to this is the gradual sabotage of the ACA --aka Obamacare-- that makes prenatal care harder or impossible to have by so many)
I might add to JK 's excellent post that I have noticed that people fanatical about depriving women of choice actually dont like children. Not only they elect and support politicians who are anti choice but in addition of eliminating or attempting to eliminate all programs to help kids, they also support forcing an 11 year old child to carry a pregnancy to term which means that she will incur injuries to her not yet full grown body and might be made incapable of having a child later on in life....
Forcing children to carry pregnancies (and not even if they're the result of rape which would be in just about all cases of child pregnancy) proves that those anti-choice people hate children.....
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I’ve been wondering about that ‘beautiful health care plan that will cover everybody and cost less’ that Trump promised he would unveil and have Congress enact during his first term in the White House. Is this part of that ‘beautiful’ plan, or was ‘repeal and don’t replace’ the full meal deal?
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@chambolle It is just one more example of "vaporware" pushed out a "great" by the repubs.
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@chambolle
Remember when Trump said "nobody knew health care could be so complicated?".
11
You could ask a health care provider.
The Republican crusade to ban abortions has yielded electoral gold for decades and remains a key part of its present appeal for votes. As this crusade widens to include a ban on contraceptive assistance and advice on preventing sexually transmitted diseases it attracts those who believe these efforts are based on righteous moral or religious principles. This makes me wonder what moral or religious principles they think justify separating families and other government policies that add new layers of suffering to the less fortunate. Taking the moral high ground can be commendable but becomes hollow when viewed through a tunnel vision that ignores other pressing moral issues.
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@William
Southern evangelicals are one of the most negative and destructive forces in America today.
6
@arusso Side by side with Southern evangelicals are Roman Catholics. Just take a look at the supreme court. Both are committed to misogyny and control of women as core values.
1
John Kasich is still pretending he's a "moderate." People are fooled too easily.
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@David Henry Mostly the media, who have to have a story that sells.
1
The GOPs successful war on women means that maternal deaths are up, access to family planning is down and we are all potential hamdmaids now
A vote for any republican is a vote against your wife, and daughter’s autonomy. It’s not just abortion they are trying to stop its birth control too.
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@Deirdre
You are correct. And they don't think insurance should pay for obstetrics services either
41
Each woman has one vote. If they had a clue, they would band together and stop this massacre of their health services...
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@Psyfly John
And any man with a pretense of decency should be joining them. This isn't a "single issue" problem for men who think loosing their God given right to bear any kind of weaponry they choose in any location is THE "single issue."
Hard to love a country that hates half its citizens.
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@Psyfly John
The math seems to work. Somewhere along the way ~50% of women vote against their self interests right along with their misogynist male counterparts. You might think that if men were split roughly in half on this issue that women generally might skew a bit more in favor of their own best interests and tilt the scales in their favor but I guess not.
12
@Psyfly John
"Right to Life," Republican, Trump, got 53% of white female voters! All this male bashing, and women vote against their own best interests. Hillary, had her faults but she wouldn’t be closing down health clinics.
2
The pro-life crowd has never really been pro-life. If they were they would care about the health and wellbeing of children after they are born. Cutting SNAP and education programs, promoting never-ending wars in the Mideast, and limiting access to affordable healthcare are some things many Pro-Life people are okay with. It is and always has been about the control of women and making sure they know their place. The saddest part is these one-issue voters elected the most incompetent fool they could find, and it isn't the unborn who are suffering; it's the rest of us.
585
@D Jones I no longer use the anti-choice movement's well-known slogan, because it's manipulative, as it was intended to be. These people are anti-abortion or anti-choice; they think they should be able to prohibit women's access to legal medical procedures and restrict methods of and access to contraception. I would like people to reconsider repeating their slogan because it helps them hide their motives and the results of their actions. Call them what they are: anti-choice.
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@D Jones I remember reading about a survey in the Utne Reader long ago that asked participants to indicate if they would kill soldiers in war, convicts on death row, animals for sport or food, etc. The "Conservative Christian" respondents overwhelmingly indicated that they were OK with killing pretty much anything except an unborn human fetus.
37
@Kathy
I use forced-birth.
36
The Cons want to break our spirits, ruin our health and opportunities, and treat us as objects to be used.
Make no mistake of their intentions. Do they really show any evidence that they really care about children's lives? You have got to be delusional to think so. it is all about female slavery.
Vote to put the GOP out of business!!!
159
The misogyny of this administration is horrific. Women *will* suffer, and it's difficult to not think that is probably the goal.
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@turtle
It isn't the misogyny of this administration that is doing us in; it is the willingness of the rest of the country to tolerate it.
40
@turtle I knew a very conservative Christian Republican guy who believed with all of his heart that it was women's lot to suffer. Girdles, tight pointy high heels, underwire bras, facials, botox, hair dyes, waxing, fake eyelashes, etc., were all things that women had to suffer through in order to make themselves desirable, acceptable or just plain tolerated by men. He was totally okay with the idea of prohibiting women's access to abortions until his own girlfriend thought that she was pregnant. Then he thought that he had the right to demand that she get one. And on a side-note, he was also a deadbeat dad. So yeah, he fit the profile to a "T."
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@turtle
Nothing probable about it - the goal is to induce reproductive slavery. Their stated positions are logically inconsistent and empirical failures. We already hear them whining about the irresponsibility of women (whose contraception access they block) and their tax dollars going to feed the resulting babies.
13
Many of these clinics provide essential medical services to the poor, marginalised, impoverished, and minorities - the very people that those on the right view as undeserving, or as authors of their own fate, or as not working hard enough to better their life situation. That many on the right also seek and need such services is besides the point - these many simply do not see themselves as the 'undeserving other' and they will continue to vote as they have always done . . .
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