It's about more than just Roe v. Wade
The religious right has women's reproductive rights squarely in its sight. As I've been discussing here for the past few months, our right to birth control is under attack. The right to abortion is being chipped away slowly as well:

Today, the House passed a bill that will "make it illegal to dodge parental-consent laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions." So, if you are 15 years old and live in a state that requires parental notification prior to abortion, your father has been raping you and you get pregnant, you now have only 2 options: ask that same sexually abusive parent to help you get an abortion, or petition the court for one without their consent (yeah, right). Young girls used to have the option of getting an older friend, or teacher, or relative to drive them to a state with less stringent notification laws, but not any longer. What if you're being raped by your uncle, and you're afraid to tell your parents? Well, you are just fucked. What if you have fundie parents, like I did? Also screwed. And don't forget that 54 Democrats voted for this abomination.

Late last year, the Justice Department omitted information regarding emergency contraception from the final draft of its long-awaited rape treatment Protocol distributed to police and health care workers:

Gail Burns-Smith, one of several dozen experts who vetted the protocol during its three-year development by Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, said emergency contraception was included in an early draft, and she does not know of anyone who opposed it.

"But in the climate in which we are currently operating, politically it's a hot potato," said Burns-Smith, retired director of Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services. [snip]

"In too many hospitals, the nurses and doctors are still reading the rape-kit directions while they're doing the exam," said Linda Ledray, who directs the Sexual Assault Resource Service in Minneapolis.

One of the most inconsistent aspects of care is the morning-after pill. A 2002 analysis of national emergency-room data by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey found that only 21 percent of sexual-assault victims received it. In a 1998 survey of urban Catholic hospitals, a University of Pennsylvania study found that 12 of 27 centers had rules against informing rape victims about the method.

The risk of pregnancy after rape is small — less than 5 percent — but the vulnerable group is large. Of 333,000 sexual assaults and rapes reported in 1998, about 25,000 resulted in pregnancies — of which 22,000 could have been prevented, a Princeton University population researcher estimated.

That's 22,000 too goddamn many. But here's where the article really gets interesting:

"I think it's very smart not to put that in the guidelines," said Dr. George Isajiw, a board member of Physicians for Life, a Philadelphia anti-abortion group.

By giving emergency contraception, he said, "you're giving a dangerous drug that's not doing any good, or else you're causing an abortion. As a moral principle, a woman has the right to defend herself against an aggressor. But she doesn't have the right to kill the baby."

The fundies' plan is gradual, but clear. Eliminate late-term abortions. Make it harder for women and girls to get abortions. Restrict access to birth control. Overturn Roe v. Wade and leave it up to the states. And in those states where they can, deny abortion even in cases of rape. We are nothing but wombs to them, and so we CANNOT stop fighting.

Update: Dr. George Isajiw is also opposed to abortion in cases where the mother's health is at risk. In fact, he claims that such a thing never happens.
- posted by TJ @ 8:30 PM