War against Women
Gretchen Cook has an in-depth article on the war on contraception over at Salon (and yes, I know viewing the ad is annoying, but really it's worth it for this article. trust me.):

From conservative pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control pills to abstinence-only programs and anti-condom campaigns, access to contraception is facing tough challenges from the right. The strategy is similar to one that conservatives have used for abortion: Since overturning Roe vs. Wade looks unlikely in the near term, opponents have turned their sights on limiting access to the procedure. Now members of the religious and political right -- including the Bush administration -- are focusing on contraception, raising concern that they will succeed in curbing women's birth control choices and the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

"I am deeply concerned that they have gone further than I have ever seen them. This is far past a woman's right to make decisions regarding abortion to the point now that it's about their right to make decisions on contraception," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Salon. Murray and her Senate colleague Hillary Clinton have blocked President Bush's nominee to head the FDA, Lester Crawford, over his inaction as acting director of the agency to approve the morning-after pill for over-the-counter sale. An FDA advisory committee has given the drug overwhelming support as safe and effective, and Canada approved its nonprescription status last week. Publicly, Crawford says his indecision on the drug has nothing to do with ideology, but privately he told Murray it raises his concerns about "behavior," apparently alluding to arguments that the pill will encourage promiscuity.

There are also indications Crawford sides with those that equate Plan B with "chemical abortion." During his confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clinton asked Crawford: "Would you clarify for the committee that emergency contraception is a method for prevention of pregnancy, not the termination of pregnancy?" Crawford responded: "I may need to confer with the experts in the FDA about exactly what the physiology of it is." Labels on Plan B, the name that its maker, Barr Laboratories, has given it, say "for the prevention of pregnancy."

[snip]

Opposition to Plan B is just the latest and most visible drive by conservatives to curtail contraception, according to Heather Boonstra of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research group for reproductive issues. "There's a constituency out there that equates all contraception with abortion, and they're organizing in concerted ways to denigrate it," she says. That constituency includes a number of social and religious groups, but the one that takes the abortion-contraception connection perhaps the most literally is the American Life League (ALL), one of the largest antiabortion lobbyists. Founded 25 years ago, it claims 300,000 families as members.

"Many forms of so-called contraception work by preventing the implantation of an already created human being, and that kills a baby in the womb, and we consider that to be an early abortion," says ALL's vice president, Jim Sedlak. He says ALL's main mission is to inform women that all hormonal birth control methods and the IUD "are actually causing abortions themselves" and to force manufacturers to put that description prominently on contraceptive labels.

ALL's STOPP International campaign also seeks to cut government funding for Planned Parenthood, which it believes misinforms women about how contraception works. Sedlak says STOPP has been successful at the city level -- closing over 100 clinics around the country in the last 10 years -- and is now targeting state funding. He pointed to the Texas Legislature's recent decision to cut Planned Parenthood's state funding as one of ALL's biggest victories. "It's not as fast as we would like, but we'll take it, and we believe it will have a snowball effect and that when people understand what they're doing we'll be closing clinics even faster."

ALL is not the only threat to Planned Parenthood's funding. In every one of his budgets, Bush has frozen funds for Title X, the 30-year-old program that pays for family-planning services for low-income women. Susanne Martinez, Planned Parenthood's vice president for public policy, says that although Congress has restored some of that money, this "assault on family planning" has crippled Planned Parenthood's contraceptive distribution -- about 95 percent of the Title X funds it receives go directly to that service. She is also concerned Bush has appointed to agencies like the FDA and Health and Human Services "people who have very publicly said they opposed the use of birth control for the unmarried. It's something [Bush] has been doing in a very strategic way."

The article goes on to discuss abstinence-only education, conscience clauses for pharmacists, the campaign against condoms, and insurance coverage for birth control, to name just a few issues at stake under the Bush regime. This morning's Associated Press article on the House approval of tougher abortion-consent laws noted that, if approved by the Senate (and Frist has indicated it is a priority for him), it will be the fifth law reducing access to abortion since Bush took office in 2001:

Four [other] bills aimed at reducing the number of abortions have been enacted since Bush won the White House in 2001:

Last year, Congress made it a separate crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman.

Another law last year denied federal funds to state and local agencies that act against health care providers and insurers because they don't provide or pay for abortions.

In 2003, it outlawed a procedure — generally carried out in the second or third trimester — in which a fetus is partially delivered before being aborted.

In 2002, lawmakers amended the legal definitions for person, human being, child and individual to include any fetus that survives an abortion procedure.

Separately, Senate abortion opponents last month defeated Democratic amendments to a bankruptcy bill that would have restricted the ability of abortion clinic protesters to file for bankruptcy when confronted with large court fines or damages.

I believe it is time for the women of America to say enough. We need to expose the religious right's war on contraception and reproductive freedom to the vast majority of Americans who support women's rights to contraception and choice. As Senator Patty Murray says, "I think the American public is basically outraged. People just cannot believe that access to birth control is in jeopardy. So the more they're aware, the more they'll act." Tell your neighbors, your friends, your family. Attend a local NOW chapter meeting (the New Orleans meeting is May 15--find out when and where yours is here). Contact the FDA. Maybe it is time to organize a march on Washington. One thing is certain: we can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines.
- posted by TJ @ 12:39 PM