Mermaid Musings

Is this 2009 or 1821? Congress is hard at work on the health care reform and according to a Women’s Health Policy Report, there are efforts being made to exclude abortion from health care in the US. As if it weren’t bad enough that the Hyde Amendment prevents women on Medicaid, Federal employees and military personnel from accessing abortion services by denying payment for said services. No, now these fundamentalist ideologues and the wimp-ass democrats who like to pander to them want to make sure that private insurance companies no longer pay for abortion services either. How will they do this? By not allowing federal subsidies to be used to pay for any policy that covers abortion care.

Does anyone else find this insulting, not to mention fascist? It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? The very people who oppose universal health care through a single payer system because it smacks of socialism and too much government involvement into people’s private lives (ie, their health care) have no qualms whatsoever in limiting the services available to women.

This on top of the ‘personhood‘ movement is almost enough to make me throw my hands in the air. (I mean really, civil rights for zygotes? WTF?) Roe may be safe with Obama as president (and that’s a maybe in my book) but a woman’s access to abortion is by no means secure. And having a right with no ability to access it is kind of like not having the right. As my long time heroine, Marlene Gerber-Fried, recently said - having Obama in office opens a window of opportunity for advancing women’s reproductive rights. We need to use this small window of opportunity to KNOCK DOWN THE DAMN DOOR!!

To hell with the common ground agenda. We need to stop the hand-wringing and apologizing: abortion is a human right. Period. Women deserve the right to determine the course of their lives and if that means terminating an unwanted pregnancy, so be it. We need to take pride in making the decisions that are best for us and best for our families. Get out of the closet, throw off the shame. We need abortion pride day! I get accused of being to flippant about abortion all the time, but damn it life is too short for all this shame and silence. Women choose abortions for all kinds of reasons and we need to start acknowledging and honoring women who choose abortion for making good decsions for themselves, their health, and the well being of their families.

Write to your representatives and tell them to stay the hell out of women’s bedrooms, bathrooms and reproductive decisions. Abortion is basic reproductive health care and a woman’s right.

Grr.