Why Planned Parenthood's Defense Against GOP Attacks Could Backfire

[Novara]

Why Planned Parenthood's Defense Against GOP Attacks Could Backfire

That’s exactly what we are doing with Planned Parenthood and abortion. By defending Planned Parenthood as “only” three percent abortion care, we are reinforcing abortion stigma. When we siphon off abortion care from the rest of the reproductive health care spectrum, we actually end up stigmatizing the very thing we’re supposed to be defending.

We have backed ourselves into such an unnecessary and harmful corner that Planned Parenthood is now publicly thanking Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump for rejecting “extreme positions” on the organization and expressing his potential support for some funding. This from a man who, in the same statement, said that Planned Parenthood is “like an abortion factory” and that the government should not fund abortion care.

What are we doing here? Planned Parenthood is thanking a candidate for saying he hates them, but maybe doesn’t hate every single thing about them?

We have to stop this. We have to stop inferring that abortion it isn’t really health care, that it’s okay to deny government funding to it. We cannot defend reproductive health care by reinforcing the stigmatizing notion that abortion is different.

Abortion is not different. Abortion is health care. Abortion is still legal in this country, and a basic human and constitutional right.

Across the country, there are many independent health care clinics that specialize in providing abortion. These clinics provide safe and quality abortion care to pregnant people in need. They are not breaking the law or doing something bad. They are providing a basic health care need that one in three women in America will have, and yet we have relegated them to the shameful shadows while we try to win favor with those who hate us the most.

It wouldn’t matter if 100 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion care—they would still deserve our support and, quite frankly, federal funding. For nearly 40 years, the Hyde Amendment has barred the use of federal funds for abortion care, and it is renewed annually with support from Democrats as well as Republicans. The Democratic Party and liberals more broadly have conceded that abortion doesn’t deserve the same kind of funding that other health care services do. It is an egregious violation of the rights of low-income pregnant people, and yet the left has done little in the way of galvanizing to end it.

That’s why many reproductive rights supporters were so heartened by the introduction of the EACH Woman Act, which would ensure that all pregnant people, regardless of their income level, have access to safe and legal abortion care. If a woman receives health insurance through the federal government, she would be covered for all pregnancy-care, including abortion. Additionally, the EACH Woman Act would prohibit states from banning private insurance coverage for abortion care, a legislative trend that has been on the rise.

But we’re not talking about the EACH Woman Act anymore. We’re not even talking about abortion. We’re talking about how only three percent of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion-related and we’re praising Donald Trump for simply considering support for continued Planned Parenthood funding. By failing to embrace and defend abortion, we are hurting our movement, our rights and ourselves.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/planned-parenthood-shies-away-from-abortion

[niyad]

1. k and r + gazillion