Fascists Attack Planned Parenthood to Take Away Birth Control and Abortion

September 21, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On September 18, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at blocking $500 million in federal funds to Planned Parenthood.

This attempt to defund Planned Parenthood is the latest attack in an ongoing campaign by fascist forces to stigmatize abortion and birth control, to demonize those providing these health services to women, and to eventually make it completely impossible for women to get birth control and abortions—to force women to bear children against their will.

This legislation could affect millions of the women who go to Planned Parenthood clinics every year. Planned Parenthood is the largest provider in the U.S. of family planning services, including birth control and abortion. Over 25 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clients are teenagers and 75 percent have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. All of these women would be drastically affected by this legislation. It will be much harder, if not impossible, for millions of women to get essential health care like screening for breast and cervical cancers, pregnancy testing, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases; sex education, tubal ligations. And it will mean that millions of women will not have access to birth control, emergency contraception and abortions.

This will mean more women forced to bear children they do not want. And forced motherhood and the control of women IS the agenda of these Christian fascists.

This will make it much harder for women like Princess to get birth control and abortions:

“She is young, still living at home. She works full time and goes to school full time and had to push back her appointment because she was having trouble coming up with the money. No one in her family knew. ‘I didn’t want to be a disappointment to my mom,’ she explained. If she had a child, something she considered briefly, she couldn’t imagine staying in her parents’ home. Too much judgment and stress, too much disapproval. But on her own with a child, she’d never finish school. Besides, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted kids ever. Plus, she has sickle cell anemia, a disease that can prove dangerous—even deadly—during pregnancy.” (Sunsara Taylor, "Who Are the Women Going to the Last Abortion Clinic In Mississippi?" at revcom.us, August 17, 2015)

These Christian fascists want to effectively ban ALL forms of birth control and abortion. These reactionary religious forces uphold the patriarchal view that a woman’s role is to be subordinate to her husband and a breeder of his children. They want women to be, in essence, the property of men, to be controlled by their husbands and to be breeders of children, breeders of property, for their husbands—and birth control as well as abortion can undermine that.

The vote in the House to defund Planned Parenthood came after hearings on an undercover video done by a Christian fascist anti-abortion organization, which claims the video shows Planned Parenthood agreeing to sell fetal organs and tissue, which would be against the law. But what you see in the video is Planned Parenthood executives discussing how women can donate fetal tissue to medical research—all of which is not only perfectly legal, but has the potential to help advance treatments for many diseases.

This video is being used to say Planned Parenthood is “killing babies.” But let’s be clear: Fetuses ARE NOT babies. Fetuses are not human beings. But women are! And if anyone believes that “fetuses are babies” they should read the article by ASK that breaks down why this is an unscientific lie. (“What Is an Abortion and Why Women Must Have the Right to Choose”) It is a woman’s absolute right to choose whether or not to bear a child and avail herself of any form of safe birth control and abortion.

Being anti-abortion is a major part of every Republican presidential candidate’s platform. And Republican leaders in Congress are saying they won’t pass the spending bill coming up for a vote unless it includes the defunding of Planned Parenthood. They are threatening to shut the government down over this demand. This is how deadly serious they are in their effort to win a major battle in their war to completely deny women the right to choose.

This war on women is real: There is currently a bill likely to pass that will ban all abortions past 20 weeks. Six states have only one abortion clinic left. Over 330 laws restricting abortion have been introduced—and 50 laws have been passed nationwide this year alone.

The effort to defund Planned Parenthood is part of the war to demonize and de-legitimize abortion in order to pave the way to not only drastically cut back funds and close down clinics, but to ban and eliminate birth control and abortion altogether. This reactionary war to enslave women must be STOPPED.

 

 

 

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