Government Raids Target Texas Clinics in the War on Women
October 26, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On October 23, Texas State Health Department officials raided Planned Parenthood clinics in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Brownsville to demand that the clinics turn over thousands of pages of documents, including patient records and employee phone numbers and addresses. These fascistic raids were related to the move by the governor of Texas just a few days earlier to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
Think about what it means that the government forced their way into health clinics and seized private health records. Imagine you’re a woman whose private and sensitive information—past medical history including any abortions or STDs, medications you are taking, other personal information you’ve shared in expectation that they would remain private between you and your doctor—now subject to the prying eyes of government agents acting as morality police. This is a nightmarish horror—and needs to be called out widely.
These outrageous steps against Planned Parenthood—and the people who use their services and work at the clinics—are part of an ongoing campaign across the country and on a national level by fascist forces against the right to abortion. There is an intensifying and concerted effort to stigmatize abortion as well as birth control, to demonize doctors and others providing these vital health services to women, and eventually to make it totally impossible for women to get birth control and abortions legally and safely—in other words, to force women to bear children against their will.
As part of justifying their attack on Planned Parenthood, Texas officials cited the undercover video done by a Christian fascist anti-abortion organization, which claims the video shows Planned Parenthood illegally agreeing to sell fetal tissue and organs—when Planned Parenthood officials are actually discussing how women can donate fetal tissue to medical research, which can potentially advance medical treatment in various areas and is perfectly legal.
The anti-abortion forces are using the deceitfully edited video to accuse Planned Parenthood of “killing babies” as part of their overall anti-women offensive aimed at completely denying the right of women to choose. But the scientific fact is that fetuses are NOT babies. And women ARE human beings who should have the unquestionable right to choose whether or not to bear a child—and to have safe and unimpeded access to any form of birth control and abortion, without apology.
This war against women is taking place across the U.S. Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana have also moved to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. On October 23, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Republican bill aimed at rolling back elements of Obamacare and including the blocking of federal payments to Planned Parenthood. Another bill would ban all abortions past 20 weeks. Six states have only one abortion clinic left. Over 330 state laws restricting abortion have been introduced this year alone—and some 50 have been passed.
Behind the moves to effectively ban ALL forms of birth control and abortion is the patriarchal view that a woman’s role is to be subservient to men—to be controlled by their husbands and to be breeders of children, breeders of property, for their husbands. Forced motherhood and the control of women is the agenda of these Christian fascists and powerful forces within the ruling class. This reactionary crusade to enslave women must be opposed—and it must be STOPPED.
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.
