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| revolutionary socialists in the United States |
Women�s reproductive rights facing worst attacks since Roe v. Wade
by Rebecca Doran
The message behind the March For Women�s Lives is clear. The issue of
women�s reproductive health and freedom is now facing the most hostile
attacks since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which struck down state
laws
banning abortion.
In the past nine years alone, state legislators have enacted over 350
anti-choice measures, with 45 of those bills passed in 2003.
The federal government has also been very active in pursuing
anti-choice
legislation. In 2003, members of Congress pushed through bills such as
the
Child Custody Protection Act, which would prohibit anyone other than a
parent�including a grandparent, aunt, adult sibling, or religious
counselor�from accompanying a minor across state lines for an abortion
without complying with the home state's parental involvement law.
According to pro-choice activists, this bill could endanger young
women's
lives and health by isolating them from adult assistance, supervision,
or
guidance.
In 2003, anti-choice sponsors, who falsely claimed that some hospitals
and
doctors are forced to perform abortions against their will, introduced
the
Abortion Non-Discrimination Act. This legislation gives anti-choice
companies a virtual permission slip to ignore laws governing other
health-care providers.
Measures such as the one aimed at the drug mifepristone, formerly known
as
RU 486, which would restrict the physicians who can prescribe the drug
to
the limited number who are trained to perform surgical abortions, are
seriously endangering not only the right to safe abortion, but the
right to
sex education and birth control as well.
President Bush has cancelled the entire U.S contribution to the UN
Family
Planning Program, which provides reproductive health care and
counseling,
not including abortion, to the world�s poorest women. He has also
placed a
global gag-rule policy on international family-planning clinics that
counsel
patients on abortion or take a public pro-choice stand.
Last November, the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act was passed
by
Congress and signed into law by President Bush. This new federal ban
could
block abortions as early as the 12th to 15th week of pregnancy, even
when
doctors say that they are safe and that they may be the best choice for
women in the second trimester.
Although most abortions are performed before the 12th week, many poor,
working-class women must wait longer to terminate their pregnancies due
to a
lack of funds to cover the procedure. Women trapped in abusive
situations,
and rural women without transportation are also negatively affected by
this
ban.
Another major set back for women came on March 25 when the Senate
approved
legislation making it a separate offense to harm a fetus while
committing a
federal crime against a pregnant woman. This �Unborn Victims of
Violence
Act� (UVVA), was signed by President Bush on April 1.
Under this new law, a fetus will now gain legal rights that challenge
the
Roe v. Wade decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the word
"person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the
unborn.
The UVVA contains a groundbreaking section that defines an unborn child
as
any child in utero. Furthering this definition of a fetus, the authors
of
the bill declared that any child in the womb, is a member of the
species
homo sapiens.
Attempts by the state to overrule the power of the mother to make
important
health-care decisions for herself as well as her fetus are becoming
more
common. In one case, when Amber Marlowe refused to have a C-section, a
Pennsylvania hospital obtained a court order to perform the operation
against her will. Marlow and her husband were forced to flee to another
hospital, where she delivered the baby normally.
In response to the Marlowe case, Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for
Pregnant Women stated that the real conflict is not between mother and
fetus
but "between the pregnant woman on behalf of herself and the fetus and
the
raw power of the state to tie her down and force her to go under the
knife."
This article first appeared in the May 2004 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
Socialist Action: 298 Valencia St., San Francisco CA 94103
(415) 255-1080 -- socialistact@igc.org |
Youth 4 Socialist Action: P.O. Box 16853, Duluth MN 55816
(715) 394-6660 -- mnsocialist@yahoo.com |
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