I'm delighted to tell you that this morning, the Religious Institute released its new Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Family Planning, endorsed by more than 1000 religious leaders from across the theological spectrum.
The new Open Letter recognizes that all women must have equal access to contraception, and states that “the denial of [coverage for] family planning services effectively translates into coercive childbearing and is an insult to human dignity.” The release of this statement coincides with the recent Obama Administration release of proposed regulations, which affirmed its commitment to assure all women have birth control access without cost or administrative hurdles.
Too many of the press reports on the regulations equated the opposition of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to the inclusion of family planning services in the American Care Act with all religious institutions. It is a critical misunderstanding to equate the minority of those religious leaders who have fought the coverage of birth control during the past year with threats and lawsuits, with the majority of people of faith in the United States who support access to contraception. Let us be clear that support for religious freedom means that women must have the right to accept or reject the principles of their own faith without restrictions, regardless of their place of employment or geographical location. It is unethical for any single religious voice to claim to speak for all religious people in this debate.
More than a dozen major religious denominations have policies that support contraception. In addition, more than 8 in ten women at risk of unintended pregnancy use modern contraceptive methods, regardless of religious affiliation.
The 1000 endorsers of the new Open Letter come from 45 states and more than 35 religious traditions, including each of the major mainline Protestant denominations, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Muslim traditions. Participating faith leaders include 8 current and former presidents of national denominations including the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black (United Church of Christ), the Rev. Wes Granberg-Michaelson (Reformed Church in America), the Rev. Peter Morales (Unitarian Universalist Association), the Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins (Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)), and the Reverend Nancy Wilson, (Metropolitan Community Churches); seminary presidents including Dr. Philip A. Amerson (Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary), the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones (Union Theological Seminary), and The Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale (Episcopal Divinity School) and faculty from sixteen seminaries; heads of more than twenty national religious organizations, including the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good (Dr. Richard Cizik), Women of Reform Judaism (Rabbi Marla Feldman), the Beatitudes Society (Rev. Anne Howard), Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (Rev. Harry Knox), Catholics for Choice (Jon O’Brien), the Methodist Federation for Social Action (Jill A. Warren) and Muslims for Progressive Values (Ms. Ani Zonneveld); and prominent theologians from diverse perspectives including the Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo, the Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, Dr. Mary Hunt, the Right Reverend Gene Robinson, and Dr. Elizabeth Schussler. The Reverends Jones, Watkins, and Wilson all recently were worship leaders at the National Prayer Service.
The Open Letter was developed in 2012 as a direct response to increasing attempts to deny or restrict family planning access. The Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Family Planning was developed at a colloquium of a dozen renowned faith leaders and theologians sponsored by the Religious Institute. Participants included nationally prominent theologians and ordained clergy from Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant (evangelical and mainline denominations), Muslim and Unitarian Universalist traditions.
To read the entire letter, view the endorsers, or see the press release, go to www.religiousinstitute.org/olfp
Showing posts with label family planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family planning. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Diverse Multifaith Leaders Support Family Planning -- Of Course
This summer, I celebrated my 37th year working in sexual and reproductive health and rights. My very first publication in the field was a 1976 pamphlet for the Population Institute titled, “Does Your Campus Offer Birth Control?”aimed at extending contraceptive services to college students. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court had affirmed family planning for unmarried women, and more and more universities were recognizing that their health services needed to include prescribing contraceptives. Indeed, during my time at Wesleyan University, I had helped organize the movement to provide gynecological services at this previously all male school.
I never would have predicted that nearly four decades later that birth control would once again be controversial. After all, nine in ten heterosexually active women use family planning, nine in ten Americans believe that birth control use is morally acceptable , and three quarters of voters in 2012 agree that “we should do everything we can to make sure that people who want to use prescription birth control have affordable access to it.”
Yet, during the past two years, there have been efforts to pass so called “Personhood Amendments” that would criminalize hormonal methods of birth control, the federal government almost closed down because of an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, and contraceptive coverage in health care reform is being challenged by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, calling its inclusion an attack on their “religious liberty.” Given these efforts, coupled with increased restrictions on abortion and politicians’ ridiculous statements on how pregnancy does and doesn’t occur, terming this a “war on women” seems all too apt.
I am proud to tell you that this morning, 38 nationally recognized religious leaders are joining me in affirming safe, affordable, accessible, and comprehensive family planning services. They include current and past heads of denominations, such the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black (United Church of Christ), the Rev. Wes Granberg-Michaelson (Reformed Church in America), the Rev. Peter Morales (Unitarian Universalist Association), and the Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins (Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)); presidents of seminaries such as Dr. Philip A. Amerson (Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary), the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones (Union Theological Seminary), and The Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale (Episcopal Divinity School); organizational heads such as Dr. Richard Cizik (the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good), the Rev. Harry Knox (Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice), and Jon O'Brien (Catholics for Choice); and nationally recognized theologians such as the Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo, the Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, and Dr. Mary Hunt. They have all endorsed the Religious Institute’s new “Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Family Planning” [www.religiousinstitute.org/olfp]
The Open Letter was developed at a Religious Institute colloquium held this spring. A dozen Christian (mainline, Evangelical, and Roman Catholic), Jewish, and Muslim theologians created the Open Letter in a day of dialog and discussion. They affirmed that, “in a just world, all people would have equal access to contraception. The denial of family planning services effectively translates into coercive childbearing is an insult to human dignity.” They called on hospitals and health services, regardless of religious affiliation, to provide or refer to contraceptive services, and reminded those who would oppose such services, that “no single faith can claim final moral authority in domestic or international discourse.” They urged religious leaders to “advocate for increased U.S. financial support for domestic and global family planning services”.
There is nothing new about religious leaders supporting family planning. In 1929, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform Judaism) and in 1930, the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion passed the first religious organization policies supporting it. Today, at least 14 major denominations, including the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) (http://religiousinstitute.org/statement/birth-control), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, [http://www.religiousinstitute.org/statement/human-sexuality-and-sexual-behavior-a-social-statement-of-the-american-lutheran-church-a--1], and the Seventh Day Adventist Church [http://www.religiousinstitute.org/statement/birth-control-a-seventh-day-adventist-statement-of-consensus] have policies supporting contraception.
As people of faith, we must resist those who would deny individuals the ability to make their own personal decisions about their families and reproductive lives; indeed we must resist the political attempts to make such decisions and such services controversial when they are not. As the Open Letter states, “contraception allows for a fulfilling sexual life while reducing maternal and infant mortality, unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases.” Surely as the wide range of endorsers of the Open Letter demonstrates, family planning is common ground.
If you are a religious leader, please add your name to the list of endorsers by clicking www.religiousinstitute.org/olfp. Read the Open Letter and view the endorsements there as well. If you are a member of a faith community, please ask your religious leader to add their name. Help us spread the word about the new Open Letter on Facebook and Twitter.
Let us demonstrate to all who would once again limit contraception that people of faith understand that “contraception saves lives, promotes human flourishing, and advances the common good.”
I never would have predicted that nearly four decades later that birth control would once again be controversial. After all, nine in ten heterosexually active women use family planning, nine in ten Americans believe that birth control use is morally acceptable , and three quarters of voters in 2012 agree that “we should do everything we can to make sure that people who want to use prescription birth control have affordable access to it.”
Yet, during the past two years, there have been efforts to pass so called “Personhood Amendments” that would criminalize hormonal methods of birth control, the federal government almost closed down because of an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, and contraceptive coverage in health care reform is being challenged by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, calling its inclusion an attack on their “religious liberty.” Given these efforts, coupled with increased restrictions on abortion and politicians’ ridiculous statements on how pregnancy does and doesn’t occur, terming this a “war on women” seems all too apt.
I am proud to tell you that this morning, 38 nationally recognized religious leaders are joining me in affirming safe, affordable, accessible, and comprehensive family planning services. They include current and past heads of denominations, such the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black (United Church of Christ), the Rev. Wes Granberg-Michaelson (Reformed Church in America), the Rev. Peter Morales (Unitarian Universalist Association), and the Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins (Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)); presidents of seminaries such as Dr. Philip A. Amerson (Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary), the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones (Union Theological Seminary), and The Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale (Episcopal Divinity School); organizational heads such as Dr. Richard Cizik (the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good), the Rev. Harry Knox (Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice), and Jon O'Brien (Catholics for Choice); and nationally recognized theologians such as the Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo, the Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, and Dr. Mary Hunt. They have all endorsed the Religious Institute’s new “Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Family Planning” [www.religiousinstitute.org/olfp]
The Open Letter was developed at a Religious Institute colloquium held this spring. A dozen Christian (mainline, Evangelical, and Roman Catholic), Jewish, and Muslim theologians created the Open Letter in a day of dialog and discussion. They affirmed that, “in a just world, all people would have equal access to contraception. The denial of family planning services effectively translates into coercive childbearing is an insult to human dignity.” They called on hospitals and health services, regardless of religious affiliation, to provide or refer to contraceptive services, and reminded those who would oppose such services, that “no single faith can claim final moral authority in domestic or international discourse.” They urged religious leaders to “advocate for increased U.S. financial support for domestic and global family planning services”.
There is nothing new about religious leaders supporting family planning. In 1929, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform Judaism) and in 1930, the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion passed the first religious organization policies supporting it. Today, at least 14 major denominations, including the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) (http://religiousinstitute.org/statement/birth-control), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, [http://www.religiousinstitute.org/statement/human-sexuality-and-sexual-behavior-a-social-statement-of-the-american-lutheran-church-a--1], and the Seventh Day Adventist Church [http://www.religiousinstitute.org/statement/birth-control-a-seventh-day-adventist-statement-of-consensus] have policies supporting contraception.
As people of faith, we must resist those who would deny individuals the ability to make their own personal decisions about their families and reproductive lives; indeed we must resist the political attempts to make such decisions and such services controversial when they are not. As the Open Letter states, “contraception allows for a fulfilling sexual life while reducing maternal and infant mortality, unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases.” Surely as the wide range of endorsers of the Open Letter demonstrates, family planning is common ground.
If you are a religious leader, please add your name to the list of endorsers by clicking www.religiousinstitute.org/olfp. Read the Open Letter and view the endorsements there as well. If you are a member of a faith community, please ask your religious leader to add their name. Help us spread the word about the new Open Letter on Facebook and Twitter.
Let us demonstrate to all who would once again limit contraception that people of faith understand that “contraception saves lives, promotes human flourishing, and advances the common good.”
Friday, September 02, 2011
Attacks on Family Planning and Abortion Are Attacks on Children: A Guest Editorial
The Religious Institute co-founder and current Advisory Committee member, Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, shared with me this piece he wrote for Protestants on the Common Good, on the current attacks on women's health services. I liked it so much that I asked him if I could share it with you:
“Re-introducing Corporal Punishment”
As I approach my seventieth birthday, I’m spending more time remembering how fortunate I was to have been raised in a loving family, where, as an only child, I was treated as something special.
For health reasons, my mother was explicitly told not to risk what would likely be another unsuccessful pregnancy. But throwing caution to the wind, and desperately wanting to have a child of their own, mom and dad gave it one more try.
My birth was treated, literally, as a gift from God.
Well, almost all the time. The exceptions, of course, had to do with those occasions in which I seriously misbehaved – that is, those times when I caused my parents to question whether the divine gift had a good bit of the devil’s contribution in the mix.
When that happened – and it had to be a very serious offense to cause this particular punishment – the razor strap came out (my dad was a barber at a time when facial shaves were a regular feature of his trade) and I was given a truly stinging whipping.
That corporal punishment I still see, all these years later, as an exception, a deviation from, my parents’ love. Even then I recognized that their anger against me caused them to draw on the worst parts of their otherwise compassionate and caring personalities. (And I can only hope that my own children recognize that when I inflicted corporal punishment on them, it was a similar departure from who I was as the father who loved them.)
I have the sense that my parents, at that time, weren’t exceptional in reverting to corporal punishment when angry with a child’s behavior. As far as I can tell, it was the norm.
But that started changing when more and more parents over time heard about, read, and took to heart what Dr. Benjamin Spock proposed in his book “Baby and Child Care” (1946) and other writings: be verbal not physical in disciplining the child, and all within the context of expressing love, even if it had to be tough love.
Now twenty-nine countries outlaw corporal punishment in the home, twenty-two of them in Europe. In the United States it remains legal, but here too there are limits to what is acceptable physical punishment.
I can see that transformation operating in the way my own grandchildren are being raised.
It has taken decades to achieve, but even here in the U.S. we’ve changed.
Or have we? Might it be that we’ve only changed the way we administer the corporal punishment?
Charles Blow, columnist for the New York Times, recently (8/27/11) made that case in a “striking” (but non-corporal) way.
He referred to a Guttmacher Institute report that indicated unintended pregnancies have increased 50% since 1994, yet politicians are passing laws to restrict abortion at a record pace: 80 this year, compared to 23 in 2010 – more than three times as many so far this year compared to all of last year.
What has this got to do with corporal punishment, when supposedly it is the mother (almost never the father) that is being punished for her sexual behavior? Mr. Blow answers: “Even if you follow a primitive religious concept of punishment for sex, as many on the right seem to do, you must at some point acknowledge that it is the child, not the parent, who will be punished most by our current policies that increasingly advocate for “unborn children” but fall silent for those outside the womb.”
(While Mr. Blow doesn’t mention it, there is an irony that some of the anti-choice legislation includes the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, which often provides the contraceptive education and resources that reduces the number unplanned pregnancies, and thereby ultimately diminishes the likelihood of neglect and abuse of unintended children.)
But it isn’t just in the area of sexuality where we’ve found new ways of inflicting physical harm on children. Mr. Blow also quotes from a new report of the Annie E. Casey Foundation: “the official child poverty rate, which is a conservative measure of economic hardship, increased 18 percent between 2000 – 2009.” (Remember that many years in that decade were considered periods of abundance.)
And if that weren’t enough, Mr. Blow draws from a U.S. Department of Agriculture study that “the number of children facing food insecurity in 2009 soared to nearly one in four.” Then there is also an ABC News report that “49 percent of all children born in this [United States] country are born to families who receive food supplements from the federal Women, Infants and Children assistance program.”
What is the consequence of that kind of malnutrition brought on by child poverty and child hunger? What is the corporal punishment that is being inflicted?
Delayed growth and motor development. Lower I.Q.’s. Severe behavior problems. Attention deficit hyperactivity. Deficient learning capacities. Lower educational achievement. The list goes on and on.
All that punishment inflicted against children for the sin of being born into families guilty of being poor.
Members of the Republican party, as well as many Democrats and Independents, express what seems to be genuine concern about the national debt that today’s children will have to bear as adults. But in their 2012 budget proposal the Republicans, in particular, want to reduce spending for nutritional programs. Mr. Blow comments: “They want to hold the line on tax breaks for the wealthy, not paying attention to the fact that our growing income inequality, which could be reversed, continues to foster developmental inequality [among children], which is almost impossible to reverse.”
Since in this country we don’t have laws condemning the old forms of parental corporal punishment, there’s probably no chance of passing legislation that would assign some form of appropriate punishment to politicians and members of society-at-large who engage in this kind of neglect and abuse of our nation’s children.
But couldn’t those of us in the Christian community at least take guidance from the procedure Jesus recommended to his church when one member sinned against another? He instructed (see Matthew 18: 15-17) that if one fails to get the attention and confession of the offender in a face-to-face meeting, the circle of witnesses ought to be widened, and, failing that, the offense ought to be brought to the whole community for judgment and then, finally, punishment.
That punishment apparently was exclusion from the community of faith. Maybe that’s what the church today needs to do with its child neglectors and abusers in public office.
And, of course, the electorate could do something similar when it’s time again to choose its leaders.
“Re-introducing Corporal Punishment”
As I approach my seventieth birthday, I’m spending more time remembering how fortunate I was to have been raised in a loving family, where, as an only child, I was treated as something special.
For health reasons, my mother was explicitly told not to risk what would likely be another unsuccessful pregnancy. But throwing caution to the wind, and desperately wanting to have a child of their own, mom and dad gave it one more try.
My birth was treated, literally, as a gift from God.
Well, almost all the time. The exceptions, of course, had to do with those occasions in which I seriously misbehaved – that is, those times when I caused my parents to question whether the divine gift had a good bit of the devil’s contribution in the mix.
When that happened – and it had to be a very serious offense to cause this particular punishment – the razor strap came out (my dad was a barber at a time when facial shaves were a regular feature of his trade) and I was given a truly stinging whipping.
That corporal punishment I still see, all these years later, as an exception, a deviation from, my parents’ love. Even then I recognized that their anger against me caused them to draw on the worst parts of their otherwise compassionate and caring personalities. (And I can only hope that my own children recognize that when I inflicted corporal punishment on them, it was a similar departure from who I was as the father who loved them.)
I have the sense that my parents, at that time, weren’t exceptional in reverting to corporal punishment when angry with a child’s behavior. As far as I can tell, it was the norm.
But that started changing when more and more parents over time heard about, read, and took to heart what Dr. Benjamin Spock proposed in his book “Baby and Child Care” (1946) and other writings: be verbal not physical in disciplining the child, and all within the context of expressing love, even if it had to be tough love.
Now twenty-nine countries outlaw corporal punishment in the home, twenty-two of them in Europe. In the United States it remains legal, but here too there are limits to what is acceptable physical punishment.
I can see that transformation operating in the way my own grandchildren are being raised.
It has taken decades to achieve, but even here in the U.S. we’ve changed.
Or have we? Might it be that we’ve only changed the way we administer the corporal punishment?
Charles Blow, columnist for the New York Times, recently (8/27/11) made that case in a “striking” (but non-corporal) way.
He referred to a Guttmacher Institute report that indicated unintended pregnancies have increased 50% since 1994, yet politicians are passing laws to restrict abortion at a record pace: 80 this year, compared to 23 in 2010 – more than three times as many so far this year compared to all of last year.
What has this got to do with corporal punishment, when supposedly it is the mother (almost never the father) that is being punished for her sexual behavior? Mr. Blow answers: “Even if you follow a primitive religious concept of punishment for sex, as many on the right seem to do, you must at some point acknowledge that it is the child, not the parent, who will be punished most by our current policies that increasingly advocate for “unborn children” but fall silent for those outside the womb.”
(While Mr. Blow doesn’t mention it, there is an irony that some of the anti-choice legislation includes the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, which often provides the contraceptive education and resources that reduces the number unplanned pregnancies, and thereby ultimately diminishes the likelihood of neglect and abuse of unintended children.)
But it isn’t just in the area of sexuality where we’ve found new ways of inflicting physical harm on children. Mr. Blow also quotes from a new report of the Annie E. Casey Foundation: “the official child poverty rate, which is a conservative measure of economic hardship, increased 18 percent between 2000 – 2009.” (Remember that many years in that decade were considered periods of abundance.)
And if that weren’t enough, Mr. Blow draws from a U.S. Department of Agriculture study that “the number of children facing food insecurity in 2009 soared to nearly one in four.” Then there is also an ABC News report that “49 percent of all children born in this [United States] country are born to families who receive food supplements from the federal Women, Infants and Children assistance program.”
What is the consequence of that kind of malnutrition brought on by child poverty and child hunger? What is the corporal punishment that is being inflicted?
Delayed growth and motor development. Lower I.Q.’s. Severe behavior problems. Attention deficit hyperactivity. Deficient learning capacities. Lower educational achievement. The list goes on and on.
All that punishment inflicted against children for the sin of being born into families guilty of being poor.
Members of the Republican party, as well as many Democrats and Independents, express what seems to be genuine concern about the national debt that today’s children will have to bear as adults. But in their 2012 budget proposal the Republicans, in particular, want to reduce spending for nutritional programs. Mr. Blow comments: “They want to hold the line on tax breaks for the wealthy, not paying attention to the fact that our growing income inequality, which could be reversed, continues to foster developmental inequality [among children], which is almost impossible to reverse.”
Since in this country we don’t have laws condemning the old forms of parental corporal punishment, there’s probably no chance of passing legislation that would assign some form of appropriate punishment to politicians and members of society-at-large who engage in this kind of neglect and abuse of our nation’s children.
But couldn’t those of us in the Christian community at least take guidance from the procedure Jesus recommended to his church when one member sinned against another? He instructed (see Matthew 18: 15-17) that if one fails to get the attention and confession of the offender in a face-to-face meeting, the circle of witnesses ought to be widened, and, failing that, the offense ought to be brought to the whole community for judgment and then, finally, punishment.
That punishment apparently was exclusion from the community of faith. Maybe that’s what the church today needs to do with its child neglectors and abusers in public office.
And, of course, the electorate could do something similar when it’s time again to choose its leaders.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Support Planned Parenthood -- Stop the Attacks on Women
I watched CNN late last Friday, transfixed as news broke that the government shutdown had been averted and that forty policy riders had been dropped, including the amendment to ban Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country from receiving federal funds. I had just returned from a day in Washington with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Clergy Advisory Board, including an interfaith breakfast attended by hundreds of Planned Parenthood supporters of faith. I had been stunned all week to think that the government shut down, in Senator Harry Reid’s words, might come down to the House leadership using the budget to attack women’s access to health care services or environmental protection.
Last week demonstrated what many of us already knew: the Tea Party is only the latest version of the religious right in new wineskins. Following the November 2010 elections, studies from both the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Public Religion Research Institute found that “the Tea Party rank and file are not in fact secular libertarians, but are social conservatives largely drawn from the ranks of the Christian Right.”
I am angry: angry as a woman, as a mother, as a Planned Parenthood staff veteran, and as a member of the clergy. And like tens of thousands of people of faith across the country, I’m doing what I can to make my voice heard. Last week, the Religious Institute joined Planned Parenthood Federation of American, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and more than twenty other leading organizations to take part in the Stand Up For Women's Health Rally in front of the U.S. Capitol. We stood together to show our legislators that faith-based and sexual and reproductive health organizations support access for women and men to the health services they need to lead healthy and responsible lives. It is immoral to use family planning and reproductive health services—vital services that save women’s lives in the United States and abroad—as a bargaining chip in politicized budget debates.
In collaboration with colleagues from other faith-based organizations, we helped to develop the “Interfaith Statement Opposing Restrictions on Women’s Health Care Options” distributed to members of Congress and endorsed by organizations as diverse as the National Council of Jewish Women, the Episcopal Women’s Caucus, and Muslims for Progressive Values. As the Religious Institute’s Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Maternal Mortality and Reproductive Justice states, “The sacredness of human life is best upheld when women and men create human life intentionally and women are able to have healthy pregnancies and childbirths.” Publicly funded family planning services help women prevent STDs/HIV, provide cancer screenings, and offer access to contraception. In 2006, publicly funded family planning services helped women avoid 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 860,000 unintended births and 810,000 abortions. According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Guttmacher Institute, doubling current investments in family planning and pregnancy related care could save the lives of 400,000 women and 1.6 million infants each year. To put it bluntly, access to reproductive health services is a matter of life and death.
I am relieved that sanity prevailed in Washington, D.C. and that the President and many Congressional leaders refused to trade women’s access to gynecological services, pap smears, HIV testing, and, yes, birth control, for a budget agreement. However, I am angry that once again the District of Columbia will not be able to use its own funds to support abortion services. As more details about the budget cuts are released, they will most certainly hurt the most marginalized and vulnerable among us. I made a donation to the DC Abortion Fund on Monday morning, letting them know I was a faith leader.
Some time this week, the House and the Senate will vote on whether federal funds can support Planned Parenthood affiliates. The guess is that the vote to ban them from providing FAMILY PLANNING (not abortions as some news has incorrectly inferred) will fail. But your voices are needed, and I hope you've been in touch with your Congressperson to "JUST SAY NO TO PENCE."
These are the worst attacks on women's health that I've seen in my 30 plus years as an activist on these issues. The voices of people of faith who support women's sexual and reproductive rights must be heard.
Last week demonstrated what many of us already knew: the Tea Party is only the latest version of the religious right in new wineskins. Following the November 2010 elections, studies from both the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Public Religion Research Institute found that “the Tea Party rank and file are not in fact secular libertarians, but are social conservatives largely drawn from the ranks of the Christian Right.”
I am angry: angry as a woman, as a mother, as a Planned Parenthood staff veteran, and as a member of the clergy. And like tens of thousands of people of faith across the country, I’m doing what I can to make my voice heard. Last week, the Religious Institute joined Planned Parenthood Federation of American, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and more than twenty other leading organizations to take part in the Stand Up For Women's Health Rally in front of the U.S. Capitol. We stood together to show our legislators that faith-based and sexual and reproductive health organizations support access for women and men to the health services they need to lead healthy and responsible lives. It is immoral to use family planning and reproductive health services—vital services that save women’s lives in the United States and abroad—as a bargaining chip in politicized budget debates.
In collaboration with colleagues from other faith-based organizations, we helped to develop the “Interfaith Statement Opposing Restrictions on Women’s Health Care Options” distributed to members of Congress and endorsed by organizations as diverse as the National Council of Jewish Women, the Episcopal Women’s Caucus, and Muslims for Progressive Values. As the Religious Institute’s Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Maternal Mortality and Reproductive Justice states, “The sacredness of human life is best upheld when women and men create human life intentionally and women are able to have healthy pregnancies and childbirths.” Publicly funded family planning services help women prevent STDs/HIV, provide cancer screenings, and offer access to contraception. In 2006, publicly funded family planning services helped women avoid 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 860,000 unintended births and 810,000 abortions. According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Guttmacher Institute, doubling current investments in family planning and pregnancy related care could save the lives of 400,000 women and 1.6 million infants each year. To put it bluntly, access to reproductive health services is a matter of life and death.
I am relieved that sanity prevailed in Washington, D.C. and that the President and many Congressional leaders refused to trade women’s access to gynecological services, pap smears, HIV testing, and, yes, birth control, for a budget agreement. However, I am angry that once again the District of Columbia will not be able to use its own funds to support abortion services. As more details about the budget cuts are released, they will most certainly hurt the most marginalized and vulnerable among us. I made a donation to the DC Abortion Fund on Monday morning, letting them know I was a faith leader.
Some time this week, the House and the Senate will vote on whether federal funds can support Planned Parenthood affiliates. The guess is that the vote to ban them from providing FAMILY PLANNING (not abortions as some news has incorrectly inferred) will fail. But your voices are needed, and I hope you've been in touch with your Congressperson to "JUST SAY NO TO PENCE."
These are the worst attacks on women's health that I've seen in my 30 plus years as an activist on these issues. The voices of people of faith who support women's sexual and reproductive rights must be heard.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Leading Evangelical Speaks Out With Rev. Haffner
Yesterday, Rev. Richard Cizik and I released an op ed column on our joint support for domestic and international family planning.
You may remember Rev. Cizik as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, a position he became after Rev. Ted Haggard had to step down after being discovered having sex and buying drugs from a male escort.
Rev. Cizik has gone on to head a new organization, the New Evangelical Partnership, which is a coalition of more mainstream evangelical organizations committed to the common good. Here's a piece of part of what we said:
You may remember Rev. Cizik as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, a position he became after Rev. Ted Haggard had to step down after being discovered having sex and buying drugs from a male escort.
Rev. Cizik has gone on to head a new organization, the New Evangelical Partnership, which is a coalition of more mainstream evangelical organizations committed to the common good. Here's a piece of part of what we said:
As religious leaders, we are both called to respond to the needs of the most marginalized, the most vulnerable, and the most likely to be excluded. Both of our organizations are committed to Goal Five of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, calling for improved global maternal health by reducing maternal mortality by three quarters and achieving universal access to reproductive health. Both of us are committed to helping create a just and equitable world where no woman will die giving birth to the next generation.
Although we hold differing moral values about abortion, we share a commitment that because life is sacred, it should never be created carelessly or unintentionally. That is why we both support the Title X family planning program, which helps avert nearly one million pregnancies in the United States annually. That is why we have a shared belief in international family planning programs, because we know that maternal mortality around the world could be reduced by more than 70 percent by improved access to reproductive health services. We support domestic and international family planning because we know it reduces neonatal and maternal morbidity and mortality, including deaths attributable to unsafe abortions--and it helps build strong families and lives.
As religious leaders, we are called to improve women's and children's lives. It is simply inconceivable to either of us that those who oppose abortion services also have voted to cut or eliminate family planning, prenatal care, mother and infant nutrition programs, and community health services. We stand together in calling on people of faith across the religious spectrum to stand up for the needs of low-income families and their children. We are pro-faith, pro-family, and pro-child.
As people of faith, we call on the U.S. Senate to reject the draconian and ultimately immoral cuts proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives. As religious leaders called by God to co-create a better world where all may flourish and thrive, we can do no less.
You can read the whole piece at www.washingtonpost.com/onfaith
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
International Family Planning Saves Lives -- Get Involved
I started my professional career 35 years ago this summer at the Population Institute, where as the Director of the Resource Center, I developed fact sheets on population and family planning.
Last night, I read two outstanding articles on how vital family planning services still are to the world's women and how much unmet need still exists.
Dr. Willard Cates, President of Family Health International, wrote in the new issue of Contraception that family planning is the essential link to achieving all eight Millennium Development Goals. Family planning will help end poverty and hunger; prolongs education; empowers women; saves infants lives; reduces the risks of abortion and childbearing and thus reduces maternal mortality; prevents HIV transmission by women to their babies; and promotes global partnerships. A "new" fact for me was learning that family planning is "five times cheaper than conventional green technologies for reducing CO2 climate change."
Susan Cohen wrote an excellent article, "Family Planning and Safe Motherhood: Dollars and Sense" for the Guttmacher Policy Review. that concludes that "doubling the modest, current global investment in family planning and maternal and newborn care -- to just over $24 billion combined annually - would reduce maternal mortality by at least 70%, half the number of newborn deaths and do so at a lower total cost than investing in maternal and newborn care alone." Her analysis also concludes, "the most effective way to reduce the incidence of abortion overall, including unsafe abortion, is to increase use of modern contraception - making it easier for women to avoid unintended pregnancy in the first place."
The moral imperative was clear to me that first summer I went to work after college. It's the same today. Family planning saves lives.
Get involved. Join our Faithful Voices Network to learn more or sign up to host a Rachel Sabbath in your congregation next year.
Last night, I read two outstanding articles on how vital family planning services still are to the world's women and how much unmet need still exists.
Dr. Willard Cates, President of Family Health International, wrote in the new issue of Contraception that family planning is the essential link to achieving all eight Millennium Development Goals. Family planning will help end poverty and hunger; prolongs education; empowers women; saves infants lives; reduces the risks of abortion and childbearing and thus reduces maternal mortality; prevents HIV transmission by women to their babies; and promotes global partnerships. A "new" fact for me was learning that family planning is "five times cheaper than conventional green technologies for reducing CO2 climate change."
Susan Cohen wrote an excellent article, "Family Planning and Safe Motherhood: Dollars and Sense" for the Guttmacher Policy Review. that concludes that "doubling the modest, current global investment in family planning and maternal and newborn care -- to just over $24 billion combined annually - would reduce maternal mortality by at least 70%, half the number of newborn deaths and do so at a lower total cost than investing in maternal and newborn care alone." Her analysis also concludes, "the most effective way to reduce the incidence of abortion overall, including unsafe abortion, is to increase use of modern contraception - making it easier for women to avoid unintended pregnancy in the first place."
The moral imperative was clear to me that first summer I went to work after college. It's the same today. Family planning saves lives.
Get involved. Join our Faithful Voices Network to learn more or sign up to host a Rachel Sabbath in your congregation next year.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Secretary of State Clinton: Women's Health is Integral To International Security
Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton gave a strong and compelling speech this past Friday on the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development. I had the honor of being invited to the speech, but weather and a prior commitment kept me away. I understand the participants were a who's who of the sexual and reproductive rights movement.
You can watch the speech yourself here: http://www.icpd2015.org/ or read the transcript at http://bit.ly/6lLv7B
She recommitted the United States to the program of action, and after listing out the horrifying statistics on maternal mortality around the world, said, "these numbers are not only grim, but after 15 years, they are intolerable. If we believe that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights, then we cannot accept the ongoing marginalization of half the world's population. We cannot accept it morally, politically, socially, or economically." She said that the Obama administration is "integrating women's issues as key elements of our foreign policy agenda" and "rededicating ourselves to the global efforts to improve reproductive health for women and girls....we have pledged new funding, new programs, and a renewed commitment to achieve Millennium Development Goal Five, namely a three fourths reduction in global maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health." She also said that more U.S. funding is on the way to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which was denied funding under the Bush administration. And she talked about U.S. supported programs integrating maternal health services, family planning, and HIV/AIDS screening and treatment -- something that I've been advocating for for more than two decades and is clearly overdue.
It was a good, compelling speech, and heart warming for those of us who worked on the Cairo conference and platform and have been dismayed during the past administration how it was ignored. But, I was also struck by what it didn't include: a call for safe and legal abortion for the world's women. I also found it telling that she did not ever use the words "sexual and reproductive health" together, words that were hard won at the Cairo conference to expand the focus of programs. She instead talked about reproductive health care and family planning services as a basic right. Is the Obama administration retreating on the sexual health and rights framework supported during the Clinton years?
It's a question I promise to pursue in the coming weeks with Administration officials.
Those concerns notwithstanding, it was thrilling to hear our country once again go on record supporting women's health, women's rights, and women's lives.
Want to get involved? Join the Religious Institute's Rachel Sabbath Initiative. Go to our web site for more information.
You can watch the speech yourself here: http://www.icpd2015.org/ or read the transcript at http://bit.ly/6lLv7B
She recommitted the United States to the program of action, and after listing out the horrifying statistics on maternal mortality around the world, said, "these numbers are not only grim, but after 15 years, they are intolerable. If we believe that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights, then we cannot accept the ongoing marginalization of half the world's population. We cannot accept it morally, politically, socially, or economically." She said that the Obama administration is "integrating women's issues as key elements of our foreign policy agenda" and "rededicating ourselves to the global efforts to improve reproductive health for women and girls....we have pledged new funding, new programs, and a renewed commitment to achieve Millennium Development Goal Five, namely a three fourths reduction in global maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health." She also said that more U.S. funding is on the way to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which was denied funding under the Bush administration. And she talked about U.S. supported programs integrating maternal health services, family planning, and HIV/AIDS screening and treatment -- something that I've been advocating for for more than two decades and is clearly overdue.
It was a good, compelling speech, and heart warming for those of us who worked on the Cairo conference and platform and have been dismayed during the past administration how it was ignored. But, I was also struck by what it didn't include: a call for safe and legal abortion for the world's women. I also found it telling that she did not ever use the words "sexual and reproductive health" together, words that were hard won at the Cairo conference to expand the focus of programs. She instead talked about reproductive health care and family planning services as a basic right. Is the Obama administration retreating on the sexual health and rights framework supported during the Clinton years?
It's a question I promise to pursue in the coming weeks with Administration officials.
Those concerns notwithstanding, it was thrilling to hear our country once again go on record supporting women's health, women's rights, and women's lives.
Want to get involved? Join the Religious Institute's Rachel Sabbath Initiative. Go to our web site for more information.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Family Planning Eliminated From the Stimulus: How DID THAT Happen?
So, I'm a little less in love today.
It's that moment when one realizes that one's newly found love isn't perfect.
The stimulus plan originally included a provision to make it easier for the states to use medicaid funding for family planning services for low income women. The Republicans vociferously disagreed, and the White House didn't push back -- at all -- but just removed the provision. See Christina Page's insightful blog over at RH RealityCheck, Et tu, Barack?
How easy it is to make the sexuality and reproductive health needs of women an issue that can be pushed to the side. Now, we can hope and work to make sure that family planning services are adequately funded in the federal budget so this isn't a death knoll -- but it's a good reminder that no matter who is the President and who controls the Congress, we need to not be complacent about speaking out.
It's that moment when one realizes that one's newly found love isn't perfect.
The stimulus plan originally included a provision to make it easier for the states to use medicaid funding for family planning services for low income women. The Republicans vociferously disagreed, and the White House didn't push back -- at all -- but just removed the provision. See Christina Page's insightful blog over at RH RealityCheck, Et tu, Barack?
How easy it is to make the sexuality and reproductive health needs of women an issue that can be pushed to the side. Now, we can hope and work to make sure that family planning services are adequately funded in the federal budget so this isn't a death knoll -- but it's a good reminder that no matter who is the President and who controls the Congress, we need to not be complacent about speaking out.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back in the Water
Right after the election, a congregant asked me what would happen to the advocacy work of the Religious Institute now that we didn't have to worry about the President and the White House.
I told her that there would still be plenty of work for us to do.
In the past week, as you know if you've been reading, the inauguration team asked Rev. Rick Warren to do the invocation, dismaying many in the progressive religious (and secular) community -- and yesterday the Bush administration with only a few days in office released the new regulations that require any federally funded health facility, including family planning clinics, to hire staff who can choose not to provide health services they disagree with.
The Vatican last week issued a major paper against Assisted Reproductive Technologies. I asked my colleague Dr. Kate Ott, a Catholic ethicist, for her response. She wrote:
Released on December 8, 2009. “Dignitas Personae: On Certain Bioethical Questions” is a statement of the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
As Catholics, like myself, celebrate Advent and re-tell the mystery of the Christmas story – it's fitting to reflect on reproductive technologies. The document is internally dated September 8 by the Vatican, which is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The Church has drawn our attention to two doctrines regarding extraordinary births - Mary (Jesus’ mother), born free of original sin and Jesus, well let’s just say he was a reproductive mystery. The miraculous biblical stories of birth fit more closely with our notions of reproductive technologies than with the Vatican's re-assertion that the authentic context for human life is an act of reciprocal love between a man and woman in marriage.
An analogy of Jesus’ birth and modern IVF is not a direct corollary. Yet, it does leave me puzzled every Christmas that a tradition who so staunchly advocates a strict pro-heterosexual marriage, anti-abortion/reproductive technology stance celebrates an unwed, young woman becoming pregnant without engaging in sexual intercourse. The story lacks marriage and a male/female act of “reciprocal love” a.k.a. penile-vaginal sexual intercourse.
I don’t raise this issue in support of open doors to all reproductive technology or that faith in God alone cures infertility. Rather, I suggest we reflect with greater care and more awareness on our stories of birth, infertility, and disease. The biblical tradition and our religious heritage are not neat and tidy. Infertility and disease affect communities. Births and how they come about affect communities.
The title, Dignitas Personae means “the dignity of a person.” What Dignitas Personae, and Donum vitae before it, have failed to articulate is how the dignity of all lives is to be affirmed from conception to death. Instead the Church focuses completely on an embryo’s dignity to the exclusion of women’s lives, their families, and those who live with chronic diseases. Ethical positions on assisted reproductive technologies and embryonic research become more complex and richer when we ask about the dignity of ALL persons. The seamless ethic of life from conception to death is one we can affect positively or negatively with responsible scientific exploration and intentional ethical deliberation. To truly recognize the dignity of all lives – a couple struggling with infertility, a patient with Parkinson’s disease and his family, or a community that suffers from genetic disorders - we need to look beyond heterosexual procreative rules to a communal understanding of reciprocal love and justice.
I don't think the Religious Institute needs to worry that we will not be needed any time soon.
I told her that there would still be plenty of work for us to do.
In the past week, as you know if you've been reading, the inauguration team asked Rev. Rick Warren to do the invocation, dismaying many in the progressive religious (and secular) community -- and yesterday the Bush administration with only a few days in office released the new regulations that require any federally funded health facility, including family planning clinics, to hire staff who can choose not to provide health services they disagree with.
The Vatican last week issued a major paper against Assisted Reproductive Technologies. I asked my colleague Dr. Kate Ott, a Catholic ethicist, for her response. She wrote:
Released on December 8, 2009. “Dignitas Personae: On Certain Bioethical Questions” is a statement of the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
As Catholics, like myself, celebrate Advent and re-tell the mystery of the Christmas story – it's fitting to reflect on reproductive technologies. The document is internally dated September 8 by the Vatican, which is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The Church has drawn our attention to two doctrines regarding extraordinary births - Mary (Jesus’ mother), born free of original sin and Jesus, well let’s just say he was a reproductive mystery. The miraculous biblical stories of birth fit more closely with our notions of reproductive technologies than with the Vatican's re-assertion that the authentic context for human life is an act of reciprocal love between a man and woman in marriage.
An analogy of Jesus’ birth and modern IVF is not a direct corollary. Yet, it does leave me puzzled every Christmas that a tradition who so staunchly advocates a strict pro-heterosexual marriage, anti-abortion/reproductive technology stance celebrates an unwed, young woman becoming pregnant without engaging in sexual intercourse. The story lacks marriage and a male/female act of “reciprocal love” a.k.a. penile-vaginal sexual intercourse.
I don’t raise this issue in support of open doors to all reproductive technology or that faith in God alone cures infertility. Rather, I suggest we reflect with greater care and more awareness on our stories of birth, infertility, and disease. The biblical tradition and our religious heritage are not neat and tidy. Infertility and disease affect communities. Births and how they come about affect communities.
The title, Dignitas Personae means “the dignity of a person.” What Dignitas Personae, and Donum vitae before it, have failed to articulate is how the dignity of all lives is to be affirmed from conception to death. Instead the Church focuses completely on an embryo’s dignity to the exclusion of women’s lives, their families, and those who live with chronic diseases. Ethical positions on assisted reproductive technologies and embryonic research become more complex and richer when we ask about the dignity of ALL persons. The seamless ethic of life from conception to death is one we can affect positively or negatively with responsible scientific exploration and intentional ethical deliberation. To truly recognize the dignity of all lives – a couple struggling with infertility, a patient with Parkinson’s disease and his family, or a community that suffers from genetic disorders - we need to look beyond heterosexual procreative rules to a communal understanding of reciprocal love and justice.
I don't think the Religious Institute needs to worry that we will not be needed any time soon.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Latest Bush Administration Attack on Women's Health and Sexuality
At midnight last night, the Bush administration quietly and without much media attention put into place a new regulation that allows persons working in health care facilities that receive federal funds to refuse to provide services and information to patients if it disagrees with them. It also prohibits the hospitals and clinics from asking prospective employees about their willingness to provide such services.
WHAT? In other words, it will be okay for a doctor or a pharmacist in a federally funded hospital treating a woman who has been raped to not offer her emergency contraception; for a counselor not to tell a woman seeking pregnancy counseling about abortion; for a teenager who is sexually active not to be offered contraceptive services or even contraceptive information if the provider disagrees. And they don't have to refer to someone who will provide that information.
It sounds like a scenario from the Handmaiden's Tale...or the Bush administration's last battle against women's health and sexuality.
Tens of thousands of people wrote the Bush administration decrying the regulations, apparently to no avail. They included the President-elect, who we hope will add this to the list of executive orders he will overturn on January 21st.
Yesterday, Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray introduced a bill to overturn this regulation before it causes much damage. Read Senator Clinton's explanation here.
One would expect that all those people calling for common ground on abortion would be protesting this blatant attack on access to contraception. As I have written over and over, surely we can agree that the first steps to prevent abortions are information, education, and access to contraception. So, how come we haven't heard from any of you on this? Surely you understand that limiting contraceptive services is putting women and families at risk...or is this really about punishing women for their sexual activity? Speak up and prove me wrong.
WHAT? In other words, it will be okay for a doctor or a pharmacist in a federally funded hospital treating a woman who has been raped to not offer her emergency contraception; for a counselor not to tell a woman seeking pregnancy counseling about abortion; for a teenager who is sexually active not to be offered contraceptive services or even contraceptive information if the provider disagrees. And they don't have to refer to someone who will provide that information.
It sounds like a scenario from the Handmaiden's Tale...or the Bush administration's last battle against women's health and sexuality.
Tens of thousands of people wrote the Bush administration decrying the regulations, apparently to no avail. They included the President-elect, who we hope will add this to the list of executive orders he will overturn on January 21st.
Yesterday, Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray introduced a bill to overturn this regulation before it causes much damage. Read Senator Clinton's explanation here.
One would expect that all those people calling for common ground on abortion would be protesting this blatant attack on access to contraception. As I have written over and over, surely we can agree that the first steps to prevent abortions are information, education, and access to contraception. So, how come we haven't heard from any of you on this? Surely you understand that limiting contraceptive services is putting women and families at risk...or is this really about punishing women for their sexual activity? Speak up and prove me wrong.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Could the Government Limit Your Access to Birth Control?
The answer is "You bet."
I've been wearing a button that says 1/20/09 for some time now. I've had people ask me if it's my birthday or anniversary (and even in one case, someone ask if it's when my baby is due!)...I ask them to think about what it might mean...and mostly people get it slowly, and most people nod in relief. With President Bush's approval ratings at their lowest ever, it's not even a risky act.
A lot of us who care about social and sexual justice (as well as the War and other issues) are counting down until the last days of this administration. It's been a long 8 years of fighting attacks. But lest we think that they might be too busy to worry about sexuality issues in their last six months, think again.
Yesterday, in a report in the NY Times, we learned that the Bush administration is offering one last significant offering to those who oppose abortion. To quote the NY Times:
"The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control." Those types of birth control -- the ones that about 40% of women use, such as birth control pills, patches, rings, IUDS, and emergency contraception. Those federal programs could unbelievably include family planning clinics, hospitals that provide emergency contraception to rape victims, prenatal clinics and the like.
The proposal defines abortion as "the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation." Because certain birth control methods may prevent implantation, they would be included.
Other of my colleagues at sexual and reproductive health organizations will tell you why this is bad medical practice and why it will hurt poor and uninsured women. But, I am also appalled that once again this administration is trying to codify and privilege the teachings of some religions on when life begins over others.
The fact is that religious traditions have different beliefs on the value of fetal life, including when human life begins. Like many religious leaders, I do not believe that a fertilized ovum, zygote, or embryo is "the life of a human being" as this new federal definition would provide. But more, I find it (excuse the wording) inconceivable that those who oppose abortion are now making headway to oppose birth control methods that prevent unplanned pregnancies, with the support of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Surely if there is common ground between those who are pro-choice and those who oppose abortion it is that we should support the widespread availability of all medically safe methods of contraception. This proposal demonstrates how hollow those calls for common ground might really be. Let's see how quickly those who call for common ground on abortion to speak out into this latest attempt to control women's moral agency and rights.
I've been wearing a button that says 1/20/09 for some time now. I've had people ask me if it's my birthday or anniversary (and even in one case, someone ask if it's when my baby is due!)...I ask them to think about what it might mean...and mostly people get it slowly, and most people nod in relief. With President Bush's approval ratings at their lowest ever, it's not even a risky act.
A lot of us who care about social and sexual justice (as well as the War and other issues) are counting down until the last days of this administration. It's been a long 8 years of fighting attacks. But lest we think that they might be too busy to worry about sexuality issues in their last six months, think again.
Yesterday, in a report in the NY Times, we learned that the Bush administration is offering one last significant offering to those who oppose abortion. To quote the NY Times:
"The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control." Those types of birth control -- the ones that about 40% of women use, such as birth control pills, patches, rings, IUDS, and emergency contraception. Those federal programs could unbelievably include family planning clinics, hospitals that provide emergency contraception to rape victims, prenatal clinics and the like.
The proposal defines abortion as "the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation." Because certain birth control methods may prevent implantation, they would be included.
Other of my colleagues at sexual and reproductive health organizations will tell you why this is bad medical practice and why it will hurt poor and uninsured women. But, I am also appalled that once again this administration is trying to codify and privilege the teachings of some religions on when life begins over others.
The fact is that religious traditions have different beliefs on the value of fetal life, including when human life begins. Like many religious leaders, I do not believe that a fertilized ovum, zygote, or embryo is "the life of a human being" as this new federal definition would provide. But more, I find it (excuse the wording) inconceivable that those who oppose abortion are now making headway to oppose birth control methods that prevent unplanned pregnancies, with the support of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Surely if there is common ground between those who are pro-choice and those who oppose abortion it is that we should support the widespread availability of all medically safe methods of contraception. This proposal demonstrates how hollow those calls for common ground might really be. Let's see how quickly those who call for common ground on abortion to speak out into this latest attempt to control women's moral agency and rights.
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