Ellen Shaffer, Director and Co-Founder, Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women
\nRemarks
\nCelebration of the 41st Anniversary of Roe v Wade
\nAmerican Association of University Women \u2013 Los Altos\/Mountain View Chapter; and the
\nSilver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women
\nLos Altos, CA Jan. 22, 2014<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve accomplished so much since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion on Jan. 22, 1973!\u00a0 We\u2019ve won competence and\u00a0independence, and kept our sense of humor. There have been tremendous changes in our professional, educational and personal opportunities. Women have entered professions that were virtually closed to us, including medicine, journalism, science and the law.\u00a0 We\u2019re catching up as engineers and members of Congress, though much progress remains ahead. We\u2019ve continued to have children, and to build families and communities.<\/p>\n
We still earn only 70 cents to the dollar earned by men.<\/p>\n
We need support for employment, including child care, and paid family leave.<\/p>\n
And we need to preserve and expand access to legal, affordable abortions and to birth control, as a fundamental human right.<\/p>\n
The Trust Women\/Silver Campaign aims to build visibility for this important agenda.<\/p>\n
To link it to our trust in science.<\/p>\n
To build unity and momentum in our movement.<\/p>\n
We face several threats this year.\u00a0 And we have some encouraging signs, including the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act, and a pending resolution at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n
First, the assaults.\u00a0 There has been a rash of measures enacted at the state and federal levels that are intended to reverse our progress, and specifically our access to abortion and contraception. As many of us have heard, states adopted more such restrictions in 2011-13 than in the previous decade.\u00a0 The House of Representatives introduced the \u201cright to let women die\u201d bill,\u00a0 that would authorize hospitals to withhold lifesaving abortion care, even if it meant the mother would die.\u00a0 So far a slim majority in the Senate has kept these bills from becoming law.<\/p>\n
At the state level, we\u2019ve seen an explosion of \u201cTRAP\u201d laws, Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.\u00a0 As Dahlia Lithwack noted in Slate (11\/13\/13), \u201cThe anti-choice strategy has been to close as many clinics as possible and to sideline as many providers as possible by crafting \u2026 regulations that force women to view ultrasounds, listen to inaccurate medical scripts, and find time to undergo multiple appointments; that force doctors to attempt to obtain ever-elusive hospital admitting privileges, and that force clinics to widen hallways and rejigger broom closets\u201d to meet standards intended for hospital surgery suites.\u00a0 The requirement for MD licensing is a deliberate obstruction. Where abortions are under fire, some doctors who perform them may not reside in the area.\u00a0 If they do practice locally, there have been campaigns to deny them hospital admitting privileges for that very reason. In the rare case of an emergency during or after an abortion, the woman would be admitted to a hospital, but often under another doctor\u2019s care.<\/p>\n
In California, it\u2019s been impossible to pass restrictive legislation or ballot measures at the state level, and in most local areas, so the opposition acts as picadors, generating misinformation and promoting ignorance.\u00a0 Flouting \u2013 and obscuring \u2013 state law, several Catholic universities have attempted to cancel covering abortions through the insurance provided to faculty and staff.<\/p>\n
What is particularly galling about these campaigns is the occasional pretense that this assault is actually good for us, and motivated by a tender concern for the wellbeing of women and children.<\/p>\n
In San Francisco,\u00a0anti-abortion rights groups\u00a0are this week displaying banners claiming that \u201cAbortion hurts women.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a debate over the \u201cNo Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,\u201d or HR 7, an anti-abortion bill currently advancing in Congress, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) suggested that Republicans support restricting access to abortion because it will ultimately benefit the economy if women have more children.\u00a0 Goodlatte noted that carrying pregnancies to term \u201cvery much promotes job creation.\u201d [Dara Culp, Think Progress, Jan. 15, 2014]<\/p>\n
This has been going on for awhile.\u00a0 And til now, women and our representatives have been somewhat stunned.
\nA new bill, the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act, is starting to turn this around.<\/p>\n
Again, Dahlia Lithwick: \u201cThe bill is an effort to reaffirm Roe and Casey by pre-empting state efforts to enact measures like heartbeat bills, fetal pain legislation, and regulations that result in clinic closures, added expenses, and unnecessary delays.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth being perfectly clear that the bill will likely never pass the GOP-controlled House. But what\u2019s important is that it represents Democrats\u2014including male Democrats\u2014taking a strong, long-overdue stand against state efforts to simply nullify Roe v. Wade with legislation that assumes Roe has already been overruled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of the new bill is to force states to prove that the dozens of measures ostensibly aimed at protecting women\u2019s health actually do that. It would no longer be enough to simply assert that anything the state deems necessary to promote a woman\u2019s health, does so. The law forces states to either find a meaningful connection between the regulations and a woman\u2019s health, or openly admit they just want to end abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only that.\u00a0 We expect to have legislation imminently that will challenge the Hyde Amendment, the notoriously destructive provision that prevents federal funding for abortions.\u00a0 Low-income women are vastly more likely to experience an unintended pregnancy compared with women earning 200% or more over the federal poverty level \u2013 in fact, they\u2019re 5 times more likely.\u00a0 The Hyde Amendment has been both ideologically and directly responsible for this divide since it was first adopted in 1976, and never challenged.<\/p>\n
This is a key year for us to become informed, to join together, to show that we Trust Women to make our own decisions about our health and our bodies.\u00a0 We know that we all benefit when women can safely and effectively decide whether and when to have children, and to experience the social and economic support we all require to assure that we raise our families in safe and thriving communities.<\/p>\n
Right now, Trust Women has three immediate opportunities for you to collaborate: Campaigns to defund and stigmatize abortion, and impose repressive views about sexuality, disempower and subordinate women and girls, and prevent them from choosing and using the vital reproductive health care services they think best. In addition to legislation, tactics include violence against abortion providers, and harassment of patients at health centers. These actions hurt women and girls.<\/p>\n Next Tues., Jan 28, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on a resolution condemning the anti-abortion banners.\u00a0 On Feb. 4, they\u2019ll present an additional resolution supporting the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act.\u00a0 We\u2019d welcome your visit up to see us in San Francisco. And once again, thanks so much to the American Association of University Women for creating and maintaining this wonderful annual celebration of Roe v Wade, and for inviting the Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women to enjoy this great day with you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ellen Shaffer, Director and Co-Founder, Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women Remarks Celebration of the 41st Anniversary of Roe v Wade American Association of University Women \u2013 Los Altos\/Mountain View Chapter; and the Silver Ribbon Campaign to Trust Women Los … Continue reading
\nSign the TWSR petition (http:\/\/www.coalitionpetitions.org\/lies_about_abortion_hurt_women<\/a>) asking San Francisco City officials to take down the false and misleading banners stating \u201cAbortion Hurts Women.\u201d\u00a0 It points out:<\/p>\n
\nA new development this year is the emergence of a solidarity group, Men Who Trust Women.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to invite Joe Brenner, Director of Men Who Trust Women, to say a few words.<\/p>\n