Attacks on choice part of anti-worker agenda
By
Kathy Durkin
Published Apr 11, 2011 9:27 PM
And the beat goes on. Right-wing, pro-corporate politicians continue their
attacks on working and poor people across the country. At the same time, they
are escalating their war on women’s rights and health care, but not
without resistance.
Right-wing legislators, buoyed by the Tea Party, are pursuing their ideological
agenda in Congress, and where they can muster the votes in state legislatures,
they seek to impose outrageous restrictions on women’s reproductive
rights, even tying them to budgetary bills. In this year alone, 351 bills have
been proposed which severely limit women’s right to not only abortion but
birth control. This is on top of existing restrictive laws.
Since Jan. 1, Republican legislators have aggressively sought to limit
women’s access to abortion and contraception, led by House Speaker John
Boehner. They have proposed numerous state bills to stop government funding of
all abortions or to place more limitations and obstacles for women to navigate
in order to obtain them. Ten states have bills pending that would require
pregnant women to watch pre-abortion ultrasounds, although they’re near
defeat in Montana and Kentucky.
Other anti-choice measures go further. Some laws, such as Idaho’s, would
criminalize violations of abortion restrictions, even jailing doctors. In Utah,
women who have miscarried could face homicide charges. A few state bills would
even legalize violence against abortion providers.
South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed the most intrusive and restrictive
anti-abortion law in the country on March 22. It calls for a three-day waiting
period — the longest of any state — between an initial medical
consultation and an abortion. It also imposes mandatory
“counseling,” including for rape survivors, via lectures filled
with medical misinformation, from unqualified, religious-based abortion
opponents at bogus “pregnancy centers.” Their sole aim is to
frighten women and stop them from making their own decisions and accessing
legal medical procedures.
This law imposes even more hardships for women with few resources, who have to
travel far to reach the Planned Parenthood facility in Sioux Falls and/or find
housing for several days. Doctors fly in from other states only once a week to
perform abortions.
Right-wing politicians have also stepped up their anti-woman propaganda as part
of their rabid campaign to eliminate women’s reproductive rights. An
example of this occurred just prior to the March 30 Indiana House vote on a
bill restricting abortions. State Rep. Eric Turner outrageously charged that
women would falsify incidents of rape or incest to obtain procedures. The ban
on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy passed, with no rape or incest
exceptions.
Women in motion to defend rights
These attacks shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. Part of the ruling
class’s offensive against working and poor people’s rights, they
occur as governments at all levels are laying siege to “entitlement
programs” allegedly to make up for budget deficits. Family planning and
other health care, childcare, public housing and food stamp programs —
all necessities for low-income women and their families — are being axed
as banks and corporations get billions of dollars, the super-rich get away with
not paying taxes, and the Pentagon’s budget swells.
The government is carrying out a war on women, putting the worst burdens on
low-income women during an economic crisis, limiting options, and creating more
obstacles for them. Those most harmed by legal restrictions and cutbacks in
reproductive health care services are young, working-class and low-income
women, those from African-American, Latina and other oppressed communities, and
rural residents.
More measures are coming, as the ultra-right is hell-bent on overturning
women’s reproductive rights. Yet they are not proceeding unchallenged;
fightbacks are being organized in every state. Progressive forces have stopped
some regressive laws and prevented reactionaries from shutting down
women’s health clinics in several states.
Pro-choice organizations are legally challenging restrictive laws, while they
pressure state legislators. On April 7, a Pro-Choice Lobby Day in Washington,
D.C., will pressure Congress not to vote the next day to defund Planned
Parenthood and other vital programs for low-income women.
Women workers are in motion now to defend their rights. They won’t take
these attacks without a struggle. It wouldn’t be surprising if women
start occupying state Capitol buildings, as Wisconsin public sector workers
did, to say NO to these assaults on their basic rights.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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