The War on Women
I haven’t posted about this before because I have been so incredibly angry at… everything. It’s ridiculous. We’re in the 21st Century. It’s more than 30 years since the Roe v. Wade decision was made. And yet, today in this very age we have this incredible ideological attack on the rights and welfare of women in this country.
Some shining city on the hill.
Look, I can give you the statistics over and over. I can tell you that the greatest predictor of whether or not a woman claws her way out of poverty has to do with the number of children she has and how many. I can tell you that the majority of the women who have abortions already have children and are desperately trying to maintain the quality of life for their existing children when they abort. I can tell you that over a third of American women will have an abortion in her lifetime, and that many of those decisions will be the difficult decisions of women who want those pregnancies to come to fruition, but have decided for incredibly personal reasons that they can’t go on with it.
I can talk to you until I’m blue in the face.
But ultimately it isn’t about wanting the best for women, or children.
It’s about punishing women. And children.
Why else would you want to force someone to bear a child they do not want or cannot afford?
And why else would you want a child born into an unstable and financially risky situation? Particularly since you’re so busily defunding the social safety net designed to keep those mothers and children from starving to death and dying on the streets?
That is exactly what these moves to criminalize abortion and defund family planning services are designed to do. And if you can’t figure that out you’re either self-deluding or stupid.
I told you I was done being nice.
Contrary to what that lying sack Kyl from Arizona said on the floor the Senate, 97% of the service Planned Parenthood provides are cancer and STD screenings, prenatal care, and general health care, for men and women. Here is the list of general health services provided by Planned Parenthood of the Greater Northwest in addition to family planning services:
- anemia testing
- cholesterol screening
- diabetes screening
- physical exams, including for employment and sports
- flu vaccines
- help with quitting smoking
- high blood pressure screening
- tetanus vaccines
- thyroid screening
Defunding Planned Parenthood will KILL PEOPLE. I want you to stop and think about that for a moment. They perform pap smears and breast exams for early cancer detection. They deal with infertility, they treat urinary tract infections. They provide flu shots. Less than 3% of their services are performing abortions.
Less than 3%.
And abortions are already not funded by federal dollars thanks to something called the Hyde Amendment. Nevermind the latest atrocity forced on us by the right wing culture warriors who want all our female asses barefoot and pregnant and back in the kitchen so that we can pump out new minimum wage worker after new minimum wage worker for them, the so-called Stupak on Steroids telling women they can’t spend their own money on insurance that will cover abortion.
I really wish I was being hyperbolic.
But I’m not.
Seriously, donate to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, any organization you can think of to help them fight this fucking awful assault on our freedoms and rights.* They don’t just want to stop abortion, they want to limit access to abortion and abolish affordable health care for the poor and working class in this country.
For the folks who will accuse me of calling for a “class war,” there’s already one going on, or hadn’t you noticed?
And we weren’t the ones who started it.
*My birthday present to myself was donating to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Polimicks 
I didn’t donate for your birthday but that’s because I donate every time I go and that has been a lot so far this year. And that wasn’t for abortions, that was because I was dealing with some health issues that *shock and amazement* I couldn’t afford to take care of anywhere else. This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this position either, it’s been a very, very sad, constant theme in my adult life. And I know that I am by far not alone. At least in Washington (despite our stupid new law saying that fetuses are people and our work making it so women like me can’t get help from the state) we aren’t going to LOSE Planned Parenthood. Yet. I just can’t believe Republicans are SHOCKED and SCANDALIZED when Democrats accuse them of treating the poor and the elderly like crap. Really?! You’re shocked that people are calling you out for WHAT YOU’RE DOING? GAH!
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I actually have an automatic payroll deduction that goes to Planned Parenthood itself every paycheck. Apparently the Action Fund is a financially independent entity.
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