Text of speech from David Ward of Voices for Choice at a recent speak out at the University of Hawaii.
The World Can’t Wait: The Bush Administration and Reproductive Health
David Ward
Voices for Choice at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
Over the past 32 years American women and indeed, all
Americans have enjoyed certain freedoms and protections, freedoms and
protections which many of us take for granted, protections such as the
right to abortion, birth control, and privacy in medical decisions.
A
week from Sunday, the infamous Roe v. Wade decision will celebrate it’s
33rd anniversary, and quite possibly its last. It was 33 years ago that
the Supreme Court ruled that denying a woman’s choice in abortion
violated both her ninth and fourteenth amendment rights, the right to
choose and the right to privacy in her decision. While Roe v. Wade was
paramount in providing access to abortion for women the country over in
this way, it is also the legislative foundation for countless other
rulings dealing with medical privacy and the right to choose.
Ever
since Bush was elected into office, his administration has worked
tirelessly to dismantle Roe v Wade under the guise of immorality and
family values. Using these same principles, the administration has
justified mandating âabstinence-only’ education, preventing unfettered
access to birth control and emergency contraception, and undertaking
numerous steps to undermine the fluidity of reproductive health
services.
His very first
day in office, Bush reinstated the âglobal gag rule’ first instated by
Reagan, forbidding any non-governmental organization from providing
abortion to other countries as a form of aid, lest they have all their
federal funding taken away. Wasting no time, Bush had taken care of the
home-front, closing the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and
Outreach and removing contraceptive coverage for all federal employees
from his federal budget, all within his first three months as president.
On
April 17, 2002, the administration took aim at abortion, and the âChild
Custody Protection Act’ was passed, which made it a federal offense to
take a minor out of the state to receive an abortion unless the
parental notification requirements of the home state were met.
Simultaneously, many states began tightening their parental
notification and parental consent laws, preventing many young women
access to abortion in their state or others.
From
the Center for Disease Control to the Presidential Advisory Council on
HIV/AIDS to the US State Dept. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and
Migration, new anti-choice, âabstinence-only’ proponents are appointed,
in their turn denying funding to new and working to dismantle existing
programs that suggest the use of condoms in protection against HIV.
Later
in 2003, Intact D&X, better known under the misnomer âPartial-Birth
Abortion’, a late-term abortion performed under life-threatening
circumstances is banned by congress and signed by Bush, effectively the
first criminalization of abortion since Roe v Wade.
In
early 2004, and still to this day, the FDA has succumbed to political
pressure and delayed indefinitely their decision on whether or not to
make the morning after pill, Plan B available over the counter.
Over-the-counter status is crucial for birth control of this nature (
its efficacy rates depend on how soon it is taken after intercourse.
Women
in the military are unable to use their own funds to seek out and
procure abortion, and are denied funds even if their pregnancy is a
result of rape or incest.
For
four years in a row, the administration denied over $34 Million in
funds to the United Nations Population Fund, which provides HIV/AIDS
prevention, child care, and birth control. Political and financial
pressure have been put on states, encouraging them to make their
comprehensive sexual education programs âabstinence-only’, programs
with names like âWorth the Wait’ and âSex Respect’ that provide either
no information or, quite often, inaccurate information about
contraceptives.
Bush has
been the first president for a long time able to name two justices to
the Supreme Court. With nine members, the Supreme Court in recent
history has had four conservative members, four more liberal members,
and a swing vote. Recently retired Sandra Day O’Connor was
unfortunately the swing vote for many issues including abortion. With
senate questioning having just ended yesterday, it seems the
confirmation of Samuel Alito is at hand. Although he has craftily
avoided nearly every question the country has asked of him since his
nomination, we know from his previous opinions, including Planned
Parenthood v Casey, in which he favored women having to inform their
husbands previous to getting an abortion, that Alito has neither the
advancement of women nor reproductive health in mind.
The
past five years, the Bush administration has caused extensive damage
and set back progress of women’s rights and reproductive health rights
by decades, and with further control over the Supreme Court and
Congress, many fear it is only a matter of time before Roe v Wade is
overturned entirely. We have seen that this unsolicited prescription of
family values does not support women or reproductive health, nor is it
in accordance with the progressive values so many Americans hold near
to them. It is for these reasons we cannot allow Bush’s tyranny to
continue. The world can’t wait. Bush Step Down.