Public funding for abortion is desperately needed and essential.
Currently, public funding for abortion is illegal because of the Hyde Amendment — primarily hurting low-income Medicaid recipients. Former Senator Henry Hyde’s intention was to prevent access to abortion, but he sadly found he could only prevent poor women from planning families how they see fit.
“I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion — a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the … Medicaid bill,” Hyde said during the 1977 debate on his amendment.
Even though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a fundamental right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, somehow conservatives believe this standard need not apply to poor women.
When legislators restrict abortion funding, low-income and minority women are hurt the most. Most often, poor and undocumented immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley have “clandestino” abortions because they are “unable to afford having more children or legal yet pricier options,” according to community health instructor Paula Saldana.
Women in the region’s four counties are disproportionately poor, with more than a third of its residents living in poverty, according to Bloomberg.
Restricting access to abortion isn’t decreasing the number of women having abortions. Instead of doctors performing them, these poor women are taking their health into their own hands. According to Bloomberg, health-care providers in the region have seen “an increasing number of women suffering from incomplete abortions and bleeding after taking drugs unsupervised.”
After all, nothing says “pro-life” more than risking a woman’s life by forcing your beliefs on her.
Funny how conservatives say taxpayers shouldn’t fund organizations who don’t support their right-wing Christian morality.
Privileging the religious and moral beliefs of one religion over another is dangerous for public health.
In El Salvador, government officials are calling for a two-year moratorium on pregnancy to stop the spread of the Zika virus, according to The Associated Press. The Catholic Church’s influence in El Salvador is felt in its incredibly restrictive reproductive health policies.
The country’s policies are so restrictive that women and their doctors who attempt to perform an abortion can receive up to 40 years in jail, according to Slate.
Religious beliefs about sex vary, but if the government were to impose the Catholic Church’s beliefs on every citizen, goodbye to birth control, regardless of your reason for being on the pill. Boys, you are free to use your right hand. Just kidding. You actually aren’t if you care about your soul.
Adoption isn’t a universal solution for women either. In 2010, a study conducted by the Child Welfare Information Gateway found approximately three-quarters of women still experienced feelings of grief or loss 12 to 20 years after placing their child up for adoption.
Compare this to the number of anti-choice activists who claim abortion causes post-traumatic stress, a claim former president of the American Psychiatric Association Dr. Stotland, said is “a medical condition that does not exist” in a 1992 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The government should fund abortion because every person deserves access to reproductive medical care regardless of their income. People are smart enough to determine how they plan their own families.
Keep your archaic beliefs out of our bedrooms, conservatives. In addition to hot meat on Lenten Fridays, you should abstain from these harmful beliefs too.
Michael Beyer is a 22-year-old political science senior from New Orleans, Louisiana.