AlterNet: 10 Reasons Why the Fight for Reproductive Justice Is Still Essential

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10 Reasons Why the Fight for Reproductive Justice Is Still Essential

By Jill Filipovic, AlterNet. Posted January 22, 2008.

It’s worth raising a glass to Roe today -- but even more importantly, it’s time to get out and fight.



Also posted at Feministe and the Huffington Post.

35 years after Roe v. Wade solidified American womens' right to abortion, reproductive rights remain in limbo. And while abortion rights are crucial to women's health and autonomy, they are hardly the end-all be-all to reproductive justice -- even if the constant attacks on those rights (and on the people who provide women with them) have forced the pro-choice movement to remain on the defensive about abortion in particular.

Roe at 35 is in bad shape. But there are plenty of forward-looking, positive steps to be taken. It's worth raising a glass to Roe today -- but even more importantly, it's time to get out and fight. Here are a few reasons why:


10. Abortion is already inaccessible and out of reach for many women.

Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider. Parental consent laws, 24-hour waiting periods, and other anti-choice roadblocks make abortion difficult or impossible for many women -- young women and low-income women in particular. The Hyde Amendment blocks federal Medicaid money from paying for abortion, meaning that low-income women have their medical care determined by anti-choice bureaucrats instead of doctors. When women have to spend weeks trying to legally bypass parental consent laws, or when they have to take time off work, save up money for the procedure, find someone to take care of their children, figure out transportation, and drive miles and miles to the closest clinic only to be told to "go home and think about it and come back tomorrow," the procedure gets pushed back -- and later-term abortions are more difficult and more expensive. An abortion at 24 weeks (a procedure already impossible to get in most states) can cost as much as $10,000. Groups like the National Abortion Network of Abortion Funds and the Haven Coalition attempt to offset the costs of abortion and the related expenses, but their budgets and abilities are limited, particularly in contrast to the financial and political strength of the anti-choice movement. In the meantime, Roe remains an unfulfilled promise for many American women.


9. If abortion is illegal, then women and doctors will be criminals.

Anti-choicers dislike answering the sticky question of how much time in jail women who have abortions should serve. But as it stands, a lot of anti-abortion legislation is not premised on outlawing abortion, but rather attempts to establish that life begins when an egg is fertilized. Much of that legislation expresses the idea that a zygote and a fetus are people deserving a full range of legal rights. In such a "pro-life" world, women who have abortions are murderers, and doctors contract killers. Women are already going to jail for "murder" because they used drugs while pregnant; it's hardly a stretch to argue that women could face jail time for terminating pregnancies, especially if anti-choicers really believe -- as they claim -- that fetuses are people invested with full rights. As it stands, about one in three American women will have an abortion at some time in her life. Those are a whole lot women to turn into criminals. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/74633/