Reproductive Rights and Health: Time for New Commitment
Three decades ago medical and public health students at UCLA were sometimes taken on a tour of an old hospital ward previously dedicated to women suffering the aftereffects of illegal abortions. I believe there had been something like beds then and the veteran professor who guided us on the visit said that until when abortion was legalized in California, the ward was always full of suffering and dying women. We used to have to mop their blood from the floors here it reminded me of serving in World War II said the old doctor. After the laws changed the ward quickly emptied out and was no longer needed.
That historical lesson stuck with me as no lecture could as the professor likely intended. Whatever other issues I worked on for many years I tried to make some positive contributions regarding reproductive health and rights. I joined the dedicated people working at Planned Parenthood for years and reviewed research proposals for the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a superb source on all things concerning reproductive health. With some colleagues we staged a smuggling of the so called abortion pill, then called into the United States,Indeed, it won't be incorrect to talk about the fact that chinese language electronic electronic marketplace may be flooded with cheap wholesale electronics a stunt which landed on the front page of the New York Times and spurred newly-elected President Clinton to vow to legalize the medication already available in Europe and favored by the AMA here. Approval for American women took years but was accomplished. After that, we twice mailed brochures describing the importance of legal abortion to all of the over American medical students for reproductive choice means little if there are not enough accessible services as is too often the case in many areas of our country.
There was much other work but why recount all this here Because as I survey the current reproductive health arena I find myself becoming depressed. Did any of these efforts by abortion rights advocates have lasting impact I am no longer sure which is very disheartening.The air filter paper prevents abrasive like dirt from entering the engine's cylinders that would cause engine wear and oil contamination Prospects now can seem grim. Many of the leading Republican presidential candidates are vowing to restrict access to abortion any way they can including by overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Until that might occur, anti-choice politicians are chipping away at womens rights the number and variety of new laws aimed at restricting abortion has accelerated in recent years, as detailed by Guttmacher.
What must be stressed is that any success of these laws is purely political in both cause and effect - there is little to no evidence that they will actually decrease abortions, but will only make them harder and more expensive to attain, and also more dangerous to the pregnant women who desire and need them. Even the horrible murder of doctors did not save anyone or anything. The increasing restrictions on later-term abortions only impact a small minority of pregnant women but in potentially tragic ways. Making a safe abortion more difficult and costly to find is simply cruel and counterproductive. Forcing women to give birth to children is not good for anyone,Is made with all the same quality features of our larger forty-one inch Inner tube ! and adoption has never come close to providing enough loving homes and families for every unwanted child.
Here in California and especially in the Bay Area, reproductive choice has long been considered relatively safe due in no small part to our elected leadership many of whom happen to be women. Is that coincidence I doubt it, for as renowned lawyer and feminist Florynce Kennedy once quippedIf men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
Three decades ago medical and public health students at UCLA were sometimes taken on a tour of an old hospital ward previously dedicated to women suffering the aftereffects of illegal abortions. I believe there had been something like beds then and the veteran professor who guided us on the visit said that until when abortion was legalized in California, the ward was always full of suffering and dying women. We used to have to mop their blood from the floors here it reminded me of serving in World War II said the old doctor. After the laws changed the ward quickly emptied out and was no longer needed.
That historical lesson stuck with me as no lecture could as the professor likely intended. Whatever other issues I worked on for many years I tried to make some positive contributions regarding reproductive health and rights. I joined the dedicated people working at Planned Parenthood for years and reviewed research proposals for the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a superb source on all things concerning reproductive health. With some colleagues we staged a smuggling of the so called abortion pill, then called into the United States,Indeed, it won't be incorrect to talk about the fact that chinese language electronic electronic marketplace may be flooded with cheap wholesale electronics a stunt which landed on the front page of the New York Times and spurred newly-elected President Clinton to vow to legalize the medication already available in Europe and favored by the AMA here. Approval for American women took years but was accomplished. After that, we twice mailed brochures describing the importance of legal abortion to all of the over American medical students for reproductive choice means little if there are not enough accessible services as is too often the case in many areas of our country.
There was much other work but why recount all this here Because as I survey the current reproductive health arena I find myself becoming depressed. Did any of these efforts by abortion rights advocates have lasting impact I am no longer sure which is very disheartening.The air filter paper prevents abrasive like dirt from entering the engine's cylinders that would cause engine wear and oil contamination Prospects now can seem grim. Many of the leading Republican presidential candidates are vowing to restrict access to abortion any way they can including by overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Until that might occur, anti-choice politicians are chipping away at womens rights the number and variety of new laws aimed at restricting abortion has accelerated in recent years, as detailed by Guttmacher.
What must be stressed is that any success of these laws is purely political in both cause and effect - there is little to no evidence that they will actually decrease abortions, but will only make them harder and more expensive to attain, and also more dangerous to the pregnant women who desire and need them. Even the horrible murder of doctors did not save anyone or anything. The increasing restrictions on later-term abortions only impact a small minority of pregnant women but in potentially tragic ways. Making a safe abortion more difficult and costly to find is simply cruel and counterproductive. Forcing women to give birth to children is not good for anyone,Is made with all the same quality features of our larger forty-one inch Inner tube ! and adoption has never come close to providing enough loving homes and families for every unwanted child.
Here in California and especially in the Bay Area, reproductive choice has long been considered relatively safe due in no small part to our elected leadership many of whom happen to be women. Is that coincidence I doubt it, for as renowned lawyer and feminist Florynce Kennedy once quippedIf men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
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