{"id":230356,"date":"2010-01-26T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/25\/on-anniversary-roe-a-reflection"},"modified":"2010-01-27T12:29:27","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T17:29:27","slug":"on-the-anniversary-of-roe-a-call-to-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/230356","title":{"rendered":"On the Anniversary of Roe – A Call to Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis article originally appeared at Amplify.<\/a><\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nAmidst all the deserved attention being paid to
\nwars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the earthquake in Haiti, health care reform, the
\nSenate election in Massachusetts, there is another deserving issue that goes
\nlargely unnoticed unless it is in crises– except for one day a year.\u00a0 Rather
\nthan bemoan the lack of attention or the reasons for it, I want to use the
\noccasion of this anniversary of Roe v. Wade to remind all of us of the
\nimportance of this issue to every woman, indeed every American.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt has been a journey of more than 40 years since I sat in a hospital
\nconference room, interrogated by men who held my fate, my family, and my choice
\nin their hands. After all these years, I can still feel the humiliation, the
\nshame, and the anger as though those doctors were sitting in front of me now,
\ndemanding to know whether I was capable of dressing my children in the morning
\nand being intimate with my husband at night. This indignity was in the service
\nof deciding whether I met the criteria for a diagnosis as " unfit for
\nchildbearing" necessary for permission to have an abortion in a hospital
\nrather than a back alley.\n<\/p>\n

\nRoe v. Wade changed all that by recognizing a woman’s
\nconstitutional right to make decisions in matters of pregnancy, childbearing
\nand abortion in privacy, safety and with dignity. It saved women from the shame
\nand degradation of illegal abortion and its humiliating consequences. And Roe
\nwas an important milestone for women in their long and difficult journey to
\nfull equality, dignity and economic security.\n<\/p>\n

\nI have travelled a great distance since those wrenching days in 1969, and so
\nhas America. The choice denied me, that
\nthe review board and the government had the power to make, has now been recognized
\nas every woman’s constitutional right. The majority of Americans believe it
\nshould remain so.\n<\/p>\n

\nSadly, those who would take women back to the days of the interrogation room,
\nthe back alley, or the prospect of forced childbearing, a possibility so unfathomable
\nfor most people, so distant that we are reluctant to believe it possible, have
\nmade progress over the years. Throughout the nation, millions of women face
\nincreasing obstacles to effective education about their sexual health and
\naccess to reproductive health care. Abortion remains stigmatized and
\nmarginalized, women who decide to have an abortion are considered
\nirresponsible, doctors who perform them are demonized, harassed and even
\nmurdered as in the tragic case of the death of Dr. Tiller in Kansas this past
\nyear. Comprehensive sex education nationwide is a long way from becoming a
\nreality inspite of overwhelming evidence of its positive impact on the lives
\nand health of young people. Family planning and contraceptive care remain a
\ntarget of the right wing at the state and local levels.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe witnessed a generational shift with the election of President Obama. We had
\nreason to be elated. Democrats took control of the both the House and Senate. We
\nthought finally we could stop the assault of the Bush years.\n<\/p>\n

\n There has been
\nprogress. Abstinence only education funding has been curbed and the government
\nnow is focused on comprehensive sex education. But health care reform proved
\nonce again that we must never take our rights and liberties for granted, that
\nwe must be actively vigilant and that elections are not an end in themselves
\nbut rather a means to an end. The willingness of National Democratic leaders to
\nsecure passage of health reform by prohibiting abortion coverage under private
\ninsurance plans represents a significant setback for women. It must be a
\nwake-up call to the advocacy community generally, and the women’s rights
\ncommunity in particular, that political power without accountability will
\nalways fail us. It must remain our mission to continually set the course, to
\ndefine the values and to demand that our political friends stand up for what is
\nright.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn this anniversary of Roe, in the context of the extraordinary election of
\nPresident Obama, America stands at the brink; but we have not yet crossed it. Our
\nfreedom belongs to us; it is our right, and it is our responsibility to protect
\nit; and we have the power to do so. Decades ago when Roe was not yet imagined
\nand abortion was in so many places illegal, a small but passionate movement of
\nAmericans decided to transform the world. They did. Today the movement they
\nhave bequeathed to the next generation of pro-choice activists is large and
\npowerful and vast; the freedom they left us remains in jeopardy; and to save
\nit, we need only activate, with a sense of personal responsibility and dire
\nurgency, the movement they built.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe younger generation bear an even bigger responsibility and face an even
\ngreater danger than my generation did–the possible loss of the entire right. Young
\npeople today do have the choice that Roe made possible…that we all need to be
\nmindful of the risk to women’s basic right to privacy the other side would
\ngladly rescind…evidenced by the obstacles that women, particularly poor
\nwomen, must tackle when faced with the most important and often difficult
\ndecision of their lives -lack of facilities and trained doctors, the need to
\ntravel many miles to obtain care…imagine oneself in the situation I was in 40
\nyears ago today and the ramifications for women if this right is overturned. We
\nhave a tendency in these times of intense media hype over sensationalized
\nevents to overlook or take for granted precious but vulnerable constitutional
\nrights such as the this one. We must not. This can be the cause of the next
\ngeneration.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt’s been said that all the great civil rights battles have been fought and
\nwon. But for the rights that matter most, the fight never ends. There has not
\nbeen a single day since 1973 when this right has been secure, nor has there
\nbeen a single day when it’s been more endangered than now. And the danger isn’t
\nthe far right. They’ve been around forever, and when we’re paying attention, we
\nbeat them every time. The most insidious danger is the apathy and
\ninattentiveness of the mainstream\/middle. In our history, we always turn to the
\nyoung in such moments.\n<\/p>\n

\nIf we fight hard and lose, that will be a tragedy. But if we lose because we
\ndidn’t fight, that will be a crime — and our guilt will far exceed that of the
\nreligious right. We depend on the new generation to know this and act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared at Amplify. Amidst all the deserved attention being paid to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the earthquake in Haiti, health care reform, the Senate election in Massachusetts, there is another deserving issue that goes largely unnoticed unless it is in crises– except for one day a year.\u00a0 Rather than bemoan the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4618,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}