Murray and Cantwell Must do More to Protect Women’s Health
Editor’s Note: This post is by Lauren B. Simonds, M.S.W., Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington. “Remember the ladies.” That is what Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, who was then a delegate to the Continental Congress, on the eve of the American Revolution. Abigail wrote her letter more than 200 years ago, but her words resonate today. Undeniably, we’ve made some great strides for women’s equality since then. Yet as the recent health care reform debate so painfully illustrates, Congress all too often turns a deaf ear to the cry for women’s rights. In the House last month, and last weekend in the Senate, women’s health was jettisoned in acquiescence to a couple of anti-choice hardliners. Watching Congress push women’s rights aside in the name of a larger goal, you would be excused for thinking we were living back in Adams’ era. If it wasn’t clear before the health care battle of 2009 that women’s reproductive health care is viewed as separate and unequal to other types of basic health care, it is now. No other medical procedure is singled out and stigmatized like abortion. Even a proposed tax on elective cosmetic surgery was eliminated after public outcry. Unlike cosmetic surgery, however, abortion care is a critical component of women’s reproductive health. Visit PubliCola’s website to read the entire article.
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