pro-choice

Last week in the House of Representatives the House Energy and Commerce Committee made some important votes regarding the Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.  Two amendments were introduced in Committee.  One which would extend abstinence only education - a program which has been proven to be ineffective in preventing abstinence and unintended pregnancies.  Congressman Terry Lee (R-NE) submitted the amendment to fund the program through 2012.  The amendment failed by a vote of 29-26.

Congressman Lois Capps (D-CA) submitted an amendment to include a Healthy Teen Initiative to the bill.  The Healthy Teen Initiative would expand the limited scope of the President's original language which excluded information about the prevention of spreading sexually transmitted diseases.  The  amendment passed by a vote of 33 to 23!

Both of these votes are a great leap forward in improving the Health Care Reform bill.  This is a big win for teens and the uninsured.

President Obama has appointed Alexia Kelly as the Director of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services.  Kelly was the co-founder and executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), which supports reducing access to abortion care and services.  While in the leadership at CACG Kelly characterized abortion to war and torture.  This is not the same message the administration sent when they appointed Kathleen Sebelius!

As Catholics for Choice points out, Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for providing and expanding access to key sexual and reproductive health services. As such, we need those working in HHS to rely on evidence-based methods to reduce the need for abortion. We need them to believe in men's and women's capacity to make moral decisions about their own lives. Unfortunately, as seen from her work at CACG, Ms. Kelley does not fit the bill.

I am loath to compare our supposedly pro-choice President to our very anti-choice last President, however, this reminds me of Bush appointing Karoak as HHS deputy assistant secretary of population services back in 2006, an equally anti-choice appointment to what needs to be a department that serves women's health, not chips away at it.   True, it will be our saving grace, that Kathleen Sebelius is no Mike Leavitt and that Kelly must report to her, however after the Sotomayor appointment and now this, I fear in what direction our administration is heading when it comes to choice and women's health.

The first reaction to President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court was extremely positive, as least from those on his side of the isle.  She has an impressive judicial record, a compelling personal story, she is a woman and will be the first Hispanic ever appointed to the Court.  However, it wasn't long before the unease started to set in and I started to question this impressive nominations position on choice.

As the New York Times reported yesterday, in nearly 11 years as an appeals court judge, Sotomayor has never directly ruled on a women's right to choose. However, she has written opinions that touched on abortion disputes where her opinion lay in favor of abortion opponents. In 2002 she wrote an opinion siding with the Bush Administration's policy to withhold aid from international groups that provide or promote abortion services overseas - otherwise known as the global gag rule.  This was one of the first Bush policies Obama overturned upon taking office.  And in 2004 she sided with anti-abortion protesters who sued police officers who allegedly used excessive force to break up the anti-abortion protest in front of an abortion clinic.  As someone who worked at an abortion clinic for years, the fact that she sided with the protesters worries me greatly.

That being said, the pro-choice community seems torn on the issue.  Wednesday, Planned Parenthood Federation of America sent out an email praising the nomination and Sotomayor herself, commenting on their confidence of her "commitment to the protection of our individual liberties".  In the meantime, NARAL Pro-Choice America sent a letter to senators urging them to demand Sotomayor reveal her views on privacy rights before any confirmation vote. 

Being pro-choice himself, it is of course not possible that President Obama does not understand the implications of this important nomination and of course, we all assumed he would appoint someone who would uphold Roe v. Wade.  With the last two decisions being decided by a 5 to 4 margin, there is no doubt that Roe v. Wade and the basic rights of women and families are at risk here.  However it is now being reported that President Obama did not vet the issue specifically.  I find that extremely hard to believe.  I am going to assume that when the Supreme Court is mentioned, a large percentage of the population calls to mind Roe v. Wade.  I'll go even further to assume that it is the only Supreme Court case that a large percentage of our population can even name!  And you are going to tell me that it didn't come up when vetting a new nominee to the Court?

I'm thrilled that Obama has nominated a women and a Latina.  I am excited at the possibility of a Supreme Court that looks more like America, but I want none of that at the risk of loosing my right to choose.  Luckily, I think our President understands the enormity of the decision he has made and hopefully he made the right one for everyone.  Still, I feel the administration may want to work on their answer to the question of how Sotomayor is going to respond when asked about her views on privacy, becuase they will be asked again, and they are going to need a more plausable response next time.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was confirmed yesterday as health and human services secretary.  After many attempts from anti-choice Senators to block her nomination failed, the Senate finally confirmed her in a vote of 65-31 after the Democrats urged a quick vote in order to put Sebelius to work on the swine flu crisis. 

Republicans have been delaying the vote because of concerns over Gov. Sebelius's pro-choice record as Governor of Kansas for the past six years. Prior to her vote a group of conservative leaders sent a letter to Senators calling Sebelius a politician with a "serious lapse of conscience and integrity" and urging them to oppose her nomination.  Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family called on Senators who "claim to uphold the sanctity of life and the responsibility of the office of HHS" to vote against her, calling her an "abortion radical". 

While the conservative movement pulled out all the stops to block Sebelius's nomination, she was confirmed with the support of every Democrat on the floor, both independents, and six Republicans.

Almost three years after the FDA approved (a decision delayed 3 years by the Bush Administration) Plan B emergency contraception (the morning after pill) to be sold over the counter to women 18 and over, they reverse their original ruling, loosening it by allowing women (and men) 17 years old to now purchase the contraception without a doctors prescription.  As I stated when the FDA originally approved sales of Plan B OTC, the pill is shown to be safe for women even younger than 17 and with the teen pregnancy rate in our country - the highest among the most developed countries in the world - it can only well serve women, families, teens, and especially the impoverished to expand access to a safe and legal form of contraception.

The decision to reverse the ruling came after U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ruled in a New York case that Bush Administration appointees let politics, not science drive their decision to allow the over-the-counter access to these pills only to women 18 and older.  The Judge gave the agency 30 days to lower the age to 17 and separately evaluate if all age restrictions should be lifted. 

The controversy will of course rage on as the anti-choice community will use the same argument as the pro-choice community has been using all these years - we've turned this into a political issue.  Both sides have been polarized by feeling like this has been turned into a political issue at some point, but the fact of the matter is, whether you are pro-choice or anti-choice, this is a public health issue and what everyone wants is less abortions and less unwanted, unplanned pregnancies and the easiest, most cost effective, safest way to do that is to expand access to any and all forms of birth control.