Women’s reproductive health under attack (and so are PC(USA) reproductive health policies!)
The assault on women
It probably happened in your state in 2010 – 950 legislative measures were introduced in D.C. and 44 states related to women’s reproductive health. Of these, 89 were passed, in 32 states. Most of these related to abortion, adding more restrictions on women’s access to abortion services. With the newly elected U.S. Congress, women’s reproductive lives are on the federal docket again. Most recently, the House of Representatives passed budget legislation that eliminated Title X funding: funding for HIV testing, breast and cervical cancer testing, and birth control for low-income women. This budget includes the total defunding of Planned Parenthood, a provider of family planning clinics that serves 20 percent of U.S. women at some point in their lives. This is at a time when the World Bank ranks the United States as having the highest infant mortality rate of 33 advanced countries.
Other bills that have been introduced would allow hospitals that receive federal funds to refuse abortions even in emergency situations and prohibit women who will buy health insurance coverage from state exchanges from buying abortion coverage with their own money. (See Steinhauer, “Under Banner of Fiscal Restraint, Republicans Plan New Abortion Bills,” NYTimes, 02/09/11, A18.) Another bill was introduced that would have redefined “rape” to mean only “forcible rape” for purposes of establishing eligibility for a federally funded abortion (rape, incest and danger to a woman’s life are the allowed exception to the general ban on federal funds). The outcry by women’s groups over the possibility that poor women would once more have to show bruises, cuts, and broken bones to prove rape caused this bill to be withdrawn.
What the church says
PC(USA) policy is clear. It respects the diverse viewpoints that Presbyterians hold on the issue of abortion and the question of when human life begins. It respects the diverse ways that Presbyterians interpret the Bible. Even as it calls for abortion to be “an option of last resort,” it places the responsibility for making a decision about a problem pregnancy in the minds, hearts and spirits of women who face “many complicated and insolvable circumstances.” Rather than denying women needed health care, our church’s policies call for universal access to health care, including contraception and abortion, and for addressing the “poverty, unjust social realities, sexism, racism and inadequate supportive relationships” that present too many women with no good choices (2004th G.A., 1992, “Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly.”
WE NEED YOU!
Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options (PARO) is a network of the Presbyterian Health, Education & Welfare Association (PHEWA) whose responsibility it is to proclaim, explain, and defend the church’s policies regarding women’s reproductive health and problem pregnancies. At a time when women’s reproductive options and rights are under attack, the voices of people of faith speaking to defend all women’s access to healthcare, including reproductive healthcare, are essential. If you are not already a PARO member, please consider taking out that membership and spreading word to friends and colleagues.
Thank you!