(ThyBlackMan.com) Today marks the 39th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. 39 years after it was settled a woman’s decision to have an abortion was her private right, anti-abortion activists have been doing everything in their power to get the decision overturned. 2011 saw many attempts at creating laws to start the judicial process all over again, but luckily for women everywhere it didn’t happen.
At the same time conservatives tried to limit coverage of abortion and access to the procedure, the left, namely President Obama’s administration, has been doing everything it can under the landmark Affordable Care Act to make women’s reproductive health a lighter burden to bear. Part of lightening that burden is Friday’s announcement that come August 1st many insurance plans nationwide will be required to fully cover contraception without co-pays or 
deductibles. That includes insurance plans offered by employers who object to the use of contraception like faith based institutions. They will have to come into compliance within a year.
This announcement about free contraception comes after the Obama Administration previously decided not to allow emergency contraceptive Plan B to be sold to teenaged girls younger than 17 without consent. That decision and this decision have ruffled some feathers in the world of women’s reproductive rights. A Washington Post editorial opines the Obama administration has come down on the wrong side of both of these equations. I completely disagree. The decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to disregard an FDA suggestion about loosening the standards under which Plan B can be given/prescribed kept the decision about a child’s behavior to be made solely by parents. No matter how many teenagers are out sexing it up, if they get pregnant they should have options, but those options should be discussed with their parents first and not the local pharmacist or the abortion doctor. Call me conservative for that standpoint. I’ll own it. In the meantime, as an adult, if you work for a hospital or school that opposes contraception and abortion but you necessarily don’t subscribe to those same beliefs why should your health coverage be limited, lacking or made more expensive by more out of pocket full price costs because of a personal belief that is not your own. When religious entities employ in the private sector they must adhere to private sector rules.
Beyond the pissing match between public and private employers, those faith based, and those heathens, what I am curious to see is the tug-o-war that is shaping up in 2012 that will pitt pro-life advocates against pro-choice advocates in a way we’ve never seen before.
The final four Republican Presidential candidates are all staunchly pro-life. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have all signed the Personhood USA pledge saying supporting a federal amendment defining and protecting personhood at conception. While Mitt Romney hasn’t signed the pledge he did say on ol’g pro-lifer Mike Huckabee’s FOX News show Huckabee that he too would support such an amendment.
(fast forward to 5:28 for the quick question and answer)
[youtube gkrOt9Qposg]
No matter who the GOP Presidential candidate is, they will face President Obama who is decidedly left of the issue leaving voters, specifically women of the conservative ilk, to decide how much they want their rights trampled on in the name of saving their unborn child.
“This election is critical. There’s no hedging that. With this next presidency, the appointment power is going to make all the difference in the world in how they look at the jurisprudence of Roe. We look at that, definitely, but even if we don’t end up with a court that restores sanity on the issue, we’ll continue to work on state-based legislation. We continue to make progress there too, passing constitutionally sound legislation.”
Yoest’s organization helped usher in 28 new laws in 2011 restricting access to abortion and defunding abortion clinics. One of those bills includes the bill where women in Texas seeking an abortion must receive a sonogram and listen to its description. Other laws that have gone into effect or been considered thanks to Yoests’ organization include Nebraska’s parental consent bill forcing teens seeking an abortion to receive parental consent, and then there’s Florida where Governor Rick Scott signed two bills identical to the ones passed in Nebraska and Texas.
Pro-life advocates are working tirelessly to end a legal practice they morally disagree with. Pro-choice advocates have little recourse on the moral high ground because the argument is simply one of privacy and personal choice. An argument most conservatives defend to the death, unless it dry fucks their moral center.
On this 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade it is women, pro-choice or pro-life be damned, who may really get screwed over in the abortion debate as it takes front and center in our Presidential politics. On this 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade it is women, pro-choice or pro-life be damned, who may really get screwed over as an all male crop of candidates decide what would be best not only for their wives, daughters, aunts, mothers, grandmother and cousins but for every woman in this country whom they do not know and whose circumstances they may or may not take the time of day to understand.
Roe v. Wade was a landmark case. The Affordable Care Act was a landmark piece of legislation. And now we’re gearing up for a landmark election that could turn back the clock on issues we thought we’d overcome and return us to a time of stories on Revolutionary Road when the revolution has been silenced, ended abruptly, and corrupted by forces, legislation and partisanship that governs by not what is right but what is conscionable to conservatives who’d rather save souls than lives, lifestyles and livelihoods.
For women’s reproductive rights this election could mark the final frontier of accepting Roe for what it is or overturning it for a future we’ve already lived.
Congratulations Roe you’ve remained in tact another year. But how long will you remain in tact and unfettered from ideologues who have no new ideas only old solutions to problems that have already outgrown their solvent fixes.
I guess we will find out this year… but hopefully we’ll still be able to say Happy 40th, this time next year.
If one of the Republican candidates takes the White House is it a foregone conclusion Roe v. Wade will be overturned?
Staff Writer; Nikesha Leeper
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