In simply the first 5 months of the authorities concerned, the threats to contraception access have come one after the other. It is an all-out attack
Donald Trump has spent the better part of their own lives bragging about sex exploits with women. As chairman, he is showing women the same lack of respect as his administration wages an all-out attack on access to family planning “whos also” an attack on womens liberty to make their own decisions about whether and when to have children.
In only the first five months of this administration, the threats to contraception access have come one after the other. Trump overturned protections for the millions of low-income people who rely on the Title X family planning program. He filled top Department of Health and Human Service spots with people who are committed to making birth control as inaccessible as possible.
Teresa Manning who now helps lead the section of the department of Health and Human Service focused on family planning has insisted that family planning doesnt run and that the federal government shouldnt be in the business of family planning, anyway. HHS secretary Tom Price, a vocal foe of the Affordable Care Acts birth control coverage provision, once derisively asked critics to bring me one girl who cant afford birth control.( Columnist were quick to bring him many .)
So it was disturbing, but not at all surprising, to learn that the Trump administration is considering a rollback of the ACA contraception provision that would allow any corporation to utilize religion as a justification for denying family planning coverage to the women who work for them. One health statute professor summarized the remarkably broad-spectrum proposal like this: If you dont want to provide it, you dont have to provide it.
That scarcely sounds like a good way to approach a fundamental and critical health care need for half of the countrys population.
Telling corporations that they can decide whether or not the women who work there can access family planning is not just patently absurd, it is a grave menace to womens health and lives specially women who are already is difficult to make ends meet.
Both common sense and a significant body of studies been demonstrated that being able to control whether, or when, to have infants has huge implications for other aspects of womens lives, from access to education to workforce opportunities to mental health issues. This is especially the case for young woman. The vast majority of teen pregnancies are unintended, and fewer than four in 10 girls who have a child before they turn 18 receive a high school diploma.
Access to affordable contraceptive services which most young women get from private health care providers( such as through their parents programmes) and about a third from publicly-funded clinics lowers the number of unintended maternities, and in doing so opens up a world of possibilities in womens lives. Birth control has been credited as one of the most significant factors for womens economic wellbeing in the last half century.
As others have pointed out, it is hard to believe that we are still debating contraception in the year 2017. But because it was, its important that we call it like it is. Trump and his squad insist that their attacks on family planning are about protecting religion freedom, but they are really about one thing: controlling womens bodies and womens futures.
Birth control has helped generations of women to be in the motorists seat of our own lives and the relentless Republican attempts to undermine access to it show just how powerful, and how necessary, it remains.
Kathleen Turner is an advocate and Academy Award-nominated actress, and serves on the board of trustees of the People For the American Ways affiliate, PFAW Foundation .
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