Single-issue voters get on my nerves. I certainly have some annoying friends who vote Republican only because they are pro-life. While I am firmly prochoice because there is no way I want the government telling me what to do with my body, I also can empathize with the pro-life movement. Babies are precious and vulnerable. Why would I want to support something that could prevent a baby from being born?
What a really want to prevent is the conception of the fetus in the first place. This is why I was thrilled to see this study by the Guttmacher Institute:
Expanding Medicaid coverage for contraception so that it matches Medicaid coverage for pregnancy-related care would enable low-income women to prevent a total of nearly 500,000 unwanted pregnancies annually, including 200,000 abortions. By helping them to prevent an estimated 225,000 unwanted births, such an expansion would also save $1.5 billion in annual federal and state expenditures, according to new research from the Guttmacher Institute.
http://www.guttmacher.org/...
Wow. 200,000 abortions could be prevented by providing contraception. How wonderful! Obviously, this is not rocket science. This is crystal clear. This is why I find it so frustrating that Republicans are so closed-minded and only think of ending the right to abortions rather than seeing the bigger picture. Abortions can be greatly minimized if the money is spent on the contraception. Hell, raise my taxes and fund please fund contraception to low-income women!
I am glad the Clinton-Reid bill, the Unintended Pregnancy Reduction Act of 2006, offers low-income women the access to contraception and pregnancy-related care.
The Clinton-Reid bill will strengthen Medicaid coverage of family planning services by ensuring that Medicaid coverage for family planning services remains accessible to low-income women. The bill will also amend the Medicaid statute to ensure that states extend coverage for family planning services and supplies to women who would be entitled to Medicaid funded prenatal, labor, delivery and postpartum care.
The United States has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancies in the industrialized world. Half of the six million pregnancies in America are unintended, and nearly half of those end in abortion every year. Many of these pregnancies can be prevented if we remove barriers preventing women from affordable contraception.
http://democrats.senate.gov/...
Republicans should be joining forces in droves for this bill!! They want less abortions. Here is their chance to prevent almost 200,000 a year. They should take this seriouly. If they really care so much about unborned children, they would be fighting tooth and nail to get this bill passed.
Current debates on how to reduce the high U.S. abortion rate do not seem to take into account the role of unintended pregnancy. Hello!!! If the pregnancy was wanted, there wouldn't be an abortion.
But the debate has become so black and white, particularly for the Christian Right that they can't see opportunities when it smacks them upside the head.
This is an opportunity to reduce abortions and I am writing my Repbulican Senator, Norm Coleman to tell him so. I am not saying it will do much good but I might as well try.
There are many contraception options out there and we have an obligation as society to provide these options to those who cannot afford them.