Apparently President elect Barack Obama, a strong supporter of reproductive rights in America has chosen several strong supporters of reproductive rights as staff and cabinet members.
Antiabortion zealots accuse Obama of already breaking his pledge to bring change to Washington because he has said that he wants to find common ground with those with whom he has disagreed in the past.
He has said that his desire is to reduce the need for so many abortions by reducing the numbers of unplanned pregnancies. He never agreed to abandon his core principals, and those who expect this are foolish.
There are a few on the Pro-Life Republican side who have been willing not only to work with Sen Obama as he comes closer to assuming the role of POTUS, but have even endorsed him. But these are those who are really willing to work with him to provide better health care, more accessable Birth Control options and child care for working mothers. These are not the antiabortion religious zealots that have so often dictated the GOP agenda for the last 28 years.
It has been almost comical to read of the distress and anger expressed by Religious Right antiabortion zealots as they do their best to make us believe that most of the Catholics and others in the faith communities who supported Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress for a wide variety of reasons, some even because of his unequivocal support of safe and accessible abortion services. These people think that those calling themselves "religious," who attend church on a regular basis, are a homogeneous group, as interested as they in putting an end to safe abortion care in this country.
In truth, Americans have changed their attitudes concerning abortion only a little over the past 35 years. Most Americans, religious and non- religious alike, oppose the idea of abortion after viability, except in the case of rape, incest and threat to the mother's life. However, they have been often confused by the very clever "Partial Birth Abortion" ruse and the current attempt to structure their attempts to block access to abortion as concern for women's health. These attempts have worked only so long as people are confused about why later term abortions are done and about the real effects of safe abortion services on women's health.
When these are presented to audiences by someone who knows the truth about these frauds, the support shifts, most of the time rather dramatically.
But these stories can only be told by the women themselves and by those who care for them. Since abortion has been so stigmatized for so long in our society, most of these stories are never told by the women themselves except to those they feel that they can totally trust. And those who have taken care af them in their time of desperate need are afraid to tell the stories because of threats of violence.
I for one am doing all I can to tell these stories. I speak to everyone who will listen, or read. But at 73 years old, with a bad heart and perhaps not many more years to tell the stories, younger doctors and nurses and clinic workers have got to take up this staff and wave it before the public.
And women have to begin to speak for themselves and tell their stories. If you won't do it for yourselves, do it for your daughters and granddaughters.
And if your doctor is not providing abortion services, ask who in your community is. And go to her for your future care.
Than, prhaps next Thanksgiving, we can all give thanks for federal laws that make safe affordable abortion care accessible to even those women who live in the remotest hamlets in the hills of Arkansas and Kentucky and West Virginia, in states like Mississippi, and North and South Dakota.
And have every baby born in the United States delivered to parents in a society where they are loved and supported as every baby deserves to be loved and supported. Now that will be a Thanksgiving worthy of the name!