We all know the story of how gung ho the Republicans have gotten about closing abortion clinics. In virtually every state with a Republican governor the number of clinics closing has been fast and furious, using the thinly veiled excuse of the need to protect women's health, but that particular excuse needs to be exposed for the lie that it is. Rather than going after these Republicans for closing these clinics with this inane and bogus lie, we should be holding them accountable for it.
We also know that if a woman has made the choice to get an abortion she'll do almost anything to get one, legally or illegally. Unfortunately, we're already seeing cases where women are buying drugs from Mexico and Canada that reportedly are abortifacients which cause untold harm on the women taking them. In some states women are being charged with felonies for trying to go this route, using fetal harm laws designed to protect women who are expecting from rapists, abusers and murderers, but being used against them for trying to abort their zygotes.
Most of the clinics being forced to shut their doors are much more than just abortion providers. In many rural areas of the country these clinics are the only place medium and low income women have to go for the majority of their health needs. They supply everything from general health services to family planning, including blood tests, mammograms, pap smears, nutritional counseling for diabetics and those with other serious health issues, and birth control. They deliver valuable services to many communities that otherwise would have no place for women to get the assistance they provide.
We need to be shouting at conservative state governments about how they really DON'T care about women and their health needs, since when they shut down these organizations they're doing more to worsen women's health in their state than just making it hard to get an abortion. More than the need for abortion clinics in rural areas, although they are very important, is the need for comprehensive health care for medium and low income women. By closing the many clinics who provide these services the Republican state legislatures are denying these women vital aid necessary for a well balanced, healthy life.
This is a hidden problem in the Republican "pro-fetus" agenda, one that needs to be exposed for the blatant lie that it is. When we protest these underhanded and pseudo-excuses, instead of pushing the abortion issue we should be making it apparent to them that we know what they're really doing. It's not about abortion, it's about women's health in general. They are anti-woman and it needs to be put out there, front and center. Their need to control women by controlling how they're treated medically needs to be shown to the world.