Republicans across the country have made it their mission to defund Planned Parenthood—with the sole purpose of preventing women from accessing their legal right to abortion. Of course, there is more at stake than abortion. Planned Parenthood offers a variety of services to its patients including: cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, birth control and sexual and reproductive health education. In short, it would be disastrous for people of all genders for this vital organization to lose federal and state funding. This is why a federal appeals court recently struck down an Ohio law attempting to strip Planned Parenthood non-abortion related funding. But these facts haven’t stopped Republicans from waging their war against women, particularly in the South.
Earlier this year, Mississippi signed the nation’s toughest abortion law in the country, banning the procedure after 15 weeks. And Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp not only supports that law—he announced his plans to outdo it, were he to be elected. This is why it’s important that Daily Kos endorsed candidate, Democrat Stacey Abrams, becomes Georgia’s next governor.
On Monday, Abrams received the endorsement of Planned Parenthood. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution notes, the president of Planned Parenthood Southeast cited Abrams as an “unwavering champion of reproductive and health rights and every person’s ability to make their own health care decisions.” This has important implications for the state’s Democratic primary, which takes place on May 22. Abrams is competing against Stacey Evans, whose supporters were hoping she’d receive the group’s endorsement.
“The endorsement, made through the nonprofit’s political action fund, is coveted by Democrats who hope to mobilize women ahead of the May 22 primary. The group has about 113,000 members in Georgia, and many of them will be urged to back Abrams in the runup to the vote. [...]
The move dealt a blow to Evans, whose supporters urged the group to back her campaign or stay out of the race altogether.”
The Democratic primary in Georgia is May 22. Chip in $3 to help elect Stacey Abrams as Georgia’s next governor.
This is a critical time in history for women across the country and, especially, in Georgia. Not only are state Republicans threatening to impose restrictive legislation regarding abortion, they want to eliminate facilities that provide abortions altogether. As Lindy West notes in The New York Times, Georgia is one of four states where the only facilities which are legally permitted to perform surgical abortions are independent clinics. Without these providers, individuals would only have access through medication abortion which is limited to the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. And, while they make up 60 percent of abortion care providers, independent clinics are in real danger. In the period between 2012 and 2017, 30 percent of independent abortion clinics closed—forcing patients to travel farther, wait longer for access to care and has an impact on their ability to receive abortions overall.
The people of Georgia deserve a governor who will fight to protect the legal right to abortion, the reproductive health and well-being of all of the state’s residents and make sure adequate funding is secured so that individuals and families are healthy and thriving. Planned Parenthood’s endorsement of Abrams couldn’t have come at a better time. As Abrams herself notes, this is a seminal issue in this campaign. As quoted in the AJC, she says:
“[The] issue of reproductive choice and reproductive health will not be an offshoot conversation” in the governor’s race. “It will not be a quiet whisper,” said Abrams. “It will be a proud and central facet of this campaign.”