If you don’t think this administration has quietly declared war on women, you aren’t paying attention.
The Trump administration last year reinstated — and expanded — a rule banning family planning clinics that get aid money from the United States from performing abortions or even discussing abortion with their patients. Often called the “global gag rule,” it’s led to clinic closures and reductions in crucial services around the world. And now it might be coming to the United States.
The White House is reportedly considering a domestic gag rule that would essentially apply the restrictions of the global rule to providers that receive federal Title X funds, which help low-income patients get services like contraceptive counseling and testing for sexually transmitted infections. Such a rule would force Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health providers to either stop discussing abortions with their patients or stop receiving Title X money.
I’m not really sure why the assault on women’s reproductive choice by the Republican Party doesn’t seem to elicit the kind of fierce opposition that we saw in the 1980s and 90s. Perhaps it’s the ubiquity of contraception methods, perhaps it’s just a sense among young American women that those battles have already been fought and that while seven states (KY, WY, MO, SD, WV, ND, MS) have only one operating clinic that performs abortions, there still has to be some means available, right? After all this is 2018, not the 1960s, right? Or maybe some just don’t care about this so much because they have the insurance or other means to find an abortion privately if, God forbid, they need one.
Think again. This country is one more Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice from overruling Roe v Wade. And that means the number of states that will wholly outlaw abortion—not just in federally funded clinics but anywhere—will jump to about 25 or 30. Those states will make up over three- quarters of this country’s land mass, so good luck traveling to another state to terminate an unwanted pregnancy (assuming traveling across state lines for the procedure will even be allowed).
And if the Republican Party and its fanatical religious supporters can dictate what you can or cannot do with your own body, trust me, there’s a whole host of things they’re more than happy to further restrict you from doing down the line. In fact, the groundwork is being laid, right under our noses:
On May 1, leaders of a variety of anti-abortion groups, including the Susan B. Anthony List and the Family Research Council, sent a similar letter to HHS. “For far too long the Title X Family Planning Program has been integrated with abortion centers,” that letter stated. “It is time to act swiftly to disentangle abortion centers from the Title X network.”
Currently, 4,000 women’s health clinics receive federal Title X funds, used to provide care to 4,000,000 mostly low-income women. Those clinics are already barred from performing abortions paid for by Title X funds, but can still perform the procedure if alternative funding is obtained. Trump is now planning on prohibiting those facilities ”from performing abortions, referring patients elsewhere for abortions, or discussing abortion as a possible option when a patient has an unplanned pregnancy.”
[R]eproductive health advocates say the consequences of such a move could be dire — forcing doctors to lie to patients, undermining medical ethics, and leaving low-income Americans without necessary health care.
It would also be part of a larger pattern in the Trump administration, which has moved repeatedly over the past year and a half to restrict Americans’ access to contraception, abortion, and accurate information about their health.
As Anna North, writing for Vox, points out, the impact on women would go well beyond stopping them from terminating pregnancies. Planned Parenthood, for example, would be forced to either stop performing the procedure or essentially shut down all its womens’ health services, including sexually transmitted infection screenings, contraceptions counseling, and family planning.
Ironically, one of the Chief instigators of the assault on women’s freedom is none other than Kellyanne Conway:
Two sources have told us that Kellyanne Conway went to see President Trump on Friday to try to ensure he follows through on his campaign promises to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood — with the money redirected to Women's Qualified Health Centers — so long as the organization continues performing abortions.
- One of the sources told me Conway walked Trump through maps showing how many healthcare alternatives are available to women besides Planned Parenthood. Her briefing materials also included the "prayer and protest" rallies that ran over the weekend at more than 140 Planned Parenthood locations throughout the country, where activists called on Trump to stop taxpayer funding of abortion businesses.
Kinsey Hasstedt, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, explains that in the broader context, the imposition of this “gag rule” is only a small part of an effort by misogynists such as Trump, Pence, and Conway to “put women in their place” by any means available to them:
“This isn’t just about the domestic gag rule,” Hasstedt said. “This is about social conservatives’ broader, and at this point relentless, assaults on reproductive health and rights.”
Every Republican House member in a battleground district in 2018 is anti-choice. Every. Single. One.
There’s only one way to stop this war on women: Vote in 2018.