Kamala Harris believes all women, rich or poor, deserve full and equal access to reproductive health care, including abortion: “It is just about values and principles.” That access is blocked by fake women’s health clinics—so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”, or CPCs—which mimic real clinics in order to trick women. CPCs are legal, but unethical. As California Attorney General, Harris pushed to require these fake clinics to tell women where they could obtain abortion and contraceptive services. The current administration, in contrast, is giving these forced-birther CPCs Title X funds meant for women’s health services (which the clinics don’t even provide), while cutting off real clinics with a gag order.
At the Planned Parenthood Action Fund We Decide 2020 Presidential Candidates Forum, Kamala Harris pointed out that women of means go to their private doctor for reproductive health care. Poor women rely on Planned Parenthood and similar clinics. They are the ones targeted and impacted—first by Hyde, and now the Title X gag rule:
(PPAF’s Johanney Adames): Thousands of crisis pregnancy centers have opened up around the country--150 in California. Many of these clinics refuse to give complete information and provide contraception and abortion to patients. What would you do as president to ensure that people are given accurate information when it comes to abortion services?
Kamala Harris: Well, I'll just speak to what I have done as Attorney General of California when I ran the second largest Department of Justice in the United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice--and I was there as the first woman elected attorney general of California, two terms. And the work we did then was about legislation, about using this very powerful thing called the microphone [points at her microphone] in a way that we also informed everyone, and women in particular, about their rights, and their right to have honest information with transparency, which of course is not being provided at those clinics. So as President of the United States it would be the same thing, and frankly that's part of what is wrong with the current occupant of the White House. He doesn't fully understand the power of the microphone in the hands of the President of the United States to elevate public discourse, and inform the public about their rights and on this issue of choice and their access to reproductive health care. We are talking about, often, women who are in a state of real anxiety, real vulnerability, in terms of needing help, needing advice, needing counsel. Needing support, nurturing--and what is important is that we inform them every way possible that they are entitled to honest feedback, to feedback that is in their best interests, not in the interest of some agenda by some politician in some statehouse who wants to limit a woman's ability to make decisions about her own body.
(Johanney Adames): Senator, a network of crisis pregnancy centers in California was awarded Title X dollars this year. That means federal money is going to health care providers which refuse to offer contraception and forces misinformation about abortion on its patients. Would you still provide tax dollars to groups like this?
Kamala Harris: No. Listen: This is why I am opposed to the Hyde Amendment. We have to understand that poor women in particular--and that's who's going there; women who otherwise don't have the means to go to some private health care provider. We have to make sure that we are a country that lives and works by our values, and part of it it that everyone is equal and should be treated that way. Well, that is not the case for women, period (see my Equal Pay Plan, but that is not the topic of the day). But it is also true in terms of we are not treating people equally in our health care system writ large if they don't have money. And that's what we are talking about when we are talking about Title X. Women that go to a place that is supplemented by federal dollars. We want to make sure that no woman is deprived of access to the same health care as anybody else. And so, yep--you can count on that. It is just about values and principles. And then we can get into the details, [but] we have to be able to understand the macro point here. That is that every day in America, women who do not have financial means are treated like second-class citizens. That is intolerable.
(partial transcript--errors are mine)
Video (of the second Q&A from the above transcript) here:
C-SPAN of the whole thing here.
Sen. Harris has been consistent in her opposition to the Hyde amendment; she is also a cosponsor of Sen. Duckworth’s Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act of 2019, which would lift the Hyde amendment and restore abortion coverage for millions of women. S.758
Harris also sent a letter in February objecting to the Title X gag rule. The gag rule was upheld by a federal appeals court last Thursday (PPAF):
Trump’s gag rule makes it illegal for health care providers who participate in the Title X program to refer patients for abortion — and adds new, arbitrary restrictions specifically designed to block patients from coming to Planned Parenthood health centers.
Title X helps millions of people who are struggling to make ends meet — the majority of whom are people of color, Hispanic, or Latino — gain access to birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing, and other essential reproductive health care. Today’s news endangers access to health care for patients across the country.
Before her election to the Senate, Kamala Harris had already established a record of taking on the forced birthers as Attorney General of California. A brief review:
Abortion rights-related work of Kamala Harris as Attorney General of California
As Attorney General of California, Kamala Harris, for the people, used the law to fight the lies of fake women’s clinics and other forced-birthers. After California undercover investigations by NARAL Pro-Choice America documented the ways CPCs use scare tactics and deception to frighten and mislead women, AG Harris helped usher into law California’s Reproductive FACT Act (sacbee):
Los Angeles-based advocacy group Black Women for Wellness joined Harris and NARAL Pro-Choice California as sponsors of the bill, which was authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, and Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Los Angeles.
Under its terms, licensed reproductive health clinics must notify patients that California has programs to help them access affordable family planning, abortion services and prenatal care. The law would cover “crisis pregnancy centers” run by anti-abortion organizations.
AG Harris celebrated when Gov. Brown signed the the bill:
I am proud to have co-sponsored the Reproductive FACT Act, which ensures that all women have equal access to comprehensive reproductive health care services, and that they have the facts they need to make informed decisions about their health and their lives.
This law was challenged (LATimes):
Operators of religious pregnancy centers have sued Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris to block a new California law that requires such clinics to provide information about abortion and contraceptive services offered by other providers.
As the case (taken over by new CA AG Becerra) reached the Supreme Court, Harris (now a senator) filed an amicus brief. NIFLA v Becerra was ultimately decided 5-4 in favor of the forced-birthers’ right to conceal information in the name of “free speech”. In his dissenting opinion (joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan) Justice Breyer pointed to previous rulings allowing “States to insist that medical providers tell women about the possibility of adoption”; the same rationale ”should also allow States similarly to insist that medical providers tell women about the possibility of abortion.” He tore apart the majority’s twisted reasoning step by step:
The majority contends that the disclosure here is unrelated to a "medical procedure," unlike that in Casey, and so the State has no reason to inform a woman about alternatives to childbirth (or, presumably, the health risks of childbirth). Ante, at 2373. Really? No one doubts that choosing an abortion is a medical procedure that involves certain health risks. See Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt[...](2016) (identifying the mortality rate in Texas as 1 in 120,000 to 144,000 abortions). But the same is true of carrying a child to term and giving birth. [...]Childbirth itself, directly or through pain management, risks harms of various kinds, some connected with caesarean or surgery-related deliveries, some related to more ordinary methods of delivery. Indeed, nationwide "childbirth is 14 times more likely than abortion to result in" the woman's death. Ibid. Health considerations do not favor disclosure of alternatives and risks associated with the latter but not those associated with the former.
(That was yet another 5-4 miscarriage of justice by the rotten wing of the Supreme Court. I hope one day the minority opinion will form the basis of a future majority opinion.)
As CA AG, Harris also tackled the case of fraudster David Daleiden. Daleiden is the “Center for Medical Progress” creep who fabricated the “baby parts” videos, spreading the lie that Planned Parenthood was profiting off of fetal tissue (CBS-LA):
California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Friday that she plans to review two undercover videos released by anti-abortion activists aimed at discrediting Planned Parenthood’s procedures for providing fetal tissue to researchers to see if any laws were broken.
Her warranted search of Daleiden’s apartment led to forced-birther groups calling for her resignation (Politico). Her successor, AG Becerra, filed felony charges against Daleiden; the case is still ongoing. The National Abortion Federation also sued Daleiden. The mainstream press has lost interest, but the right-wing forced-birther news sites cover the cases obsessively. They treat Kamala Harris as one of their top enemies. Google and YouTube search results are littered with their filth.
The forced-birthers were out to get Kamala Harris before she even entered the Senate. They continue to target her, because they know she is a stalwart defender of a woman’s right to full reproductive services, including abortion.
Twitter round-up
There are about 70 million reasons to support Kamala Harris for President!
Newpioneer has rounded up some highlights of her sponsored legislation here.
snowman3 has rounded up some more legislative highlights here.
Want to know more about her positions and plans? Her policy page is Our America.
Or go straight to an issue: quality, affordable health care for all, economic justice,raising teacher pay, combating the climate crisis, criminal justice reform, action on gun violence, a fair and just immigration system, LGBTQ+ equality, government for the people, debt-free college and student debt, gender equality, American leadership at home and abroad, and fighting for racial justice.
Please remember to visit our community group page Kamala2020 and give us a follow! That way all our group efforts will appear in your stream; this makes it easy for everyone to keep up with our latest posts. As always, any who would like to join our group please leave us a comment and we’ll get your invitation right out to you!
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This week’s schedule
Please volunteer! Come share your story about why you support Kamala!
Thursday, June 27 —
Friday, June 28 — Diana in NoVa
Saturday, June 29 — Cecelia S
Sunday, June 30 —
Monday, July 1 — Dfh1
Tuesday, June 25 —Denise Oliver Velez
Wednesday, June 26 —
Thursday, June 27 —
Friday, June 28 —
Let your voices be heard!
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Group Guidelines
The Kamala2020 community group has been created to positively support Senator Kamala Harris, and not to engage in negativity towards other Democrats running in the 2020 primaries.
All should be made to feel welcomed here. What’s not welcomed here is petty bickering over any of our preferred candidates, or personal attacks on fellow Democrats. We’re not responsible for the actions of others who may offend, insult or attempt to sow discord and disunity — that’s on them.
What we are responsible for are our own words and actions — that’s 100% on us.
I’d like to ask all group members, as well as those dropping by who support or are interested in Kamala’s bid for the nomination, that we not respond to negativity from other campaign’s supporters with even more negativity. Let’s do better than our best and respond with respect, humor or try to hold our peace. Recipes and cat pics work, too 😃
Doing no harm costs us nothing... pie-fights will cost us everything.
June 26 (today)-27 (tomorrow): The first debates will be held in Miami, Florida, and will be broadcast live on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo. Kamala Harris will be in the June 27 group—tomorrow!
June 30: March with Kamala Harris at SF Pride
July 3-5: Kamala will be in Iowa campaigning, with stops in Sioux City, Des Moines, Indianola and Council Bluffs.
July 5: Kamala will be at the National Education Association forum in Houston, Texas
July 16: Kamala will be at the AARP/Des Moines Register forum in Davenport, Iowa.
July 30-31: The second debates will be held on July 30th and 31st in Detroit, Michigan, and will be broadcast live on CNN.
Sept 12-13: The third debates will be held on September 12th and 13th, and will be broadcast by ABC and Univision.
A.R. Rahman + Ace Visual Team = Tamil Happiness!
Shalini and Madhavan, from the 2000 movie Alaipayuthey (Director: Mani Ratnam Cinematographer: P C Sreeram Choreography: Farah Khan Music: A. R. Rahman Lyrics: Vairamuthu Playback Singers: Hariharan, Clinton Cerejo)
Pachai Nirame (Green Color)
It’s easy to pick out Tamil words for colors in the lyrics—reinforced by P C Sreeram’s magical, pre-digital era images. (full song lyrics in Tamil and English here.)
Colors (Vaanam and nirame mean “color”) in order of appearance:
green: pachai
red: sivappum
yellow: manjal
bunch of blue things including: alai (wave), mayil (peacock)
bunch of black things including: iravu (night), kaakkai (crow)
white: vellai