It matters what the City of San Francisco says. Our policies and practices are as good as it gets in the U.S. in 2014 regarding family planning services, including abortion and birth control. We need to talk about it.
The City should remove the anti-abortion banners now displayed on public lamp posts on San Francisco's Market Street, that proclaim the lie that "Abortion Hurts Women."
Democracy depends on an educated, informed and engaged population. It's the responsibility of government to promote tolerance, equality and accuracy. Aiding and abetting the perpetuation of ignorant and harmful beliefs, based on information that is demonstrably false, and that mischaracterize others by their personal characteristics or life choices is a betrayal and an abdication of that responsibility.
Panel discussion and art exhibit 4Choice on Tues. Jan. 7
I worked hard to help enact the Affordable Care Act, and was shocked and disappointed that it failed to fully cover reproductive health care. After the election of 2010, I was further stunned at the avalanche of hateful anti-woman legislation pouring out of Congress, a trend that has continued ever since. These began with HR 3, coined by Dr. Sophia Yen and others the "Let Women Die" Act, which would authorize hospitals to withhold life-saving abortion care. So in my educational work on the ACA, I started asking groups if they would stay late, and talk about abortion. I was deeply moved by what I heard. At a meeting in the Central Valley, a woman in her 60s told us about a friend she'd lost to an illegal abortion; one man commented, "How could she have let that happen to her?" It seemed like time for a renewed conversation.
The landscape was pretty bleak. The Roe v Wade decision made abortion legal on Jan. 22, 1973. The ability to choose whether and when to have children transformed women's potential to thrive emotionally, educationally and professionally. But that choice became increasingly inaccessible depending on class, race and geography. The Hyde Amendment prohibited federal funding for abortion starting in 1976, a provision upheld by conservatives of both parties ever since. By 2013, poor women were 5 times more likely to have an unintended pregnancy than women with incomes over 200% of the federal poverty level. For a short time, federal employees did have coverage, so when I needed to get a second-term abortion following amniocentesis results in 1994 in Washington, DC, my insurance paid for it, but there was only one doctor in the area who would provide it.
Twenty years later, abortion is a poster child for the politics of polarization and misinformation that are undermining our democracy and driving many away from paying attention to politics. The American people are a human as any. But we've shown the capacity over time to sort out truth from manipulation, to prefer honesty to corruption, to value science as well as spirituality. Shrill monopoly media foment hatred and distrust. Birth control is used widely and regularly, and at least once by 99% of the heterosexually active population, and also, judging by their family size, by virtually every member of Congress who has railed against it. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion at some point.
Recent studies indicate that the lurch toward extreme political views in Congress and the states is not a result of gerrymandering: the electorate hasn't changed appreciably. The vehemence and repetition of extreme speech and intentional polarization is deliberate and divisive.
87% of California counties do not have an abortion provider. The stories I hear now are of girls who became pregnant, and won't get the abortion they want because of the stigma. What we say influences what we do. San Francisco and California take every step we can take to provide services and education about sexuality and pregnancy. Our policies firmly support access.
We've backed up the belief in human rights and responsible public pronouncements in the past. In 2006 the Board of Supervisorscondemned a rally by anti-abortion groups, stating:
WHEREAS, It is an act of provocation when a right-wing Christian fundamentalist group brings their anti-gay and anti-choice agenda of Intolerance to the steps of San Francisco's City Hall; and
WHEREAS, It is unfortunate and alarming that those who are against reproductive and
homosexual rights, and who are anti-gay as well as anti-choice, aim to negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city; .
Anti-abortion banners violate a number of City regulations. For one thing, they are posted on lamp posts that also display snowflakes (see attached). The City should both enforce and clean up its regulations.
But more importantly, it should remind us why we live here.
