The first law to specifically deny a woman an abortion has been signed into law. It is a blow to women's rights in general, reproductive rights specifically. Why should you care? Because the law is bogus. I'm sure you've read all the rhetoric so let me make it simple:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION

There are late-term abortions, abortions late in pregnancy, and abortions in general.

WOMEN DO NOT HAVE ABORTIONS BECAUSE WE ARE BORED

Abortions are not routine, they are not done without thought. To say so is a slap in the face of every woman who has had an abortion. Sure...we all hear horror stories of women who have had multiple abortions...using abortion as a form of birth control. Do you ever stop and ask why? What in that woman's life is making her use abortion as birth control? Maybe she's just one of a a very few women who are just like that. I'd venture to say that 99% of women who have abortions do it after MUCH thought. Most of those 99% are most likely relieved after the procedure is done.

Want to know the immediate impact of this stupid law?

"Here at the Abortion Access Project, we have already gotten two calls about clinics that have stopped doing any abortions over 14 weeks. Women are being sent away and/or referred out, sometimes quite a distance away. This is one time when our movement did not "cry wolf" - many providers, recognizing that 80-90% of the abortions they do are in the first trimester, want to protect that service at all costs, and will not subject themselves to the legal risk of doing a procedure that could...be viewed as illegal under the vaguely worded "partial-birth" ban. [I] Wish the judges ruling on the injunctions filed by prochoice groups could hear the voices of the women who are being refused abortion services today."

Don't just sit there, do something. A valid form of medical care has just been denied to me, to you (female-readers), and to women across the country because of the rabid anti-choice, anti-women movement.

* JOIN National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Feminist Majority at the March for Choicein Washington DC on April 25, 2004.

* SEND money to them to fight, to send a student to the march, to your local women's health clinic.

* REGISTER to vote and VOTE! Bring friends, family, neighbors to the polls.

* SPEAK out against this war on women.

Yes, my dear readers, I consider us in a war. Our rights are under attack. The shots were fired many years ago, but it still rages on. Reproductive rights are not the only targets. Welfare, Title IX, overtime pay, Medicare, Social Security, unions, environmental laws - all of these affect women.

Labels: abortion