My apologies for taking almost a year to update this blog. But with state legislators only actually working a few months a year (lucky dogs), not a whole lot happens in the summer and fall.
So here we are, 2012, and just like last year, legislatures around the U.S. are introducing beaucoup anti-choice measures. My home state of Virginia is no exception.
So far, there have been 8 or so anti-choice bills introduced in Virginia. There are those that require mandatory ultrasounds before an abortion, a bill that gives personhood status to fertilized eggs (thus banning all abortion and some forms of birth control), a bill banning abortion at or after 20 weeks gestation (except in cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother), a bill to repeal the state's Medicaid funding for low-income women who experience a pregnancy with a fetal anomaly, and a bill to ban insurance companies participating in the yet-to-be-formed insurance exchange from covering abortion.
You can read more about the nationwide war on reproductive rights here.
Each and every one of these proposed laws is heartless, cruel, and completely unneccesary. Will any of these bills create jobs? Will any of them help to pull the lower and middle-class families out of their financial difficulties? Will any of these bills help with the housing crisis?? No, no, and NO!!
I urge everyone reading this to contact your state legislators and urge them to focus their efforts on issues that really impact their constituents--jobs, housing, the economy, etc. These right-wing attacks on women's reproductive health are merely a distraction. These legislators don't have an answer for how to help the jobless and those struggling financially, so they are instead focusing on something they think they CAN control--women's bodies. And they are using propaganda like television ads during the Superbowl to try to gain momentum and support.
If you are pro-choice, please get involved. Exercise your right as a citizen and let your voice be heard. E-mail or call your legislators and let them know that you are pro-choice and you vote.
