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Roundup: Women's Health Groups Disappointed by Obama on Stimulus

By Emily Douglas

January 30, 2009 - 10:16am

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Women's Health Groups Disappointed by, But Not Cursing, Obama

From Planned Parenthood to NOW to National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, women's health and rights groups expressed frustration and disappointment that Obama publicly pushed for family planning provisions to be cut from the stimulus while making it clear that they still expect him to ensure the same Medicaid family planning expansion in the coming weeks, reports Politico. For example:

Mary Jane Gallagher, president and CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said she was “devastated” by Obama’s decision. But she added, “He’s made commitments to fund family planning and do it quickly. ... The president had a tough choice, and he told us he was going to make them and we have to stick with him, and I’m sticking with him because I fully expect really quick action on this,” said Gallagher.


Anti-Choicers Decry Newsweek Story on "Abortion Reduction" Focus
The National Right to Life Committee has "put a hit out on Sarah Kliff," Newsweek reporter, for a recent story that examined the emergence of new political strategies in the anti-choice movement that don't focus on overturning Roe v. Wade and instead attempt to "reduce the need" for abortion, writes Kurt Soller.  Soller adds,

In their long essay, they accuse our piece of, essentially, making up a pro-life strategy that they say doesn't exist, squaring the blame on Sarah for saying that groups of people are working together when they actually aren't. Click above to read their essay, which ends with this line: "There will be no end to stories [like Newsweek's].Their objective is to convince us that people and organizations, whose entire reason for existence is to multiply the number of abortions, have suddenly seen the bipartisan/compromise/common ground light."


Kliff herself responded:

As I write in my story, even when you arrive at the “common ground” of abortion politics, there are complex fault lines to navigate. The pro-life movement is not giving up their fight to overturn Roe v. Wade - nor does my story suggest that they should. There are, however, some activists and legislators pursuing additional strategies, including the abortion reduction legislation that I explore in this story. One of the complexities to navigate here is language: what defines an 'abortion reduction' strategy? Restricting access to clinics that provide abortion has been one way the pro-life movement has attempted to reduce abortion in the United States.

Now, some pro-life legislators and activists are considering a different definition: reducing the need for abortion through socioeconomic supports. The Support Pregnant Women Act is a good example of this. The legislation aims to reduce abortion through, among other provisions, better Medicaid assistance and more resources for parenting students. It has received support from many legislators with strong pro-life records, including Chris Smith (R-NJ) who spoke at the March for Life I attended. The pro-life leaders I spoke with didn't see these strategies as forcing activists to ‘give up the fight to pass legislation,' but another way to pursue a pro-life agenda.


Bill to Compel Regulate Pharmacies That Refuse to Dispense Birth Control Tabled
A Virginia bill which would have regulated pharmacies, including self-identified "pro-life pharmacies," that refuse to fill birth control prescriptions will not come up for a vote this year, claims Bob Laird, Executive Director of Divine Mercy Care. The bill read: “Any pharmacist who refuses to fill a prescription for contraception shall ensure that the patient seeking such contraception is treated in a nonjudgmental manner and is not subjected to indignity, humiliation, or breeches in confidentiality. The pharmacist shall not confiscate a prescription for contraception that he refuses to fill.”  Catholic News Agency reports:

The bill also required licensed pharmacies which do not prescribe contraceptives to place a “conspicuous notice” in at least 30-point boldface type in both English and Spanish reading “THIS PHARMACY WILL NOT FILL OR REFILL BIRTH CONTROL PRESCRIPTIONS.”


Ellen Goodman on the Stimulus
When family planning was dropped out of the stimulus, "Score one for the ideologues," writes Ellen Goodman in the Seattle Times.

Goodman observes, 

I'm not sure if family-planning expansion would stimulate the economy any more or less than the rest of $87 billion for Medicaid in the plan. I'm not sure if it would jump-start the recovery more or less than, say, arts funding. But I am sure why it was targeted. The right wing was back at the game.

Other News to Note

Jan 29: Life News: Mexico Supreme Court Will Hear Abortion Case on
Pro-Life Baja Amendment

CBS News: CBS News Learns Mother of California Octuplets Has Six Older Children Already

Missouri Life News: Anesthesia For Dying Babies

Jan 29: MSNBC: State Funding For Family Planning Nurse Program Gets
Extended Until June 2009

Jan 29: Nonpareil Online: Christie Vilsack targets unintended pregnancies

Jan 29: The State: S.C. Politics today: Panel oks 24-hour wait on abortions

Jan 29: Newspaper Tree: El Paso billboards for ProLife Across America

Jan 29: The Earth Times: NBC Sacks Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad


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4 comments
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WRT Family Planning in stimulus bill

It didn't succeed in this bill but there are 4 more years to expand access to family planning.

Submitted by ding on January 30, 2009 - 11:23am.
The problem with this assumption....

Ding,

I would respectfully point out that your comment not only misses the point but feeds right back into the problem.  

We have had 8 years of deterioration in support for basic primary reproductive health care in the United States under the Bush Administration.

Contraceptive access is *basic primary reproductive health care.*  For those women who need access to this form of health care *today,* each day that passes without it is a denial of their rights to make decisions about their lives.

Moreover, you skirt the issue of how many additional unintended pregnancies will arise for each day we deny women access to such care.

A woman who cannot afford another child but has no access to affordable contraceptives needs that access in the here and now, not four years from now.

This is, I am sorry, another version of what we see all the time in these battles....ie: "it's just not that important."

I think it is that important.

Thank you, Jodi

Submitted by Jodi Jacobson, Senior Political Editor on January 31, 2009 - 7:34am.
suspicious obama

I really really want to believe he is the way forward, but I keep realizing that he may not be as good as we first assumed.

Submitted by sarahstorm on March 30, 2009 - 8:40pm.
Would Hillary have backed off immediately?

Would Hillary Clinton have offered up the token sacrifice of contraception for poor women for no political advantage? Or would she have picked something else to use as a carrot and actually gotten a few bites? Dunno, just asking.

Submitted by sg on January 31, 2009 - 2:24pm.