“None of the funds made available by this 24 Act may be used for mifepristone, commonly known as 25 RU-486.”
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/bills/112/hr2112These are the nasty little words added to a routine rural/farm bill by Rep. Peter King (R) in June and now by Sen. Jim DeMint (R). Scroll all the way to the bottom of this
New York Times text of the bill passed by the House in June and you will find them. Easy to miss, if you don’t know what mifepristone is. But that was the point. Sneak in an anti-abortion law that will fool the base into thinking that the GOP cares about something besides corporate profits. Never mind if it kills rural women.
Yes, kills rural women. The GOP has driven abortion providers out of business in all but a few large cities, leaving rural woman few options when they need to terminate a pregnancy. So, some of them are getting prescriptions for RU-486 from doctors via teleconferences. That allows the women to avoid expensive overnight trips to far away cities. If you know any working poor, you understand that most women stuck in the pink collar ghetto have kids to take care of and they have jobs that do not provide sick leave or vacation. They go to work sick, because they can not afford to lose even a single days pay. These women can not hop aboard a plan and fly to their state capital and book a room at the Holiday Inn for a two night abortion vacation. Hell, they can not afford to go to a movie.
This summer, King bragged that his amendment would remove the only option these rural women had.
Cutting off this source of funding for this procedure will save the lives of women and unborn babies.
http://theiowarepublican.com/2011/kings-pro-life-amendment-added-to-agriculture-appropriations-bill/In other words, if poor working women can not get a chemical abortion over the internet, they will be unable to get the procedure at all. Whoopee! Big GOP victory! The American working class loses another war in the battle to strip it of its rights to life, liberty and happiness. Corporations have unlimited free speech rights that allow them to buy and sell political candidates like cattle, but doctors can no longer make medical recommendations that are in the best interest of their patients, and rural Americans are deprived of health care options their urban sisters enjoy. Will someone tell me why the Republicans are so down on farm families?
Since the King/DeMint amendment is all about restricting free speech and keeping the public uniformed, the best thing we doctors and women can do is spread as much information as we can, wherever we can. So, here is everything that King and DeMint and the GOP does not want you to know about abortion.
First, use a condom. Every time, unless you are in a monogamous relationship, in which case there are other contraceptive options.
Second, if the condom breaks, get yourself to a drug store and purchase emergency contraception. Yes, some pharmacists will try to argue with you. Be firm. Shop around. It is out there. I’m 100% sure Planned Parenthood can help you find a place that sells it. If used within 5 days of unprotected sex, the Morning After Pill will keep you from getting pregnant. If you have a history of blood clots or breast cancer and can not take hormones, get an emergency IUD placed. That will do the same thing.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/emergency-contraception-morning-after-pill-4363.aspWhat’s that sound I hear? Is that King gnashing his teeth? Even though these two types of contraception are not an abortion, the religious right hates them. The way they hate almost anything that has to do with women controlling their own bodies.
If you are stuck in the mountains for six days and can not get emergency contraception, your next best bet is mifepristone. That’s right, the same product that King/DeMint don’t want rural women to have. It is safer than an extraction method termination in the first seven weeks of pregnancy, with a very small failure rate. Plus, it’s a pill that you can take anywhere. The down side is you have to get a prescription, because a doctor needs to decide if it is safe for you and also make sure that it has worked properly. One third of the abortions performed by Planned Parenthood use this method.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MifepristoneIt pays to do a home pregnancy test early and seek a provider right away if you decide you need a termination. But say you did not realize that the condom broke. Or, you were ok with the pregnancy until you learned some alarming medical news about the acne medication you have been taking. Or you were recently diagnosed with heart failure or Lupus or one of the other health problems that make pregnancy risky to the mother. After 8 weeks, you can still get an abortion on demand in this country---Roe V. Wade is still the law, and it allows a woman to choose up until fetal viability, the time at which the fetus can survive outside the womb. That doesn’t happen until around 23 to 24 weeks. You’ll probably have to have a outpatient procedure, either an aspiration or a D&C (this Planned Parenthood site describes both):
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/abortion/in-clinic-abortion-procedures-4359.aspNow, say you do not discover that you are in heart failure until you are 30 weeks along. Your cardiologist tells you that you will
die if you continue the pregnancy. Do you have to die, because it is too late for an abortion? No, even though you are now in the third trimester, you can still end the pregnancy, if the procedure is necessary to save your life.
If you are under 18, it gets trickier. The GOP has been very successful at restricting the rights of young women, on the grounds that parents ought to be involved---even when the parents have abandoned the girl, even when the parents are in jail, even when the dad has raped the daughter and made her pregnant. Even if she will die without an emergency abortion. What does the GOP care if an underage girl dies? She can not vote and she almost certainly does not have a billion dollar SuperPac.
Do not despair if you are under 18. Planned Parenthood has information about the laws in your state. If you look at a U.S. map, you will see that states with draconian rules are often close to states that do not limit a minor’s right to an abortion. And while the GOP has been trying for years to make it illegal to cross state lines to get an abortion, as far as I know, they have not succeeded. Not yet.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/parental-consent-notification-laws-25268.htm Also note that judges can take the place of parents if there are unusual circumstances—like those I describe above. Going to court can be pretty daunting for a teenager, but there are legal aid groups designed to help you navigate your way through the court system. For instance, Texas has Jane’s Due Process.
http://www.janesdueprocess.org/What else do King and DeMint not want you to know? Oh yes! Federal funding for abortion. In 15 states, Medicaid will pay for your abortion. Here is the list and info on how to apply.:
http://www.fundabortionnow.org/get-help/medicaidIf you live in a state where Medicaid does not cover abortion, your state still has to pay if your pregnancy is the result of rape, incest or if it will endanger your life.
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/public_funding.htmlOh, and if you are not sure where to turn for a termination, try Google. You’ll get a gazillion hits telling you whom to contact. At least until the House tries to pass a bill stripping all mention of “abortion” from the internet. But they can’t do that. How would they brag to their constituents that they have tightened the noose around poor working women if they could not use the “A” word.
Finally, to all you Right to Lifers out there. The Republican Party is using you. They will never, ever outlaw abortion. Never. The GOP controlled both Houses of Congress for four years, and they never tried it, not even using the so called “nuclear option” to overcome an anticipated Democratic filibuster. Why not? Because if they ever do, you will stop voting on this one issue election after election, at which point you might start asking “How is foreclosing on homes and closing schools good for the family?”. Because the majority of Americans want
their own abortion rights protected, even if they are willing to let other folks lose theirs. Because women will start dying again, and we will start seeing pictures like the one of Gerri Santoro, the young mother who bleed to death from a botched back alley abortion and whose suffering helped to mobilize the movement to give women control of their own bodies and lives. And that, more than anything else, is what King and DeMint are afraid of. Not the death. They could care less about a dead mother and her orphaned children. They are afraid of the political backlash.
http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/gerri-santoros-abortion/
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