Reproductive Rights Action Alert

One good piece of news in the fight to defend abortion rights came from a Senate vote on Wednesday, June 19th. An amendment by Sen. Patty Murray striking a defense spending bill provision which denies military women and dependents overseas the right to obtain an abortion with private funds at a military hospital was ADOPTED BY A VOICE VOTE. A prior vote to table or kill the amendment was defeated by a vote of 51 to 45, mostly along party lines, with Senate democrats in support.

The bad news is that the House Appropriations Committee will be voting, beginning Tuesday, June 25, on a series of amendments which further restrict access to abortion and endanger the health of young and low income women. The right wing proposals that are expected to come up include:

• allowing states to deny Medicaid coverage for abortions to low-income women who are the victims of rape or incest;
• prohibiting the provision of Title X family planning services to teens without parental consent, including services for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and contraceptives. This proposal reverses a federal regulation which permits a minor to consent to such treatment;
• passing a back-door parental consent measure by instituting new means-testing for Title X family planning services which includes the entire family income to determine qualification for services. Additionally, many of the uninsured working poor who depend upon Title X clinics will become ineligible; and
• requiring Title X-funded projects to use part of their grant money on "studies" to determine their "successes and failures," including whether they reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, increase abstinence, and prevent the transmission of STDs and HIV.

Contact your House member right away to let them know that you do not support these restrictions on family planning services, especially those that requiring (or effectively enforce) parental consent. Explain that parental consent will deter teens from obtaining services and will potentially endanger their health. Also, the working poor who will become ineligible because of these restrictions have no other option and the number of unwanted pregnancies is likely to rise.

Thank your Democratic senators for voting to strike the Department of Defense provision which prohibits military personnel from obtaining abortions overseas.