While we may be tempted to feel secure about the future of reproductive health in this country because of the continual federal funding to Planned Parenthood, rest assured that the fight for reproductive justice is far from over. Last Wednesday, the Alaska Senate shot down a health care bill that would ensure health care to low-income women and children. While the bill and its resulting program, Denali Kid Care, has been in place for the last fourteen years, this year the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Bettye Davis, was seeking to expand coverage to about 1,300 more children and 250 more pregnant women. If the program was looking to help women and children by providing them with basic medical services, why would Alaska’s GOP vote to kill a bill that would protect so many lives?
Because of abortion, of course!
Alaska’s Supreme Court mandates that the state must fund medically necessary abortions if it funds other medically necessary services. The possibility that a woman might have a medically necessary abortion was enough for nine republicans and a democrat to vote the measure down, successfully stalling the bill and thereby stalling medical coverage to over a thousand women and children living below the poverty line. While the bill may be reconsidered later, Alaska’s Governor Sean Parnell confirmed that he “cannot envision a scenario in which he’d support an expansion” of the bill. Call me crazy, but I think that when legislators are willing to let thousands of women and children suffer, they should no longer be able to claim the title “pro-life”.
As if this wasn’t enough, on the other end of the United States the Florida Senate budget committee adopted an amendment that removes family planning from Medicaid bill 1972, which used to provide family planning measures, including birth control, to low-income families. Now, the amendment states that state Medicaid plans “may elect not to provide birth control due to an objection on moral or religious grounds“. This amendment, like many others, successfully blurs the line between church and state, allowing the religious morality of a small but powerful group to dictate the behavior of hundreds of thousands of people.
While the continued funding of Planned Parenthood was a huge victory in the fight for health care and reproductive justice, it’s important to recognize the battle is far from won. Now is not the time rest on our laurels, and an apathetic attitude towards human rights and equality will ultimately lead to regression. Try to keep yourselves informed of the political issues facing people in your state, and if there is looming legislation that seeks to take away a groups right to medical information and care, speak out about it.
For more details about Alaska’s rejected heath care bill, including information citations not included in this post, click here.
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