Planned Parenthood Says ‘No’ to Fake History and Bad Science
The news rarely happens in a vacuum. The shrinking size of print media and the expectation of short attention spans on the part of media consumers often means the context of a story is considered irrelevant.
Take the question of abortion, for instance. A missing half century of history makes contemporary political upheaval on the issue seem one dimensional. And the current administration’s relentless repetition of the big lie about the frequency and horrors of ‘late term’ abortions certainly makes it seem like an “either or proposition”.
Not long ago Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X federal family planning program used by healthcare providers to provide birth control and other health services to poor women.
Title X enabled more than 1.5 million low-income women annually with services like birth control and pregnancy tests through Planned Parenthood, as well as screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and breast and cervical cancer.
In recent days Planned Parenthood supporters have rallied across the country, holding more than 50 events, calling on their members of Congress to take action and block the dangerous gag rule.
The move away from Title X participation came in response to a new Trump administration rule --now referred to as the ‘gag rule’--limiting the options physicians and clinics can provide to patients. Specifically, it forbids referrals to doctors who can perform abortions.
Nine states have passed restrictive abortion laws in 2019 with the clear aim of forcing the Supreme Court to rule again on the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, an aspiration made possible by the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Efforts to pass these laws and to nominate conservative judges are part of a grand bargain between religious, often evangelical, pro-life voters and political conservatism, an alliance that certainly propelled Donald Trump to victory in 2016.
A big part of the Make America Great Again agenda includes reimposing social and legal conventions that bolster (white) male supremacy.
While this quest isn’t exclusively a Trumplican phenomenon, the all-out assault on women’s reproductive rights and health care has been a pillar of right-wing agendas since the Nixon era.
Joshua Tait’s story at Arc.com examining the history of conservative involvement with anti-abortion groups give some insight on the political transformations that got us to where we are today: (Emphasis mine)
If the Bible Belt was once on the forefront of abortion liberalization, conservatives were also more equivocal about abortion than you might expect. Mostly it wasn’t on their radar or they saw it as a Catholic issue. In 1966, America’s most prominent right-wing columnist, William F. Buckley, a Catholic, suggested his church should dial down opposition to abortion law reform in cases of “maternal health, rape, defect in fetus” on religious freedom grounds.
Much of the Republican Party, including conservative senators John Tower and Barry Goldwater, were staunchly pro-choice. A 1969 poll found Republicans led Democrats by 10 percent in their support for legalized abortion in the first trimester (46 percent to 35 percent).
President Richard Nixon used the right-to-life cause as a “social issue” tactic to take away white working- and middle-class votes from the Democratic coalition. His successor, Gerald Ford, was a classic small government Republican who favored a “states’ rights amendment” and legal therapeutic abortion.
Ronald Reagan’s administration, was when the anti-abortion alliance and crusade consolidated. (Interestingly, Reagan signed comprehensive legislation enabling abortions while Governor of California.)
As it turns out, the anti-abortion’s political movement grew out of a fight to keep religious organizations schools segregated.
As Randall Barber explains in the Real Origins of the Religious Right, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe V Wade wasn’t the spark that ignited the political aspirations of evangelicals. It was a different ruling by the high court, namely Green v. Connally, which upheld IRS policy saying “racially discriminatory private schools are not entitled to the Federal tax exemption provided for charitable, educational institutions, and persons making gifts to such schools are not entitled to the deductions provided in case of gifts to charitable, educational institutions.”
Paul Weyrich, the late religious conservative political activist and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, saw his opening…
...For nearly two decades, Weyrich, by his own account, had been trying out different issues, hoping one might pique evangelical interest: pornography, prayer in schools, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, even abortion. “I was trying to get these people interested in those issues and I utterly failed,” Weyrich recalled at a conference in 1990.
The Green v. Connally ruling provided a necessary first step: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders , especially as the IRS began sending questionnaires to church-related “segregation academies,” including Falwell’s own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies. Falwell was furious. “In some states,” he famously complained, “It’s easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.”
On January 19, 1976, the IRS rescinded Bob Jones University’s tax exemption.
Weyrich saw that he had the beginnings of a conservative political movement, which is why, several years into President Jimmy Carter’s term, he and other leaders of the nascent religious right blamed the Democratic president for the IRS actions against segregated schools—even though the policy was mandated by Nixon, and Bob Jones University had lost its tax exemption a year and a day before Carter was inaugurated as president. Falwell, Weyrich and others were undeterred by the niceties of facts. In their determination to elect a conservative, they would do anything to deny a Democrat, even a fellow evangelical like Carter, another term in the White House.
But Falwell and Weyrich, having tapped into the ire of evangelical leaders, were also savvy enough to recognize that organizing grassroots evangelicals to defend racial discrimination would be a challenge. It had worked to rally the leaders, but they needed a different issue if they wanted to mobilize evangelical voters on a large scale.
Once again, history finds racism at the root of reactionary politics.
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As is true with many conservative movements, it’s not just the history that’s made up; the science also falls into the untruth category.
Just this week Nicole M. Baran, Gretchen Goldman,and Jane Zelikova posted Abortion Bans Based on So-Called “Science” Are Fraudulent at Scientific American. I urge you to read the article for its detailed refutations of so called facts used by the right and the history behind them.
It is no surprise that the modern anti-abortion agenda itself is grounded in racism and shoddy science. The long history of using science to demonize black women and justify laws that exert control over their bodies equates to institutionally sanctioned violence. Although scientific research has provided the world with much good, it has also caused harm to countless individuals, especially people of color and sexual and gender minorities. This is a truth we must confront and a history we must not repeat.
Three additional points from the article:
And men, your efforts are especially welcome: here are some tips. We need to know that we are not alone in this fight.
You can educate yourself and others on the reproductive justice movement here, here and here.
And if you or someone you know are currently struggling to access abortion care anywhere in the U.S., you can find more information here.
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Don’t forget the misogyny...
I’m just going to leave this quote from Jill Filipovic’s Guardian op ed: A new poll shows what really interests 'pro-lifers': controlling women
According to self-identified “pro-life” advocates, the fundamental divide between those who want to outlaw abortion and those who want to keep it legal comes down to one question: when does life begin? Anti-abortion advocacy pushes the view that life begins at conception; the name of their movement carefully centers the conceit that opposition to abortion rights is simply about wanting to save human lives.
A new poll shows that’s a lie. The “pro-life” movement is fundamentally about misogyny.
A Supermajority/PerryUndem survey released this week divides respondents by their position on abortion, and then tracks their answers to 10 questions on gender equality more generally. On every question, anti-abortion voters were significantly more hostile to gender equity than pro-choice voters.
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Finally, a bit of good news. Performing artists from Ariana Grande to Nine Inch Nails are joining the struggle for reproductive rights.
Planned Parenthood’s “Bans Off My Body” campaign has enlisted the support of over 140 big name musicians. They’re “standing with Planned Parenthood” in a new social media campaign.
From Variety:
According to Planned Parenthood’s website, “musicians across the country are standing in solidarity with Planned Parenthood….they’re saying access to sexual and reproductive health care is about the same type of freedom that allows them to create music and speak their truth — because no one is free unless they control their own body.”
To sign the petition and learn more, visit BansOffMyBody.org, and see the full list of musicians who have signed their names in support of Planned Parenthood right here.
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Lead image: scATX via Flickr