Planning for change
Ten good reasons to be thankful for Planned Parenthood
By Ellen Snortland 11/25/2009
By now, unless you’ve been living under some boulder, you know about the Stupak-Pitts bill. Bottom line: it’s an outrageous, blatantly sexist manipulation by the far right religious extremists and the Catholic bishops to hijack the public health bill, making abortions inaccessible to poor and mid-income women by locking them out of the public option.
This Thanksgiving I encourage you to show your outrage and also give thanks to Planned Parenthood by using Stupak-Pitts as an impetus to send your local PP a donation of any size (plannedparenthood.org).
I have a daily practice where I take the time to list 10 things I’m grateful for every day. Today, I list 10 things I’m grateful to PP for:
1: I have a life that was unimaginable to my mother and her generation — If you are familiar with history, the only women who were able to carve out a life of their own invention were mostly wealthy or celibate. Because of family planning, my partners and I were able to decide to NOT have children. In the scope of human history, this is revolutionary.
2: When I was poor, PP was there — When I was a student, the only health care I could afford was the annual check-up I would get from my local PP office. They accepted fees based on income level, something unavailable elsewhere. I was uninsured, not working and had very few options. PP has a 90-year tradition of caring for women and girls, regardless of status.
3: PP is male-friendly — PP approaches reproductive health as something that involves more than just one person. Duh, right? It takes two to tango; it takes two to plan families, or unfamilies too. Want to know about vasectomies? The PP Web sites are some of the best resources available for the male way to be responsible for birth control. Yes, men can be responsible for their reproductive role too.
4: Until women achieve equality, PP is there as backup — Please do not confuse today’s opportunities and progress with parity. Just look at the numbers and see how far we are from equal representation in Washington. Do you think that if the congressional statistics were reversed — 17 percent male and 83 percent female — that we’d still be arguing about whether a woman has the right to decide when and with whom she’ll have a child? Please.
5: PP provides a voice for the voiceless — Women and girls in need of reproductive health care, birth control or an abortion don’t have a powerful lobby like the US Conference of Bishops (Catholic), or the right-wing Christian (Protestant) extremist group called The Family. (Want a terrifying exposure of religious extremists infiltrating our supposedly secular government system? Read Jeff Sharlet’s book, “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.”)
6: PP trusts women and girls — At the heart of the anti-choice movement is the idea that women are second-class citizens. Anti-choicers believe the “natural” order of things is that men make the decisions, while women breed. Pro-choice women and men believe that women are fully capable of making decisions about their own bodies and futures.
7: PP is a trustworthy resource for health and sex education — If it hadn’t been for PP, I would have gotten to college still wondering if babies came out of my belly button. Sex education, arguably the best way to reduce the NEED for abortions, has been gutted by the same forces that want abortion criminalized.
8: PP is a conscience — Keeping track of all the anti-choice machinations in DC, they remind our representatives that they are being watched. PP praises Congress members who stand up for women’s rights and publicizes those who don’t.
9: PP is nonpartisan and secular — There are plenty of pro-choice Republicans, pro-choice Catholics and people who firmly believe that reproduction and health should be between a woman and whomever she seeks counsel with, whether that is her partner, clergy, physician or higher power.
10: While you’re at it, be thankful for the National Organization for Women (now.org), The Feminist Majority (feminist.org), National Women’s Political Caucus (nwpc.org), Equality Now (equalitynow.org) and Ms. Magazine (Msmagazine.com) — Show your support for pro-choice women’s rights by getting active or re-upping with any and all of these stellar organizations.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Ellen teaches writing in Altadena. Contact her at snortland.com.
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