Title X is a program that provides affordable healthcare options to people with low incomes. Title X was put in the system to give women a right to their own bodies. Donald Trump is now trying to silence women’s voices by taking away the choice of birth control options. Birth control was made for the sole reason to let women choose the option of safer sex and allow more control over their bodies; without it women will no longer have that power within their own skin. 98% of women who have been sexually active have used birth control at one point in their lives.
Trump is trying to criminalize abortions and miscarriages. Back in the day, before birth control methods, some women who got pregnant would use a clothes hanger to abort the fetus because abortion was illegal. It was extremely dangerous but their only option. With abortion now legalized, it gives women a safe way to make their own choices about their bodies. If Donald Trump takes away birth control and makes abortion illegal, it makes women completely stuck.
Planned Parenthood is also at stake. Planned Parenthood helps provide physical, emotional, educational and sexual health care to those who might not be able to afford those services elsewhere. Donald Trump is taking away $60 million in Planned Parenthood funding. If they lose too much money, prices will start going up for patients who already can not afford higher medical prices to begin with.
These laws were put in place to give women their rights to their own bodies. Women who get pregnant should have the right to multiple choices on which way they would like to handle it. Women should also have the right to choose not to get pregnant if that’s where they’re at in their life. But ultimately, it is the woman’s choice. Donald Trump has no right to take away rights that do not affect him.
On June 6, 2019, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously on a resolution that states their opposition to the recent abortion ban bill that Governor John Edwards signed May 30. The bill that has been passed is another assault on working people’s reproductive healthcare as it bans abortions in the state of Louisiana after the 6 week mark of pregnancy. This bill has no exceptions for rape or incest and in conjunction with the already existing Hyde Amendment, which blocks Medicaid funding for abortion, access to choice for working/poor people is increasingly impossible.
At the council meeting, members of the New Orleans Workers Group demanded that City Council take the necessary steps to declare New Orleans an abortion sanctuary city and that they decline to prosecute anyone seeking an abortion or providing one within Orleans Parish.
Resolutions look nice for the careers of politicians who want a reputation for being “on the right side of history,” but what does that do for us workers who are most affected? Nothing! We need to demand more of city council members and law enforcement. We demand action!
History has already shown us the terrible consequences for poor people when abortion access is restricted. The results of this ban are death, forced generational poverty, and further oppression of child-bearing people. This is just what the capitalists want, and without a mass movement to engage in struggle over our human rights, this is just what they will get.
Here in New Orleans, local politicians rave about being a “progressive city” with Democrats in office and a handful of liberal policies that contrast the rest of the Republican State. However, this has historically meant very little as Baton Rouge continuously denies New Orleans home rule.
Think making New Orleans an abortion sanctuary city is too bold? Just last week, an all-white-male city council in Waskom, TX, declared their city a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” Waskom, TX, conservatives wanted to prevent the opening of an abortion facility after the one in Shreveport, LA, just 20 miles east of their town, was threatened with closure following Louisiana’s abortion ban. If the right-wing can so easily declare sanctuary cities to their liking, why can’t New Orleans do so for its people? It is long overdue that New Orleans take up the struggle against Baton Rouge.
Protesters demonstrate against the abortion ban bill at the Louisiana State Capitol building on May 15, 2019, in Baton Rouge.
Backed by Big Oil and War Profiteers; They All Lie, Don’t Care if Children Die
Protesters say: We Won’t Go Back!
The push for laws banning abortion is led mainly by rich white men and funded by ultra-rich capitalists. These are the same people who oppose equal pay for women, civil rights laws, raising the minimum wage, and funding for programs that help women and families raise children. These are the same people that cheer for wars that kill thousands of children. They encourage their buddy war profiteers to raid the federal budget while they try to end programs like Food Stamps and WIC. They are for profit-making jails, religious intolerance and environmental destruction. They deny funds for programs that would address Louisiana’s maternal mortality crisis, where more women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the country—the number of deaths being twice as high among Black women. While they wrap themselves in the cloak of religion, their real motive is to increase profits by further driving women down.
These immoral forces have hidden hands and deep pockets. Their funders include the Koch brothers—oil billionaires and extreme racists responsible for widespread voter suppression—who run the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC gives politicians money in exchange for passing prewritten laws. A majority of the Louisiana legislature are recipients of ALEC funds and are members. Gov. Edwards gave the keynote address at their recent convention. These hypocritical men have always used their wealth to fly “their” wives and mistresses to have abortions no matter what they proclaim. They want to limit the number of heirs to their wealth. Banning abortions will not stop them; it will just mean that more working class women will die.
In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the other 47 states, reproductive choice rallies took place May 21 and 22. Tens of thousands of people came out. Every poll shows the majority of Americans support choice, including abortion access. Photo: Birmingham, Ala.
WOMEN CANNOT THRIVE OR BE EQUAL WITHOUT REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE
RICH MEN WANT TO FORCE WOMEN INTO CHILDBEARING
Women should be free to choose whether to have an abortion, use birth control, or raise children. Whether her decision is based on concern for the rest of her children, her religious beliefs, health, rape or incest or timing, this is a fundamental right. Without this right, women are deprived of full participation in every aspect of society. Without this right, women will die and be driven to desperation.
At the same time that abortion access is criminalized, women are being driven deeper into poverty, especially single moms. The Catholic Church, like all other institutional religions, has already declared women second class to preserve male white supremacy. They even ban birth control, which most Catholic women use because they are smart and care about their families.
On May 22, hundreds of demonstrators rallied at Poydras and St. Charles Ave. in New Orleans to demand full funding for all programs that help women raise children if they choose to do so, including free abortion access.
REAL CHOICE IS ABOUT HAVING ABORTION ACCESS, BIRTH CONTROL, LIVING WAGES AND SOCIAL PROGRAMS TO HELP RAISE HEALTHY CHILDREN
The recent demonstration in New Orleans organized by Women With a Vision, the New Orleans Abortion Fund, Black Youth Project 100, Peoples’ Assembly, New Orleans Workers Group and the Hospitality Workers Alliance demanded full funding for all the programs that help women raise children if they choose to do so, while so called right-to-lifers are part of the right wing forces opposing this. Pro-choice means fighting family separation by mass incarceration and imprisonment of our immigrant sisters and brothers. Pro-choice means good schools, early childhood education, full-service free neighborhood childcare centers and sex education and abortion access. It means standing against racism, homophobia and transphobia. There are two movements here. The pro-choice movement stands for uplifting the people in all regards. Those behind the abortion bans are also behind every other right wing attack on the people.
NO SHAME IN HAVING AN ABORTION.
THE SHAME IS ON THE IMMORAL FORCES THAT IMPOVERISH AND CRIMINALIZE WOMEN FOR PURSUING OUR ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE
More and more, women workers and youth are coming into movements for social change: unions, community organizations and revolutionary groups. The anti-choice forces want women to be chained, desperate and unable to participate. But Orleans Parish women and women across the U.S. are declaring that whatever laws they pass, we are still the greatest power. Our voices are being raised, louder and clearer—let the ground shake under these greedy, rotten, rich men.
