Today Jeffrey Goldberg exposes the Komen Memos, prepared early in January to obfuscate the firestorm they knew would occur when they made moves to target Planned Parenthood in a larger war that the ultra right is waging to curb no vanquish complete access to health care for women. We aren’t just discussing abortion now, we are also discussing contraception and ultimately whether or not women can make choices for their own bodies without interference.
Today we all know Komen reversed their decision because of a sustained backlash against the group for politicizing the health of women.
December 16, 2011: According to this memo sent out to Affiliates for SGK that grant eligibility criteria had been rewritten, bullet point 2 states this:
Further, should Komen become aware that an applicant or its affiliates are under formal investigation for financial or administrative improprieties by local, state or federal authorities, the applicant will be ineligible to receive a grant. An organization may regain its eligibility once the investigation is concluded if the organization and its related affiliates are cleared of any wrongdoing.
- expand the pre-abortion waiting period requirement in South Dakota to make it more onerous than that in any other state, by extending the time from 24 hours to 72 hours and requiring women to obtain counseling from a crisis pregnancy center in the interim;
- expand the abortion counseling requirement in South Dakota to mandate that counseling be provided in-person by the physician who will perform the abortion and that counseling include information published after 1972 on all the risk factors related to abortion complications, even if the data are scientifically flawed;
- require the health departments in Utah and Virginia to develop new regulations governing abortion clinics;
- revise the Utah abortion refusal clause to allow any hospital employee to refuse to “participate in any way” in an abortion;
- limit abortion coverage in all private health plans in Utah, including plans that will be offered in the state’s health exchange; and
- revise the Mississippi sex education law to require all school districts to provide abstinence-only sex education while permitting discussion of contraception only with prior approval from the state.
- Washington Post gives credence to a non-existent link between breast cancer and abortion
- The US House of Representatives is conducting their own war on Women
- Rep. Stearns Attack on Planned Parenthood begins in April of 2011
- Protect Life Act??? The opposite of really protecting life though
- The Supreme Courts War on Women
- Republicans take their War on Women worldwide
- Karen Handels own War on Women and Reproductive Health including contraception
Watch out ladies, Republicans and their surrogates don’t think we can make our own decisions, nor do they believe we should be able to speak freely with our health care professionals. They will do whatever it takes to make sure we head backwards to 1961 before Griswold, they are stripping us of our rights as full citizens and we need to fight back.