Women Are Not 'Pork'

By Ruth Rosen, Religion Dispatches. Posted January 30, 2009.

That same morning, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert asked “Why anyone listens to [Republicans]?” Why, indeed. They want the Democrats to fail. They want the new president to fail. And so they described women’s bodies as “pork” and asked that the funding be cut for contraception.

Women’s groups are legitimately outraged at what has happened. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America called the measure a “victim of misleading attacks and partisan politics.” Mary Jane Gallagher, president of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said: “Family planners are devastated that President Obama and Congress have decided to take funding for critical family planning services out of the stimulus. Their willingness to abandon the millions of families across the country who are in need is devastating.”

“The Medicaid Family Planning State Option fully belonged in the economic recovery package,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center. “The Republican leadership opposition to the provision shows how out of touch they are with what it takes to ensure the economic survival of working women and their families.”

While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) defended the measure as recently as last Sunday, President Barack Obama and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, bowed to Republican pressure and agreed to drop the measure. And although the Senate has not yet voted, it’s unlikely that funding for expanded family planning will be approved. In short, the Democrats decided it just wasn’t worth fighting about. According to the Washington Wire, one House Democratic aide said, “It ended up being a distraction and it will be removed.”

So, poor women who want reproductive health care and contraception are both “pork” and a “distraction.” Is this the change we have dreamed about?

President Obama certainly believes in contraception for poor women and girls on Medicaid. He won the election, as he recently pointed out. He doesn’t have to cave in to Republican demands to restrict women’s choices and health care.

The best way he and Democrats can handle this terribly misguided decision is to pass legislation to fund expanded family planning as soon as possible, before half the population wakes up and realizes that once again, women have been treated as expendable, and that their bodies have been bartered for political expediency.

See more stories tagged with: gender, economy, family planning, reproductive justice, stimulus

Ruth Rosen, a journalist and historian, is professor emerita of history at the University of California, Davis and a visiting professor of public policy and history at UC Berkeley. For 11 years, she wrote op-ed columns for the Los Angeles Times, and from 2000-2004 she worked full-time as a political columnist and editorial page writer at the San Francisco Chronicle.

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