Columnists
Black and white and red
US politics, there is a hallmark issue upon which leaders have been taking a hard line. It is an emotional issue that leads to horrible, irrational behaviour, but somehow it all ends up black and white.
When the Roe v Wade decision came down on January 22, 1973, the highest court in the land determined that women had the right to obtain medically safe abortions. Perhaps at the time it seemed that was that.
Then, in August of 1984, Republican leader Ronald Reagan showed the party’s power went beyond American citizens. While he could not prevent American women from having abortions, he could prevent American funds from supporting organizations that provided, or even advocated for abortions abroad.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating for the right of women to access safe abortions or funding them in any way were cut off, entirely, unless their policies changed. Some NGOs capitulated, others did not, and took a huge hit to their income.
Since Reagan’s policy—named the Mexico City Policy for the city in which he announced it— came into play, it has been a game of tug-of-war for Democrats and Republicans.
On January 22, 1993, on his first day in office and on the 20th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, president Bill Clinton revoked the policy.
On January 22, 2001, George W. Bush reinstated it.
On January 23, 2009, Barack Obama once again revoked the policy.
And this week, 44 years after Roe v Wade, long after those who initially celebrated the ruling would have hoped the issue would be laid to rest, the Mexico City Policy was reinstated yet again.
It must be easy, from the desk at the oval office, to see the issue in black and white.
It’s easy, too, to get lost in symbolism, surrounded by glitzy representations of female body parts as women march around the world to protest such moves.
But the reality is organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation will be losing hundreds of millions of dollars, none of which is used for abortions. But the work that organization, and others like it do, doesn’t mean, as some suggest, that more women get abortions.
In fact, women in countries where abortion is illegal, sometimes in situations where they are punished for being raped, where they have no real choice, will still get abortions. But they will do so in much more dangerous ways, risking their own lives. This is how tens of thousands of women die every year.
Their situations, and the decisions they have to make, must be unfathomable from the White House. They’re probably also unfathomable to many of the millions of women who marched, in part, to protect their rights.
Yet a stroke of a pen can put a strangle-hold on the help they need.
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