About 70,000 women die every year and many more suffer harm as a
result of unsafe abortions in countries with restrictive laws on ending
a pregnancy, according to a report.
The total number of abortions
across the globe has fallen, the influential Guttmacher Institute says,
but that drop relates only to legal abortions and is mostly the result
of changes in eastern Europe.
My favorite moment so far in the health care debate was when Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona argued against mandating maternity benefits as part of a basic insurance coverage. “I don’t need maternity care,’’ he blurted out. At which point, Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow quipped, “I think your mom probably did.’’
For that matter, so did his wife and daughter. But never mind. We had one brief glimpse into the mind of a politician who doesn’t quite see women’s health concerns as equal to his own.
Is this 2009? Or have we time-travelled backwards to some primitive time when women's rights were decades away as a political notion? If we listen to the discussion today - September 25, 2009 - in the Senate Finance Committee as they mark-up their healthcare reform legislation, it would be hard to pinpoint the year as nearing the close of the first decade of the 21st century.
Senator Jon Kyl, R-AZ, couldn't stand hearing that he might have to pay for maternity benefits under any healthcare reform that passes this Congress. Truly.
It's 2009. We've
elected President Barack Obama. We've elected a Democratic majority in
both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Those bastions of
social policy are now in place to protect basic human rights. Good things
should be in the offing - at least we should make progress in the
direction of more equity for women and their families and perhaps most
especially for women of color. Right?
