Blog for Choice
Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Therefore, it is Blog for Choice day. This is the first year I've actually remembered to blog for choice, too. Here goes.
There is a theme this year. It is "why it is important to vote pro-choice". I think every pro-choice person reading this knows why it is important to vote pro-choice, and right now, I'm not in the mood to list all the reasons. Really, abortion hasn't been that much of an issue in this election. All the GOP candidates think the same*, all the Dem candidates think the same.
However, I can tie abortion to the issues that ARE being discussed. I think it helps to differentiate between the candidates when it comes to abortion when you know their stances on things that are related to abortion.
(Keep in mind that I am no expert on any of these issues, I'm just detailing what I know about them and how they relate to abortion.)
The Economy
This has been talked about a LOT recently, thanks to the falling stock percentages and the acknowledgment by the media and Big Guys that the US might possibly could maybe fall into a recession. That's really funny, because I thought we had been in a recession for years. The economy has something to do with abortion because the economy has to do with class issues. Class issues are some of the main issues in the abortion debate. If Roe is overturned, low-income women and women of color will be hit the hardest. An upper-middle class/upper class white woman could drive to another state or fly to another country to get a safe abortion if she needed it--and even if she couldn't do that, she'd have enough money that having a child would not cause her and her family to go hungry. Low-income women, especially low-income women of color, do not have that option. Even if they have enough money to sustain themselves and a child, having a child will only keep them in poverty. It is harder for people of color to climb out of the poverty cycle than it is for white people, because of institutionalized racism in the United States. You can't deny it. For every whining middle-class white person who brags about how they were able to work out of poverty, there are a couple hundred working class people of color saying that they've been working all their lives and haven't gotten anywhere near leaving poverty behind.
The thing the Dems have been talking about when it comes to the economy is the mortgage crisis, among other things. It's been known for years that middle-class Americans are finding it increasingly harder to stay out of debt. The cost of living is rising, but salaries are stationary. The minimum wage was only just raised, and that raise is nowhere near good enough. People have to work two or even three minimum wage jobs--each--just to keep their families afloat. It should not be like that. Again, this relates to abortion because one of the many reasons that women choose abortion is that they cannot afford to have a child. Kids are expensive, and people do not have the money to raise them. This also brings up healthcare, which is another economy issue. People can't pay for their healthcare costs. This is stuff you NEED--regular doctor check-ups, emergency room care. I think it's pretty terrible that in one of the richest nations in the world that wastes so many resources, we've got a large chunk of the population that can't even pay for necessities like medical care.
If we want to help women who may need abortions, we should strengthen the economy and do as much as we can to eliminate poverty in the United States. We need to eliminate racism in our government and in our institutions. We need to vote for candidates who are committed to all of those things above, as well as to keeping abortion safe and legal. All three of the leading presidential candidates on the Democratic side are committed to those things (though I'd say Obama is more committed than the other two to ending racism, and Edwards is more committed to ending poverty than the other two). The Republicans aren't even pro-choice, like to refer to universal healthcare coverage as "socialized medicine", and are the first to blab on about "welfare queens". More information on the candidates and their stances:
First link is from OntheIssues.org, the others are from the campaign websites.
Edwards--Women, Poverty, Working Families, Health care.
Obama--Civil Rights, Economy, Healthcare, Poverty.
Clinton--Healthcare, Women.
Romney--Healthcare, American Values.
McCain--Healthcare, Sanctity of Life.
Giuliani--Healthcare.
Huckabee--Sanctity of Life, Healthcare
Paul--Life and Liberty, Healthcare, Racism.
That's all I have for now. I need to go to class. Comments are welcome and loved, as per usual. <3
* Rudy Giliani is not pro-choice. He is against Roe vs. Wade, in the name of "state's rights". He is for parental notification laws. That is not a pro-choice mentality, that is a "I'm trying to play the middle and failing terribly" mentality.