Roe v. Wade was decided when I was a high school senior; womens’ reproductive rights were a perennial topic of discussion even (perhaps especially) in our Dominican-nun-led parochial school. By the time I was in college, poring through my first copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, birth control was finally being offered even to unmarried students through campus health services. (Although our Midwestern state campus still didn’t have a gynecologist affiliated with the student medical center. There were two large-animal gynecologists on faculty — “we” were very proud of our veterinary school — but none for humans.) My first non-student job, at that same university, provided full coverage for abortion as well as birth control, because it had been demanded by a majority-female work union. We also got it written into the campus hiring guidelines that women couldn’t be fired just for becoming pregnant… which was very much standard practice, even for married women, in those days. And we were damned proud of our progress, because we knew that things had changed drastically, as a result of a lot of peoples’ hard work and sacrifice over many years.
It was a Biden BFD when Planned Parenthood stepped outside its non-partisan box and endorsed Hillary Clinton, for the first time in its hundred-year history. As the NYTimes interpreted that choice:
… The decision to break with tradition and endorse Mrs. Clinton comes as the House has approved a measure, endorsed by the leading Republican presidential candidates, that would repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act and strip away federal financing for Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive and health care services.
“Everything Planned Parenthood has believed in and fought for over the past 100 years is on the ballot,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood…
Other groups that support abortion rights, including NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC, have already endorsed Mrs. Clinton. But in Planned Parenthood’s case, Mrs. Clinton’s future and the group’s are intrinsically linked: Planned Parenthood needs to have a Democrat elected president to protect its funding, and Mrs. Clinton is hoping abortion rights and the Republican candidates’ positions will motivate female voters to support her.
The Clinton campaign has functioned almost as a marketing arm for Planned Parenthood, featuring a section on its official website titled “17 times Hillary Clinton stood with Planned Parenthood,” Facebook messages and Instagram posts with the hashtag #StandwithPP. (Ms. Richards’ daughter works on the campaign’s staff in Iowa.)…
Young women in 2016 — so we’re told — prefer Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton, because what they perceive as most important right now is economic justice, digging the 99% out from under the crushing weight of ALEC-initiated legislation that supports the kleptocracy. Increasing the minimum wage, reducing or eliminating student loan debt, making it possible for citizens under the age of forty to consider the possibility of home ownership or parenthood outside of a lottery win (or a legacy from their elders). I don’t resent their priorities, but I do sometimes wish they had a little better understanding of how recently it’s become possible for a woman to assume that she could choose to be sexually active without risking her social status, her health, her job, and even her life.
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