Help Stop the DC Abortion Ban

If you support a law, and your local legislators support it, and your own city has raised the funding to support it, don’t you think you should be able to keep that legislation in tact? Imagine if it were, say, funding for children’s healthcare programs, or even for an animal shelter. I bet you wouldn’t protest it. It has nothing to do with you or your life or your money, after all, and it’s for a good cause.

But when that issue is abortion, everyone has to step in and protest. Anti-choice legislators are doing just that right now in Washington, D.C. Though the local leaders do not support such a ban, and they’ve worked hard to make money to support it, anti-choice leaders are voraciously trying to ban the funding that’s been raised to help low-income women in D.C. obtain an abortion.

What is that money going to go to, then? How is it their right to mandate what is done with funds raised for a specific purpose when it’s not even in their constituency? As NARAL Pro-Choice America states, no other state or jurisdiction is told what to do with their dollars in such a way—and yet because this isn’t a state, and because of the issue at hand—a health issue that affects women, mind you—it’s somehow up for debate and commentary.

I keep crossing my fingers for the day that men in this country—particularly leaders—can get pregnant. Sure, it’s not going to happen, but could you imagine if it did? Drive-thru abortion clinics for everyone!

If you think this ban is utter crap like I do, please click here. Tell legislators to mind their own constituency business and to leave the health issues of women in Washington, D.C. up to that community. Even if you aren’t a big pro-choice activist, the issue of individual community rights to use the monies they’ve raised on what they want to use them on affects us all. How would you like it if you helped raise funds for an issue you care about in your area, only to have legislators across the country descend upon you and demand that your intentions be banned?

Of course, the real issue here is the health and choice of women in Washington, D.C. Until we allow women in this country the same body autonomy that men are afforded, and until we keep church and state fully separate in politics and the law, we’re going to keep having these problems.