According to everyone's favorite conservative radio-show host Rush Limbaugh, "reproductive health care is abortion." Ridiculous! Ludicrous! Absurd! All three of those words, (and quite a few more), immediately came to mind....Women's reproductive health care encompasses a variety of basic, essential services: annual gynecological exams, Pap smears to screen for cervical cancer, mammograms to screen for breast cancer, prenatal care, birth control, and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. There is a growing tendency for conservatives to trumpet women's reproductive health care as being all about abortion; to claim that reproductive health care is primarily and solely concerned with abortion is an absolute and utter falsehood!
Former lieutenant governors of Iowa, Joy Corning and Sally Pederson, recently wrote a piece for the Desmoine Register concerning this uneducated comment. According to Corning and Pederson:
"This kind of outrageous and polarizing language gets the listeners' attention and undermines the health care of millions of women and the thousands of health centers that serve them. "
They write not only about the immediate and tangible benefits of women's reproductive health clinics; for many low income women the clinics are the only outlet they have for medical care, but the incredible impact prescreening tests like mammograms and Pap smears are having on the female community.
"For example, cervical cancer- one of the most common causes of death for American women is curable in the early stages. Due to the increased use of the Pap test, cervical cancer death rates declined by 74 percent between 1955 and 1992."
Abortion is definitely a part of women's rights in the reproductive health care arena, but it is BY NO MEANS the only part. It is vital to remember that reproductive health care is a complex, expansive issue that concerns all of us. Educate yourself! Educate your friends!
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25705444@N03/3325709899/
2 comments:
Congratulations on your first blog. We look forward toyour insighful commentary.
We agree with the point of view expressed in your blog. Rush Linbaugh is an insgificant blow hard whose own words and actions leave his own political party looking for explanations...
GCE
Corrections to Posting: should read to your insightful.. and Rush is an insignificant blow hard
GCE :)
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