Amendment 48 Goes Too Far

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By Patricia Schroeder

My very first job after graduating from Harvard Law School was as a part-time lawyer for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Denver. I was working on cases related to expanding access to birth control to all couples regardless of their marital status. At the time the birth control pill was recently approved as safe, but it was not yet legal in all states for all women. The Supreme Court in 1965 established basic privacy rights to birth control, but only for women who could produce a marriage license.

Fast forward to 2008, 40 years later. In my worst nightmare, it never crossed my mind that voters in Colorado would be considering a constitutional amendment that could outlaw birth control pills. Emergency contraceptives could also be illegal under Proposition 48, a form of birth control that if taken up to 72 hours after intercourse can prevent an unwanted pregnancy, especially used by rape and incest victims.

If you need more reasons to Vote No on 48, chances are you or your own family will be affected if this crazy proposal passes. Like thousands of living women in Colorado in the 1970’s, I struggled with difficult pregnancies. I lost twins during my second pregnancy and almost died during childbirth. It was a painful time for my family, as it is for all families. I can only imagine how devastating it would have been if government officials had shown up on my doorstep, asking questions about what had happened, was it really a miscarriage? Yet, couples could face that kind of unthinkable government investigation if Colorado voters allow Amendment 48 to pass.

If you don’t believe it could happen, just take a look at the plain language of the Amendment. It would amend the Colorado constitution to grant, for the first time, inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law to fertilized eggs. Even the proponents of the Amendment admit they don’t know all the possible ramifications.

Would couples struggling to get pregnant be allowed to use in vitro fertilization, which depends on fertilizing more eggs than a woman can carry to term? Would common birth control methods, such as the Pill, IUDs, the Patch, and the Ring, be outlawed because they operate by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus?

Could child welfare agencies be called to investigate abuse of a fertilized egg? Would a fertilized egg have standing to sue a woman for getting chemotherapy for cancer because it might be harmed? Amendment 48 would open more than 20,000 statutes and regulations to re-interpretation by the courts and lawyers. Almost every area of the law would be affected, including criminal law, family law, trusts and estates, elder law, tort law, juvenile law, health law, and business law.

In this presidential election year, Coloradans will decide one of the most competitive senate races in the country, several strongly contested congressional races, and as many as a dozen statewide ballot initiatives. There are a large number of questions on the ballot this fall, and many of the issues are complicated. But it doesn’t take a constitutional scholar, a medical ethicist or a genius to see that Amendment 48 is ridiculous. Coloradans have rejected these extreme positions before and must do so again.

Amendment 48 is not a homegrown initiative. National groups such as The American Life League, Lifeguard, and the Thomas More Law Center are carrying out a multi-state strategy with the ultimate goal of overturning Roe v. Wade. In addition to Colorado, they tried to get similar amendments on the ballot in Georgia, Montana, and Oregon, but failed. These outside groups are hoping, in Colorado, that the Amendment will sneak through the clutter of a crowed ballot. They are counting on you to be distracted and not to focus on the full implications of Amendment 48.

Well, they are forgetting that Coloradans are independent thinkers. Coloradans believe that they and their neighbors should have the ability to plan when they want to start a family, decide when they are ready to become parents, and make other important life decisions. By establishing constitutional rights from the moment of fertilization, Amendment 48 would eliminate a woman’s right to make personal, private decisions about her own health care, in consultation with her doctor and her family.

Years ago, when I was asked how I could be both a mother and a Congresswoman, I replied, “I have a brain and a uterus and I use both.” On November 4, I urge Coloradans to use their brains and protect women’s uteruses. Vote no on Amendment 48.
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Schroeder represented Colorado’s First Congressional District from 1973 to 1996.
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Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 10/08

Using Pseudo-science At HHS

By Kathleen C. Barry

I thought the battle for women's rights had largely been won but the extremists are coming out of the closet with their real agenda, the assault on birth control. This fringe has won converts for its warped pseudo-science at the Department of Health and Human Services, where a proposed rule would codify that anyone receiving federal funding could not be required to provide birth control under the basis that it might violate their religious views.

The new rules would mean that all health care providers -- including pharmacists and medical staff at hospitals and clinics, medical schools and even family planning centers -- could refuse to provide all forms of contraception. Women’s rights are being put at the whim of their providers who could now claim a “conscience” clause to refuse to cover birth control in medical plans or provide pregnancy prevention to rape victims.

It seems the debate over women's reproductive rights has come full circle, so that women are once again forced to argue for their right of self-determination. Every day, Americans face important life decisions, with outcomes that will reverberate for years: how to afford health care; how to die with dignity, how to talk to teenagers about sex; when and what kind of contraceptives to use; when to have a baby and whether it is safe to have more than one child. This debate is really about more than contraception, it's about life decisions and whether women get to make them for themselves.

How did this happen? With nine out of every ten American women using contraceptives, you'd think we were out of the Dark Ages. It's a small minority of activists who are pushing for these extreme measures. The Women Donors Network, together with Communications Consortium Media Center, conducted research and found that 91 percent of voters agreed that couples should have access to birth control. Voters believe, by 83 percent, that we should respect people's ability to make their own life decisions, including when to have a child -- and not impose our values and views on them.

The extremists' agenda is designed to strip woman of self-determination. We cannot allow the intractable debate on pregnancy termination to overshadow our right to prevent a pregnancy. Under the proposed HHS rule anyone -- the doctor, the pharmacist, the receptionist -- could deny a woman the right to contraception.

Given that contraceptives prevent unintended pregnancies, you would think that the anti-abortion crowd would be the biggest promoter of birth control. Not so, because their real target is to end family planning. It's time to move on to the critical issues about reproductive health and sexuality that face all of us every day -- issues such as access to contraception and cervical cancer prevention. Let's agree to disagree about abortion, but certainly prevention of unwanted pregnancy can be a common ground goal most Americans can agree upon.

The public has only until September 25 to send comments to HHS about the proposed rule. Send your comments to consciencecomment@hhs.gov. The proposed HHS rule should die a swift death and the anti-women activists should back off, allowing the rest of us to move on.
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Barry is a board member of The Women Donors Network, a national network of progressive women donors, and a founding member of their Reproductive Rights Initiative.

HHS Proposal Undercuts State Birth Control Laws

By Cristina Page

The Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been called "ground zero for the ideological wars in this country," and a new HHS proposal leaked this week proves why. In a spectacular act of complicity with extremists on the right, HHS is proposing to allow any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception.

The American public is nearly unanimous in supporting contraception: 90 percent favor wide availability for birth control, and 90 percent of sexually active women of reproductive age are using it. It is simple common sense: the average woman spends nearly three decades of her life attempting to be sexually active without getting pregnant, and access to contraception is the only proven way to avoid an unintended pregnancy.

For most women, birth control is a basic health care need. But with this new proposal, the Bush administration plans to hand over the gears of health care to the few extremists who want to impose their deeply unpopular right-wing doctrine on the many. The "Pill Kills" fringe has generally been ignored for its warped pseudo-science, but not at Bush's HHS. Its new proposal would make agencies receiving HHS funding promise not to discriminate in hiring against anyone who objects to abortion -- and then redefines abortion so as to include most commonly used forms of birth control including oral contraceptives and IUDs.

This is the latest -- and now incontrovertible -- proof that the anti-abortion movement, and the administration that appears beholden to it, opposes basic pregnancy prevention and is firmly committed to control over Americans' sex lives. If the HHS proposal is approved, anti-contraceptive operatives will seize health financing, one of the most important levers of control. The regulations would be vast in scope and serve as an open invitation for local extremists to directly meddle with your most important life decisions.

Under the new rule, any health care provider who receives federal funding and would like to prevent women from having access to prescription birth control would have federal protection for doing it. State laws requiring hospitals to give pregnancy prevention to rape victims would be automatically invalidated. Pharmacies nationwide could be granted instant permission to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control. Health centers may be forced to hire religious extremists who would refuse to provide contraception to their patients, even if contraception service is the main focus of the facility.

The new regulation would overrule laws in 27 states requiring health insurers to cover contraceptives. Keep in mind that reluctance of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) to cover contraception was what led to these state mandates in the first place. Health insurance plans would likely be able to eliminate contraceptive coverage, re-imposing on women 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care expenses than men pay.

President Bush has been committed to restricting Americans' access to pregnancy prevention since his first days in office. In 2001, he attempted to eliminate contraceptive coverage for federal employees and soldiers. At the request of the anti-contraception movement, he has obstructed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's process of approving proposals for wider access to contraception; appointed self-described anti-contraception leaders to oversee the nation's federal contraception program for the poor; eliminated funding for international family planning programs; appointed anti-condom activists to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS; promoted programs that withhold information about birth control from sexually active teens; and sunk unprecedented sums of public funding into these no-sex-until-marriage programs, even after witnessing, as governor of Texas, that the result there was the highest teen birth rate of any state in the union.

The proposed regulation is just one of many campaigns against contraception, all led entirely by the anti-abortion establishment. Few Americans know that not one anti-abortion organization in the United States supports contraception. Even fewer understand that every effort to ensure Americans' access to pregnancy prevention is met with fierce, well-financed, and increasingly successful opposition by anti-abortion groups.

The Bush administration has been able to implement these deeply unpopular attacks against birth control and family planning because the American public doesn't really believe that an anti-contraception movement even exists. Under the cover of public denial, behind the banner of "Who could be against contraception?" ideological extremists have accomplished much of their agenda. Approval of the HHS proposal would be the most encompassing and far-reaching attack on the right to contraception they could hope for. What the anti-birth control extremists need now is for the public to continue to believe it can't happen.
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Page is the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex and spokesperson for BirthControlWatch.org
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Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 7/08

The Anti-Family Planning Movement: Coming to a Bedroom Nearest You

By Cristina Page

Like lawn ornaments in summer, protesters outside the local abortion clinic are fixtures in many places in the United States today.

Their presence and message have long been so predictable that, without looking or listening, people believe they understand the point. And so you might not notice that the protest taking place outside your local clinic today has fundamentally changed.

It is no longer about abortion. June 7 is the anniversary of Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that granted married people the right to use contraception. To mark the day, anti-abortion groups are taking to their normal posts outside clinic entrances not to convince Americans to oppose abortion but rather to stop using contraception.

The national campaign is called "Protest the Pill Day 08'" and it is organized by several leading anti-choice groups including the American Life League and Pharmacists for Life. The groups’ website is full of unscientific, medically inaccurate information.

Anti-contraception activism has been working its way up the priority list of the anti-choice movement in the United States in recent years and today's campaign is one of the most organized and visible displays of this broadening agenda.

Currently, there is not one pro-life organization in the U.S. that supports contraception. In fact, the multi-pronged attack against the right to use contraception is led entirely by anti-abortion groups. Their initiatives (to name just a few) include opposing health insurance of contraception, urging pharmacists to deny women's birth control prescriptions, and attempting (with no scientific rationale) to reclassify the birth control pill, and all other hormonal forms of contraception, as abortion methods with the goal of banning them. This represents an important and frightening shift in focus by the anti-abortion movement.

Despite the fact that contraception is the only proven way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and reduce abortion rates, anti-choice groups would forgo these benefits, and even risk dramatically increasing abortion rates, in favor of a larger, more insidious goal: changing Americans' sex lives.

As the American Life League, the nation's largest pro-life educational organization, explains in its materials, "The American Life League denies the moral acceptability of artificial birth control and encourages each individual to trust in God, to surrender to His will, and to be predisposed to welcoming children." The American Life League prefers to put the choices in the hands of God, a choice they want to impose on everyone. "It must be clear that couples understand that when they ask God to not send them another child just now they are also saying, ‘If it is Your will to send us another child at this time, we praise You for Your divine providence,’” the group says.

Buoyed by their success in rolling back abortion rights, these groups seek nothing less than a complete American lifestyle makeover: sex can't ever exclude the possibility of procreation. But instead of convincing Americans to see things their way, groups like the American Life League have decided the more expeditious path is to attack the right to use contraception.

The right to use contraception is relatively new: the Griswold decision was rendered in 1965 and Supreme Court granted single people the right to use contraception as recent as 1972. But the changes these decisions set in motion now form a list of what Americans won't live without. Today, 95 percent of people have sex before marrying. Indeed, studies show that most Americans in a relationship are having sex, on average, once a week. The typical American female is fertile for approximately 30 years of her life. For about 23 of those years she is trying not to get pregnant. Much of our lifestyle, and the architecture of our most intimate relationships, is rooted in family planning. And we should be grateful for this.

In the 1950s, when there was no sex education, no birth control, no legal abortion (the exact legislative agenda of today's pro-life movement!) teen birth rates soared and have not been equaled since. Today, the rate of teen motherhood, not coincidentally, has been reduced by more than half.

The right to plan your family to the size you want and can support is a cherished, and frequently exercised, American family value. So, the next time you pass by the protest outside your local clinic listen carefully: their real target is your way of life.
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Page is the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex and spokesperson for BirthControlWatch.org
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Copyright (C) 2008 by the American Forum. 6/08

How the Christian Right Goes Wrong

By Cristina Page

New research reveals that female students in programs that promote abstinence exclusively are more likely to get pregnant than those in programs that teach about the full range of contraceptives as well as abstinence. The news, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, is just the latest proof that the $1.5 billion dollar “just say no to sex” experiment on our teens has failed. And while Christian conservatives defend their approach even in the face of this latest devastating news, it’s time to ask them one simple question: Shouldn’t the results matter?

At current rates, half of all teenagers will have sex before graduating high school and 95 percent will before marrying. These statistics infuriate the abstinence-until-marriage proponents. Their hope is that, by keeping teens in the dark about protection, ignorance will somehow lead to temperance. Those most committed to the abstinence approach seem to have paid most dearly though. Earlier findings by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities revealed that teens taking part in virginity pledge programs (they pledge to stay virgins until marriage) are more likely than their non-pledging peers to engage in risky unprotected sex. The study also showed virgin pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex and male “virgins” are four times more likely to have anal sex than those who do not take the pledge. These “virgins” had the same rate of STDs as other teens but were much less likely to be treated for them.

Southern school districts, which are five times more likely to use the abstinence-only approach than northeast schools, have much to show for investing in the abstinence-only. Today, southern states lead the nation in the acquisition of STDs, are home to the highest rate of new HIV/AIDS cases, and have the highest percentage of teen mothers in the country. The damage is so staggering that 17 states have opted to reject federal funding for abstinence only. In the long term, they concluded, the costs of their failure outweigh any benefits.

Abstinence is not the only policy that Christian conservatives pursue despite evidence that it doesn’t work. In fact, much of the movement’s policies have, even by their own standards, led to perverse outcomes. Consider the drive to outlaw abortion. Last year, 11 states moved to ban abortion immediately and create a case to test Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court. But, if ending abortion is the goal, banning abortion is quite possibly the worst strategy. The countries with the highest abortion rates in the world are those that have banned abortion. Take Latin America, where most countries have outlawed abortion yet have the same rate or- as in the case of Peru, Chile and the Dominican Republic -- rates twice as high as the United States. And where on earth have the lowest abortion rates been achieved? In countries with the strongest pro-choice policies; like the Netherlands, Germany and Italy where abortion is not only legal, but in several cases available free of charge. This pro-choice policy/lower abortion rate trend has been true in our country as well. We witnessed the most dramatic decline in abortion in the history of our country under our first pro-choice president, Bill Clinton. These declines continue today and notably where it is falling sharpest is where the strongest pro-choice policies, namely prevention through wider access to contraception, have been adopted.

And while banning abortion has failed to stop abortions, limiting abortion rights has also produced undesired outcomes. A favorite tactic of the “right to life” movement is to impose mandatory delay policies on abortion. A woman must receive information about her right to an abortion and then must wait 24 to 48 hours before receiving a procedure. Sounds harmless enough. However, while these policies have had little effect on the frequency of abortion they have dramatically increased late term abortions. In the year after Mississippi passed a mandatory delay law, second trimester abortion increased statewide by 53 percent. Nearly half the number of women presenting for an abortion late in pregnancy these days cite pro-life restrictions as the cause.

The danger of policies guided by ideology is that the means often are the end. There is no better example of the deleterious effects of policies based on wishful thinking than in the reproductive rights debate. We need to respect people’s ability to make their own life decisions and not impose our values and views upon them. If Americans were to set aside the catchy sound bites and suspiciously simplistic reasoning and instead judge by results, most would find the pro-choice movement is a more comfortable home for their stated values.
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Page is the author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex and spokesperson for BirthControlWatch.org
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Copyright (C) 2007 by the American Forum. 4/08

College Kids Paying The Price For Birth Control

As a young woman in college, I have had first hand experience with the rising costs concerning birth control pills. In the past year, the specific brand of birth control pills I use have gone up almost an extra $10 a month, from $40 to $50. Without coverage, my prescription runs $600 a year. Although I’m fortunate to have an insurance company that covers a nice percentage of my costs, meaning I only pay $20 a month, not everyone is as lucky as I am.

According to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) Pro-Choice, only 24 of the 50 states in the U.S. require insurance companies to cover birth control. Fewer college campuses are making contraceptives and preventative care available to students. Also, I find it rather interesting (and ridiculous) that some insurance providers cover Viagra but not the pill. Men can get someone to pay for their erections but women are denied control over their ovaries? I don’t think so.

Anne Marie Chaker makes a good point in the Wall Street Journal.

Colleges and universities say the change is having a significant impact on their health centers and the students they serve. Prices have begun skyrocketing for many popular brands of birth control. Health centers are having to reconfigure their offerings and write new prescriptions. And college students are making some tough choices, such as switching to cheaper generic brands or forgoing their privacy in order to claim their pills on their parents' insurance.

I urge everyone to read in its entirety, here.

The University of Kentucky’s newspaper, The Kentucky Kernel, recently featured a great editorial about the rising costs of birth control pills. Will we continue to pay, whatever the cost, to prevent becoming young parents? I think we will.

If the pills are really that important to the students, they will still likely find a way to pay for the pills. Dr. Greg Moore, UHS health director, compared the increase in the cost of pills to the increase in the cost of gas prices. “You just deal with it,” he said.

It seems that more people would want everyone to have access not only to the pill, but all forms of contraception. I’m sure parents don’t want to know their kids are having sex (much like we don’t want to know about our parents,) however, don’t we want them to be protected? I think it’s important for college students as well as campus publications to talk about this issue and educate more young people about what’s going on with their health insurance. Higher birth control prices will have a negative impact on sexually active college and high school students. Some may not be able or want to pay the new amounts and might refrain from protection altogether.

Well, we can always rely on abstinence only sex education, right? It seems to be a rather effective means keeping the number of unexpected pregnancies and STD’s down. Oh wait, no it’s not. It’s completely naïve and idiotic. Let’s see, how about we take away condoms, birth control and any knowledge about safe sex. Talk about being safe. I’m sure the hormone-filled youth will refrain from sex.

As for the issue of Viagra being covered while prescriptions like Yaz and Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo are not, NARAL has organized a petition you can sign. Along with your signature, you can leave a personal message to your state senator. I encourage everybody to sign.

--Ashlie McEachern