Pro Life? Not After Birth.
What did Rep. Duffy say?
“I hear a lot in this institution from minority leaders about how their communities are targeted. But what I don’t hear them talk about is how their communities are targeted in abortion.”
“There is a targeting going on in a lot of spaces and a lot of places, and it is going on in the abortion industry. And my liberal friends, Congressional Black Caucus Members, talk about fighting for the defenseless, the hopeless, and the downtrodden. There is no one more hopeless and voiceless than an unborn baby, but their silence is deafening. I can’t hear them. Where are they standing up for their communities, advocating and fighting for their right to life?”
– Rep. Sean Duffy
Put it in context.
Sean Duffy is just one example of a politician whose “Pro-Life” agenda ends after birth.
Pro Life Politicians Oppose…
Medicaid Expansion For Black Women And Children
Medicaid is a public assistance program that helps qualified people pay for some or all of their medical bills. Signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act requires that states expand Medicaid eligibility to nearly all those earning less than $15,856 for an individual or $26,951 for a family of three. However, the Supreme Court ruled on June 28, 2012 that states have an option on whether or not to accept the expansion of Medicaid. Several states’ governors have opted out of expanding Medicaid eligibility, creating a coverage gap.
Minimum Living Wage For Black Mothers To Care For Their Kids
In 2014, all but one Republican Senator voted to block a bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10
“Voting for an increase for the minimum wage is saying your jobs don’t matter to me because they will get taken away…This bill, if it were to pass, would hammer those at the bottom of the economic ladder and cost them their jobs.”
-Sen. Ted Cruz
“If you raise the minimum wage you’re going to make people more expensive than a machine.”
– Sen. Marco Rubio
In fact, in her dissenting opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg noted, “It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.”
Access to Contraception
Politics continues to infringe upon the sexual and reproductive rights of black women, with persistent threats to defund or limit federal allocations for family planning services, including contraceptives. Most private insurance providers cover reproductive health services, but Black women are 55% more likely to be uninsured than their white counterparts. Any reduction of reproductive health services funds disproportionately impacts Black women, immigrants and the poor by limiting their contraceptive options. An inability to plan for one’s family contributes to unplanned or unintended pregnancies being brought to term.
Medically Accurate Sex Education For Black Girls
Young Black women and men have the right to lead healthy lives. Providing them with honest, age appropriate comprehensive sexual health education is an important part in helping them take personal responsibility for their health and well-being. Teen pregnancy continues to disproportionately affect youth of color, with rates for Black women and Hispanic women ages 15-19 that are more than double the rate for young white women. Additionally, in the United States, rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) also are disproportionately high among youth of color, especially among Black and Hispanic youth.
Affordable Access To Abortion For Black Women
Bodily autonomy and empowerment are at the core of Black women’s rights to obtain safe and legal abortions. Trusting Black women to make their own decisions about their own bodies is critical to advancing Reproductive Justice. Pre-Roe configurations that place that decision in the hands of “a woman and her doctor,” or “a woman and her spouse” or “a woman and her minister” may have temporary political saliency, but they ignore the historical oppression associated with Black women’s lives when it comes to controlling our reproductive health.