Protect an American Woman's Right To Birth Control

Protect an American woman’s right to birth control.

http://www.facebook.com/naralprochoiceamerica?sk=app_190733170965153

We need very important action from American men and women. NARAL hopes to deliver 30,000 signatures to the NIH by Friday (tomorrow) June 17th that are critical for two reasons. One is stated and the other I will explain to you in no nonsense language. Even I didn’t know about this provision of the new health care law, and it probably explains a big part of why Republicans are gunning for the new law. The petition reads:

I Support No-Cost Birth Control

To the Department of Health and Human Services:

The new health-care-reform law should make prescription birth control available without co-pays or other out-of-pocket costs.

This change will ensure that every woman has access to the birth control that works best for her. Reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and encouraging the responsible use of birth control are goals we all share.

1) In the next few weeks, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be drafting regulations that could designate birth control as a preventive-health service and allow women to get prescriptions for birth control filled without a copay. This is one of the potential benefits that came from the new national health-care law.

The above is NARAL talking. Now Anne will talk turkey with you.

2) It is the intention of the social conservative wing of the Republican party to outlaw birth control in America, at least in as many states as possible. How in the world can they do that, you ask. The answer is simple.

Social conservatives — including the Catholic Church —  believe that birth control is a form of abortion. Across America Republicans are introducing legislation to give ‘personhood’ to a fertilized egg. Once passed in state legislatures, and perhaps in a Republican led Congress (don’t say impossible!!!) the legal claim against birth control will be that it kills human babies.

By signing the NARAL petition, by our demanding that a woman’s right to birth control is part of her preventive-health care, there is a legal precedent on the books that supports our side — Americans who believe that women deserve a right to plan their pregnancies with something other than abstinence. Now I understand a key reason why social conservatives are so fighting mad over the ‘social engineering’ of the health care bill.  It is a direct block of their intention not only to outlaw all abortion in America, but birth control next.

I beg you, as an American citizen, please, please sign this petition on behalf of both American women and men.

Married couples — especially poor married couples — should not lose their right to family planning with the current Republican agenda. The men who are passing these laws often have six, seven children and almost never less than three with a stay at home wife. That is their right and choice, but now they are inflicting their own form of social engineering on women and couples who have a different vision for themselves.

With enough money, many of us will find a way around these birth control challenges in the future, getting contraception from Canada or by other means. Poor and middle income people will not. Married people should not have to practice sexual abstinence or the rhythm method in order to guarantee that they don’t have an unplanned pregnancy.

Please sign petition now. We only have 2 days. Anne

http://www.facebook.com/naralprochoiceamerica?sk=app_190733170965153

Feel free to repost my note or copy and paste it, using your name on your own FB wall.