Tag: anti-choice

The Hypocrisy of the Anti-Choice Zealots’ Zero Tolerance Policy

The Hypocrisy of the Anti-Choice Zealots’ Zero Tolerance Policy

By: Jane Forman, Guest Blogger

Children are being torn from their families, put in cages, and left uncertain if and when they’ll see their parents again. This is the reality for over 2,000 immigrant children as a result of Trump’s zero-tolerance policy which began in May, and for months before as a part of a “pilot” program. Not only is the policy inhumane, but it also exposes a real hypocrisy among many politicians. How is it that the very elected officials who champion the rights of the fetus are ready to throw the “born” into concentration camps?

Many of these politicians who refuse to support a comprehensive reunification program of children with their parents are also the politicians who rally behind the message that “every life” has value and should be protected by society. According to the anti-woman Pro-Life Action League, “Every child, regardless of the circumstances of his or her conception, will be welcomed and loved.” – unless that child happens to be non-white. Many of the same people who’ve been silent or indifferent to the crisis produced by Trump’s zero-tolerance policy profess support for the anti-choice “right to life” stance. This message – touted by mostly white male representatives – apparently does not apply to the lives of immigrants who are not in-utero, and are coming to this country from non-white nations.

Every Democrat in the Senate signed a bill that would have prioritized connecting the State department with various countries’ governments to facilitate immediate family reunification. The bill would have also addressed some of the issues affecting immigrant men, women, and children such as rape, sex-trafficking, femicide, and violence. But not one single Senate Republicans has supported the bill – without which it cannot pass the Senate!

Separating these children from their parents, most of them below the age of 12, is a complete rejection of their emotional and physical well-being. Doctors and child welfare advocates not only cite the damaging effect of the short-term anxiety experienced by the separated children, but also that it puts them at a higher risk of PTSD, depression, and attention deficit disorder. These care facilities, regardless of their good intentions, cannot provide the concentrated love and comfort that shape children during their early developmental stages. Further, the longer the period of separation, the longer the recovery will take.

As one contract worker wrote, “They’re in crisis. They’re just crying uncontrollably.” “We’ve seen young kids having panic attacks, they can’t sleep, they’re wetting the bed. They regress developmentally, where they may have been verbal but now they can no longer talk.”

In addition, because there has been no tracking of the children, the reunification process will take months.

This kind of major governmental failure is not uncommon when it comes to immigrants of colors. As a nation, we’ve systematically shut out non-white immigrants throughout our history. Whether it was the Chinese Exclusion Act, The Immigration Act of 1924, or trying to stop immigrants from “shithole countries,” racial identity plays a major role in one’s ability to come to the U.S.

Trump’s own wife is a recipient of this privilege. Melania is a recipient of the Einstein Visa (for a reason no one is quite sure of,) and was able to sponsor her parents’ immigration as well. But this familial sponsorship is now considered to be “chain-migration” by her husband and he’s working to dismantle it.

It becomes more important as Trump destroys the lives of so many immigrant families to call out the hypocrisy that infects his government, and his family. Anything less than reunification must be called out so our country can finally treat every immigrant, regardless of their skin color, as human beings.

Why do anti-choice fanatics think the rights and well-being of “born” children are less important than the rights of fetuses? Because their position is based on controlling women. The separation and division of immigrant families are about control and humiliation – just like their anti-choice one is about doing the same to women.

Eden Foods Doesn’t Want to Pay for Employees’ BC

Special Thanks to Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda, and Karin, the UltraViolet team!
Sign the Petition at the Bottom!
The Boycott is having an affect.

“Soy milk. Organic beans. Gluten-free pasta. A radical agenda to ban birth control coverage for their employees.

Eden Foods is one of the country’s major organic foods companies, and their products can be purchased at Whole Foods, local markets, and coops across the country. They claim they stand for “purity in food,” and now, they also stand for a right-wing crusade against birth control. The company is suing the Obama Administration over the rule that insurance companies must cover birth control under the new healthcare law. Why? Because as CEO Michael Potter put it, they believe that “these procedures [birth control] almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices.”1

That’s right. Because Eden Foods’s CEO is ideologically opposed to birth control, the company thinks they have the right to dictate to all their employees what health care they will have access to. That doesn’t just affect their employees. It’s a dangerous precedent that they are asking the court to set for all workers going forward. But progressive-minded people make up a huge portion of Eden’s customers–people who are likely to think that a boss shouldn’t be dictating their employees’ private health care decisions. And the CEO has already said “we’re getting a lot of feedback” and that the push back against them on social media “is a big deal.”2

Employers have no right to interfere with the reproductive health care of their female employees. If we all speak out now to add to the outrage, we can show Eden Foods and other businesses that are watching the controversy that their lawsuit is bad for publicity and bad for their bottom line.

Sign the petition to Eden Foods’s CEO, Michael Potter.

Making sure employees’ health insurance covers birth control matters:

  • 1 in 3 women has had trouble affording birth control.3
  • Women who had better access to the pill earned 8% more than those who didn’t by the time they were 50.4
  • Young women who can obtain the pill are 12% more likely to enroll in college.5
  • 99% of women who’ve had sex have used birth control.6

Michael Potter and Eden Foods are spreading lies, like claiming that certain companies are already exempted from the birth control mandate and that some religions are exempted and others aren’t.7 Neither of these is true. The truth is, only houses of worship are exempt, and religiously affiliated organizations like hospitals and schools can push the cost of birth control coverage onto the insurer.8

And Potter’s reason for suing? “Because I’m a man, number one and it’s really none of my business what women do.”9 But by entering this lawsuit, Potter is making it not just his business but every other employer in America’s business what kind of health care their female employees get.

Employers can’t flout laws just because they don’t like them. Allowing employers to dictate whether or not their employees have access to birth control is wrong and un-American.

We need to let Eden Foods and their CEO, Michael Potter, know that trying to deny their employees basic health care like birth control is bad for business. Sign the petition to Potter right away.”

Add your name.

Thanks for speaking out,

Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Malinda, and Karin, the UltraViolet team

Sources:
1. Eden Foods doubles down in birth control flap, Salon, April 15, 2013

2. Ibid.

3. Survey: Nearly Three in Four Voters in America Support Fully Covering Prescription Birth Control, Planned Parenthood, October 12, 2010

4. Women Who Took the Pill Had an 8 Percent Higher Income by Age 50, Yahoo! News, March 6, 2012

5. The Social and Economic Benefits of Women’s Ability to Determine Whether and When to Have Children, Guttmacher Institute, March 2013

6. Women Who Use Birth Control Are the 99 Percent, Mother Jones, February 10, 2012

7.Statement from the President of Eden Foods, Eden Foods, April 17, 2013

8. Contraception Mandate Clarified To Accommodate Religious Groups, Obama Administration Announces, Huffington Post, February 25, 2013

9. Eden Foods doubles down in birth control flap, Salon, April 15, 2013

2. Ibid.

Candidate Bob Cohen is Anti-Choice!!

Bob Cohen is anti-choice!  NO if’s and’s or but’s about it.

This man will say anything to get elected and that makes him the most dangerous kind of candidate there is.

Bob Cohen already has a history of turning his back on the women of Westchester.

In the spring of 2012, Choice Matters tried to give Cohen the opportunity to stand up for the rights of women. After all, he’d been a NYS Senate candidate in 2010 and was already campaigning for the newly redrawn 37th Senate district seat.

Choice Matters asked Cohen to submit a letter in support of the most basic right—the right to access reproductive health clinics safely, right here in Westchester, without fear of being kicked, grabbed, hit, physically menaced or blocked from entry. Cohen was non-responsive.

As many of you may remember, that proposed law had been carefully reviewed by the New York Civil Liberties Union to make sure that all first amendment rights were protected, and they were. All aspects of speech were protected, including prayer.

The proposed law — simply put — made clear that women should be allowed to access reproductive health care safely.

Choice Matters contacted Cohen’s campaign manager Matt several times. Matt even gave Choice Matters Cohen’s email address so we could contact him directly. And we did.

(Click here to see Choice Matters’ email to Cohen, to the address provided by his campaign manager Matt.)

Cohen never responded. Despite more calls to campaign manager Matt, Cohen refused to stand up for Westchester women.

Why was such a simple and easily satisfied request rejected?  Probably because Cohen has taken the Conservative Party line and the Conservative Party has merged with the extremist anti-choice Right to Life Party.  (We noted that on the cover of the last bright yellow 2011 Voting Guide.)

Cohen does not want the right wing of the Conservative Party to know he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, making contradictory promises to opposing groups.

For further proof that Bob Cohen is Anti-Choice, we just need to look at his Choice Matters questionnaire and his interview responses for this 2012 race.

The Choice Matters questionnaire asks whether a candidate would make his/her support of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA) a public part of his/her campaign.  (RHA is a bill that would bring New York’s abortion law into the 21st century.)  Cohen refused to answer the question!

When pushed in an interview to explain, Cohen said that he absolutely would not put anything about RHA on his literature, but if someone asked, he would tell them. Cohen is on the record in his questionnaire for not wanting to make reproductive rights part of his campaign.

Why? Simple. Because Cohen does not want to lose the votes of the extreme right, anti-choice voters of the Conservative Party.

Bob Cohen is Anti-Choice.

Imagine what Cohen has promised the Conservative Party — a party that has as key planks in its platform anti-choice and anti-gay  resolutions!! If Cohen cannot be public about his position on women’s rights, you can be certain that he will never stand up for us.

It is important to note that “Pro-choice” has become a marketing term in Westchester because Westchester voters vote Choice. And it is absolutely essential that Choice voters know who is telling the truth and can be trusted.

For example, Nan Hayworth ran in 2010 claiming she was “pro-choice.” But once elected, Hayworth became a favorite of anti-choice groups.  Hayworth currently boasts an 80% approval rating from the National Right to Life Organization; she has co-sponsored two of their bills, and, among other things, voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood.  That sure doesn’t sound like someone who is pro-choice to us.  Does it to you?

WCLA – Choice Matters’ mission is clear: “to keep abortion legal and to ensure that all women, regardless of age, race, class, status, geography or ability to pay, have full, unimpeded access to reproductive health care.”

We tell you the truth about the candidates because the women in our lives depend on us.

News Alert: There will be NO ProChoice Voting Guide This Year unless…

There will be no bright yellow ProChoice voting guide in your mailbox this election year unless we can raise $33,000 by September 30th.

The implications of this are huge, and all are negative for the pro-choice community.

Anti-choice candidates will win, and pro-choice candidates will lose, because you will not know one from the other.

Albany will not pass the Reproductive Health Care Act and all funding to Planned Parenthood could be cut — and that’s only for starters.
 
All because — for the first time since we began our mailing decades ago — you will not have received your ProChoice Voting Guide.
 
The most effective way to reach voters is the US Postal Service mail, not email.

Unfortunately, no one—not Planned Parenthood, not NARAL, not the League of Women Voters—mails guides anymore because it is simply too costly.

And emails are not the answer. Some people receive hundreds of emails every week, and some even hundreds each day. But, where an email doesn’t stand out, a Bright Yellow Voting Guide in your mail does.

Until now, WCLA – Choice Matters has always mailed because it is THE BEST WAY to communicate with voters.

We have over 90,000 pro-choice identified voters in our database!

Pro-choice voters rely on our ProChoice Voting Guide. They grab it out of their mail, read it in the car, or while having a quick cup of coffee, or even as they go to vote. With real-life schedules that start long before dawn and go late into the night, many pro-choice voters have no time to access a personal computer. Click Here to Help Save the Voting Guide

And don’t forget our seniors. Pro-choice seniors are the population most likely to vote, by a large margin. Many do not use computers. They value the mail, specifically the mailing of our Bright Yellow ProChoice Voting Guide, easy to see and to hold.

That is exactly why — despite the ever-growing cost of postage and printing — we have fought to mail the ProChoice Voting Guide every year.  Every year it has gotten harder.  And every year we’ve had to struggle to live within our ever decreasing budget going from mailing three newsletters a year, to two, to just the Voting Guide, cutting them down from 24 pages to 16 to now just 4.  There is simply just no where else to cut – except the Voting Guide itself.

Choice Matters trumpets the truth in its guide. We endorse only those candidates who are 100% pro-choice — and we expose the imposters. We endorse candidates based on their answers to our questionnaire, interviews, voting records, and who is best positioned to help protect and advance a woman’s right to comprehensive reproductive health care.
 
It has always been difficult to fund the newsletters and voting guide — and every year it gets harder.

And make no mistake about it, this comes at a terrible time.  There is an all out war being waged locally and nationally against women and the rights that we have fought for all these years since we won the right to vote.  From attempting to legislate forced vaginal ultrasounds, to battles to deny women contraception, to the veto of the Clinic Access Bill here in Westchester, to Albany’s failure to pass the Reproductive Health Care Act – everything is on the line.  Remember, if they win, we lose. We lose our control over our bodies and with it our  independence, socially and economically. This election –  with the state, congressional and presidential offices all up for grabs –  may very well decide our fate for decades to come.

This is not a story of the boy who cries wolf. It is a sad fact for the women of Westchester County and New York State, and the country.  This year, without your help, there will be no Bright Yellow ProChoice Voting Guide in thousands of mailboxes all over Westchester. We Need Your Help

We need your contribution to save our voting guide. Please donate today to help us mail the voting guide to all pro-choice households in Westchester County.

Clinic Access Bill Passes, But For How Long?

The Good News:
The Clinic Access Bill Passed

The Bad News:
Two Legislators Betrayed Us!

Let me start by saying thank you to those who came out. Because you were there, you gave force and conviction to our words.
The great news is that we won. The vote by our legislators on the Reproductive Health Care Access Bill, which came one week after the Public Hearing, was 10-7 our way.

Ten legislators voted to pass our bill which guarantees safe access for women to enter and exit reproductive health clinics while protecting First Amendment Rights to free speech.  This was a great victory. It has taken us more than 14 years to get this far.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that  our success will be short lived because the County Executive who is an anti-choice extremist will veto this bill.

-And because last November two pro-choice elected officials were replaced by anti-choice right-to-life zealots, we lost two important override votes.

-And, most importantly, because we have two turncoats in our midst, we will not be able to override the anti-woman County Executive’s veto.

Most disturbing to me in this is that these two turncoat opportunists –Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman — who would have given us our super-majority override against the County Executive’s veto, voted against protecting the women of Westchester.

Instead, turncoats Maisano and Spreckman decided to launch their own personal war on women in order to further their own political and personal agendas.

Maisano stated to pro-choice advocates that he had to choose between the women of Westchester and the Conservative Party endorsement.

Maisano chose the Conservative Party.

(Conservative Party Chairman Fox, who also works for County Excutive Rob Astorino on tax payer dollars, sat right in front of Maisano to cement the deal.)

To Maisano, the Conservative party is more important than the health care of, according to the census, 51.6% of Westchester’s population.

More precisely, Maisano does not care about the health care of young women and those who cannot afford a private doctor.

Maisano only cares about his own political career, and has concocted a list of fabricated arguments to explain why he did not vote for the bill. All of his arguments have been refuted by great legal minds who do not have a political agenda.

Bernice Spreckman’s reason for betraying the trust of Westchester’s women is different.
Spreckman’s son apparently now works for County Excutive Rob Astorino. This is Spreckman’s own form of job security. She knows that Astorino is an anti-choice extremist, so she decided to look out for her son and turn her back on the women of Westchester.
Some think that it is wrong that I tell you that – somehow family facts are to be kept private. I do not agree. When the facts affect an elected official’s abiltiy to make sound decisions that impact the of 51.6% of the population then I believe the public deserves to know.

Fact: Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman sought our endorsement for more than a dozen years, and received it.

Fact: They used our endorsement to get elected.

Fact: After all those endorsements, this was the first time that we sought their vote and their voice – as their two votes are critical.

Fact: NOW when their vote counts, they voted NO!

Fact: For political expediency, they  turned their backs on all of us who voted for them, slamming the clinic door in our faces.

At this juncture we must tell Jim Maisano and Bernice Spreckman we will not tolerate their empty words and empty promises.

Our endorsement and our votes do matter and we will not be used again.

It’s Now or Never for Westchester’s Women!

We Need You to Speak Out for Women’s Safety and Privacy!

The Clinic Access Bill is scheduled for a Public Hearing at 7 p.m., Monday, April 30, 2012
Westchester County Office Building
148 Martine Ave, 8th floor
White Plains, NY
Put This on Your Calendar & Show Up, Please!

They Need to Hear from YOU!

The Following Legislators will not promise to support it!!
(Either they voted against furthering the bill to bring it to the floor or failed to vote for it at.)

Call ALL of Them!

Demand that They Stand Up for Women!

We deserve safe access to reproductive health centers!

David Gelfarb            995-2834                                                                                 gelfarb@westchesterlegislators.com

Jim Maisano              995-2826    maisano@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                      Bernice Spreckman  995-2815    spreckman@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                       Sheila Marcotte         995-2817   marcotte@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                           John Testa                 995-2828   testa@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                              Gordon Burrows      995-2830                                                                                                                                                                                       burrows@westchesterlegislators.com

Michael Smith            995-2847                                                                                                                                                                                              smith@westchesterlegislators.com

They need to hear from you.  Last December no one turned out except for a room full of anti-choice extremists, and the bill was never brought up for a vote. We fought hard to bring it back. Now you need to fight.
___________________________________________________________________

More than a decade ago, Senator Andrea Stewart Counsins and Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, then County Legislators, fought to ensure that women had safe access to women’s reproductive health centers. Unfortunately, they were not successful.  It has taken us more ten years to get to this point. We had a shot at it again last December and came up short. Now, after months of discussion, review, and dissection, the Clinic Access Bill—that would ensure women safe access to reproductive health centers—was voted out of Committee and sent to the Westchester County Board of Legislators for a vote.

This bill protects First Amendment Rights and takes a big step toward protecting Westchester’s women.

Come out and show your support for this bill tonight!

We must excerise our right to speak up and be heard.
Please come and speak out.

For the record: 1. The Bill was carefully reviewed to make sure that it was 100% in compliance with First Amendment rights – for all parties involved; and, 2. There is no other law–not state or federal–that presently protects Westchester’s women’s safety as they enter and exit reproductive health centers.

Tell Them: We Elected Them to Protect Women!

Westchester Residents Beware – Astorino’s Version of a Reformer

DISTRICT #3 has elected a truly ETHICALLY-CHALLENGED representative.
His name, and Astorino’s hand picked candidate who he labeled a reformer, is Michael Smith. (Makes you question what kind of reform Astorino is looking for!!)

It is essential that as we move forward voters keep a very sharp eye on Smith.

Yes, Smith opposes abortion even in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman.

In addition, Smith has a very questionable history at best. He seems willing to do anything to win. Nothing is off limits. 

To win this election, Smith ran ads about Legislator Nonna that were intentionally misleading–that’s not just our opinion but the findings of the non-partisan Fair Practices Campaign who found him guilty. Smith also apparently ran an equally offensive and untrue recorded phone call to voters on Election Day to scare them into voting for him. And that’s just the beginning.

Smith, as Board President of Valhalla School Board, actively supported and fought for a contract the New York State Controller found to be illegal as did the New York State Supreme Court.

Printed on the Valhalla Voice website, November 2, 2011
“Mike Smith’s record speaks volumes”

“As a taxpayer in the Valhalla school district I am still amused that Mr Smith is running as a tax cutter. He is anything but. In his first 3 years on the Valhalla BOE spending rose 21%. The increase one year before had been 8.8% so where were the cuts?

He is now opposing the $1 a year county lease for the children’s museum, but never opposed Valhalla’s $1 a year Easter Seals lease, the district lost $2.4 million on that deal.

When state auditors shut down the illegal Westhelp scam, Mike Smith voted to sue his own town to restart the illegal payments. He had no problem spending school district money on:

  • Matching Grants to the Valhalla Schools Foundation even though it is illegal to fund private foundations with government money.
  • Two full time salaries for Kensico School Principal
  • Pay his own expense at a private school
  • Donations to Easter Seals, another private foundation.
  • Summer trips to the Grand Canyon
  • Trips to the opera
  • Dinners at trendy NYC restaurants
  • Adult Ice Skating at Rockefeller Center
  • Ocktoberfest at Bear Mountain
  • A moonlight booze cruise on the Hudson 

Despite Mr. Smith’s denials to the contrary, the Booze Cruise was on his watch, in August of 2006
Here are quotes from the 2008 NY State audit of Mike’s Smith’s Valhalla school district finances:

“District officials did not maintain complete and accurate accounting records to facilitate the proper and timely monitoring of the WestHELP Grant. As a result, of the approximately $1.7 million expended for the Grant, approximately $456,000 was not expended in accordance with the Grant agreement, proposals or applicable laws”

“The [Valhalla] Board did not provide sufficient oversight over District financial operations”

“The District overpaid for the Business Administrator’s life insurance premiums by $38,500”

“Internal controls over payroll were not adequate”

“The District did not have adequate controls over the payroll process”

‘District officials did not implement an effective system of internal controls to safeguard computerized data’”

Smith has proudly said that he stands by the contract. That illegal support will now cost Valhalla School District residents over a million dollars. Smith’s willingness to stand by a clearly illegal contract should worry Westchester residents.

Breaking News: The War on Women Hits Westchester!

Right to Life County Executive
Cuts Funding for Contraception for Teens, Well-Baby Care and Sex Education

This is outrageous! Less than three months after the Department of Health and Human Services announced that contraception is so important that it is being designated preventive care, in accordance with the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, and joining the list of key services such as mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, well-woman visits, and gestational diabetes screenings, Astorino puts his right-to-life, anti-birth-control, far-right mentality into action, attacking our teenagers’ health and rights.

Nothing seems more like preventive care than contraception!

Why is Astorino doing this? This is clearly not about reducing our taxes or about jobs.

Just like the tea baggers in Congress who are seizing every opportunity to attack women’s reproductive rights, Astorino has chosen this moment, when Westchester has sky rocketing unemployment and depleted tax revenues to put his personal anti-choice tea party stamp on our county.

Simply not funding contraceptives and not teaching sex ed does not make sex go away. Instead, it will most likely lead to a dramatic increase in teen pregnancies.

When these babies are then born there will be no well-baby care available because Astorino has cut that too.

Astorino is the true embodiment of the right-to-life philosophy: care about the fetus, but when it’s born, throw it and its mother under the bus.

Who is most effected by Astorino’s actions? Anyone who  utilizes any one of Westchester County’s community health centers—teenagers, the unemployed, the working poor, those without health insurance.

Who won’t it affect? Astorino and his financially secure friends.

On Election Day
Astorino Wants Your Help In This Attack

Astorino has hand-picked candidates to challenge incumbents. The Astorino gang have all sworn their allegiance to him as attested to at the press conference held on October 7th. On the steps of the County office building and in their own press releases, these candidates have said they will be a [guaranteed] vote for the Astorino agenda and that they share his [governing] philosophy more than 99% of the time.

That means they too believe in outsourcing jobs including the Community Health Centers, as well as cutting funding for contraceptives for teens, well-baby care and sex ed.

Astorino and his gang are committed to creating a sick Westchester, not a healthy one!

Did You Know You’re Supposed to Vote on Tuesday?

ALERT!

THIS TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13th IS PRIMARY DAY!!

If you are enrolled in the Independence Party
& live in
Westchester Legislative Districts 3, 4, or 7 Come Out and Vote for:
John Nonna (CLD 3),
Michael Kaplowitz (CLD 4) and
Judy Myers (CLD 7)!!!


The Good Guys
Nonna, Kaplowitz and Myers are 100% pro-choice.
They protect our women, children, and families.
They understand the importance of our clinics, childcare, and health centers.

The Bad Guys
Their opponents are handpicked by Right to Life County Executive Rob Astorino.
Their opponents will be a rubber stamp for the extremist Astorino Agenda, and do not care about our clinics, childcare, or health centers.

The Good Guys
Judy Myers is the sponsor of the clinic access bill which will protect women’s safety and privacy as they enter and leave reproductive health centers and is supported by Kaplowitz and Nonna.

The Bad Guys
The opponents are Astorino’s puppets.
Astorino is creating a mini-me brigade.
Astorino  opposes the clinic access bill, so his handpicked  opponents do too–either they are committed to opposing the clinic access bill, or refuse to take a stand!

Nonna’s opponent is presently seeking the Right to Life endorsement.
Kaplowitz’s opponent is already endorsed by Right to Life, like his mentor Astorino.

Westchester’s Right to Life County Executive Rob Astorino is a rabid extremist, yanking funding away from working women and their children.  This is a man whose budget this year shows he only cares about those who vote for him. The rest of us–especially the working poor–are being thrown under the bus so that he can claim to meet budget promises. Trust me when I say we will all pay later in tax dollars for Astorino’s stunts.
Importantly, our County legislators decide many reproductive rights issues including prisoners’ rights, Medicaid expenditures, and more. The cost to your tax dollars will be huge if legislators do not understand these obligations, and only try to grab headlines, like Astorino likes to do, with penny-wise pound-foolish cuts.
Westchester cannot afford Astorino’s handpicked puppets–his personal mini-me brigade.

The Message Here:
Vote For Myers, Nonna & Kaplowitz

TUESDAY, September 13th!
Primaries have a very low turnout because few people realize the election is occurring.
Thus your vote will have a multi-fold impact!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO VOTE!

 

*CLD 3: North Castle, Pleasantville, & parts of Harrison,
Mt. Pleasant, Ossining, Sleepy Hollow and Briarcliff Manor.
*CLD 4: New Castle and parts of Yorktown & Somers.
*CLD 7: Rye City, Mamaroneck Town, Larchmont, & parts of Harrison, the       village  of Mamaroneck, New Rochelle and Rye Town



“You Can’t Be Pro-Choice Unless You Support Equal Access”

From one of the most important organizations in the nation, National Network of Abortion Funds,  written by Stephanie Poggi.

Stephanie Poggi provides a clear, historically accurate account of  the Obama Administration’s failure to advocate for women’s reproductive rights.

“If recent statements are any indication, the Obama Administration would very much like to rewrite what it means to be “pro-choice.” The Administration continues to claim that it supports the right of a woman to make her own decision about whether and when to have a child. But it turns out that the Administration only stands firm when that woman has economic resources.

It’s more than a contradiction in terms and much more than a “compromise” to deny access to abortion care to a low-income woman. The 120,000 women who called our abortion funding hotline for help last year can tell you what it really means. Not having enough food for the children you already have. Having the electricity shut off because you need that money to pay for an abortion. Selling your car, even though you need it to get to work. Not being able to return to college next semester.

Yes, we understand that many in Congress would like to end the legal status of abortion altogether. Because funding restrictions are a step toward that goal, capitulation will only embolden our opponents and get us even more onerous obstacles blocking a low-income woman’s path to an abortion.

The reproductive rights, health, and justice communities will fight – until we win – for the ability of every single woman to make the decision she feels is best for herself and her family. We will keep working until we have restored federal Medicaid coverage of abortion – and ensured it is once again available on the same terms as coverage for women continuing a pregnancy. Because nothing less will guarantee that a woman can make this fundamental decision for herself. Our commitment to the lives and futures of women and families prompted us to express our concern and disappointment when Secretary Sebelius recently went out of her way to disavow public funding. Joined by over 50 organizations in the reproductive rights and justice communities, the National Network of Abortion Funds and Catholics for Choice wrote to the Secretary after she was quoted in the press as saying that, “Federal funds have never supported abortion, do not support abortion, will not support abortion.”

The Executive Office of the President quickly followed Secretary Sebelius’s remarks with a “Statement of Administration Policy” promising that the Administration “will strongly oppose legislation that unnecessarily restricts women’s reproductive freedoms and consumers’ private insurance options,” but it simultaneously outlined all of the steps the Administration has taken to bolster “[l]ongstanding Federal policy [that] prohibits federal funds from being used for abortions” – in other words, all of the Administration’s actions to shore up the federal ban on Medicaid funding for abortion. These actions include accepting a ban on funding in the health reform law and reinforcing that ban by issuing an Executive Order. Apparently the Administration believes that only women with private insurance are entitled to full “reproductive freedom and access to health care” – otherwise, how can restrictions on funding for low-income women not “unnecessarily” restrict women’s rights?

This Statement of Administration Policy recalls President Obama’s claim during the health care debate that, “I’m pro-choice, but I think we also have the tradition in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care.” There are many traditions in the nation’s capital and the United States that our elected officials now rightly reject, including racial segregation and blatant sex discrimination.

Setting the Record Straight
Secretary Sebelius is wrong when she insists that federal funds “have never supported abortion.” After the U. S. Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 1973, Medicaid included abortion in its health care services. After all, Medicaid exists to provide health care to low-income families and individuals and abortion is a legal medical procedure. At that time, Medicaid paid for about one-third of all abortions, clearly demonstrating the need for federal funding of abortion. Looking at the situation today, we know that lower-income women seek abortions at higher rates, a reflection of the greater barriers they face to affordable contraception and also the enormous challenge of raising children in a tight job market. This reality underscores the continuing need for federal funding of both contraception and abortion for women living in poverty.

It was only after Representative Henry Hyde (R-IL) introduced the amendment that now bears his name that Congress rescinded payments for abortion under Medicaid, absent one of a few circumstances: rape, incest, or a life-threatening pregnancy. As the years went by, conservative lawmakers attached riders to virtually every appropriations bill containing a federally-funded health care program, restricting access to abortion for millions of women. Once Congress cut off funding, a majority of states eventually followed suit. Today, only a third of the states cover abortion care for women enrolled in Medicaid, for which they receive no federal reimbursement.

When health care experts make decisions about what types of health services to cover, abortion is usually included, as seen in the early years of federal Medicaid coverage as well as the 80 percent of private insurance plans that cover abortion care. When conservative politicians make those decisions, abortion is excluded.

Connecting Rights to Resources
The Obama Administration did take one step toward dismantling economic barriers to abortion, when it restored the right of home rule to the District of Columbia so that the District could use its own local tax revenues to pay for abortions under Medicaid. This funding was a lifeline for many of the District’s low-income and downright poor residents, faced with the worst recession in decades. But the Administration bargained away even this measure of progress in the recent negotiations over the FY 2011 spending bill. When Congress reinstated the ban on funding in D.C., clinics saw a rash of cancelled appointments by women who had just had the financial rug pulled out from under them.

A woman enrolled in Medicaid in D.C. represents exactly the groups of women hit hardest by funding bans – low-income, disproportionately of color, and often young. While every woman deserves access to the full range of reproductive health care no matter the source of her insurance, it is low-income women who suffer the most when health insurance excludes abortion. It is these women who really need the President and his Administration to stand up for their rights. Federal funding is a key ingredient to ensure that every woman, rich or poor, can make the decision that is right for her and her family, given the life circumstances she knows best.

The Democratic Party acknowledges as much, stating that “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

Governments in other countries increasingly recognize the need to ensure that women can exercise their reproductive rights by allocating funding to pay for the implementation of those rights. For example, when the legislative assembly in Mexico City adopted a new policy to legalize abortion, it made sure that women in need would be able to access care regardless of their financial situation.

And as one woman who described her decision to join the Network’s national fundraising campaign put it, “The right to choose without federal funding for abortion is like the right to an education without a public school system” – in other words, a privilege of those with economic resources, not a right at all.

It is well past time for the federal government to restore funding of abortion. Access for low-income women demands government action; women without economic resources are the ones who most need public policies to guarantee their rights. Along with our allies in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements, we will press forward to expand access to abortion for lower-income women, and to persuade the Obama Administration to do its part.”