Last week New York had a big abortion win! We (AAFront was on the coalition to make this happen) got New York government to agree to give $250k to abortion funds in the 2020 fiscal year. We are psyched!
And we know that wins in New York can be different than wins in more conservative states. Those activists work just as hard (if not a bazillion times harder) to be like “hey, how about you don’t shut down the ONLY clinic in the state!”
I mean, Missouri, you are being hit… insanely. Insanely! On so many different levels! They’re trying to CLOSE the effing one abortion clinic in the state. But there’s also a BUNCH of legislation targeting abortion… and again… we cannot stress this enough… they legit have one clinic there. All these laws are against ONE PLACE.
But a good point for everyone here is: not every Planned Parenthood in Missouri performs abortion. So … again… when people are passing these “Nothing that this funding hits can even have touched ABORTION” they are … legit stopping people from getting pap smears. I mean again… we started this by saying WE SHOULD FUND ABORTIONS, but again, again, Missouri, you are YELLING AT A WALL and indiscriminately hurting people in your singleminded quest to end abortion.
We just wanted to leave you with this quote from the Austin Chronicle. Because wins are important but this level of attack can take a toll:
“Knowing that Planned Parenthood’s popular E. Seventh Street Austin health center won’t be knocked out of a long-term lease agreement by state politicians doesn’t feel like a win. It doesn’t restore the uncertainty of patients who worried whether our doors would be open; and it doesn’t eliminate future efforts by statewide officials to again target our health centers for political goals.”
Adding all these 72-hour waiting periods, mandatory exams, mandatory counselling, creating confusion through unconstitutional laws, hurts patients. It hurts patients even if you win.