A year ago this past Saturday, pregnant with twins and very fired up, I went to Boston Common. Standing with my mom and 200,000 people who were ready to fight back, I felt an optimism I hadn’t since before the election.
Forty-five years ago, in a 7-2 decision that simply wouldn’t happen today, the Supreme Court enshrined women’s access to healthcare. Sarah Weddington, a Texan and fierce attorney, was 26 when she successfully argued her client’s case.
Sarah, Governor Ann Richards and women like them inspired me to get involved when I was growing up in Texas. At 19, I joined the board of the Planned Parenthood in Austin. Since moving to Massachusetts more than a decade ago, I’ve volunteered to accompany women seeking healthcare services to the door to protect them from protesters.
“Thank goodness Ruth Bader Ginsburg does her exercises,” Sarah told Time magazine this weekend. I would’ve used slightly stronger language.
Electing progressives matters. Up and down the ballot, we can make change when we get involved. After the march gave birth to a national movement of thousands of women running for office, I gave birth to Abigail and Cecile. Cecile is named for Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood and daughter of Governor Ann Richards.
Today, Abigail and Cecile are celebrating the 45th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in their RBG bibs and I’m celebrating by reaching out to you.
Thank you for your support,
Katie
www.katieforde.com
The principles upheld in Roe v. Wade are universal and should be applied to areas were medical choice is still compromised, often for the sake of politics.
Let’s just imagine, for example, what would happen to a doctor who prescribed steroids to a man, for the purpose of birth control? These hormones, which are safely prescribed for FDA-approved medical conditions, are suddenly considered “dangerous steroids” when used for something else.
Even when a medication is prescribed for the purposes approved of by the FDA, it is not hard to see politics get between a patient and her doctor. I know of two people whose doctors will no longer prescribe opioids for their chronic pain, because of the political response to the opioid epidemic in this state. Each of these people is 60+ years old, with no history of substance abuse… their risk of addiction is as close to zero as you can get.
It is impossible to pass broad-based prohibitions against certain types of medical treatment, without unintentionally violating some patient’s access to necessary medical care. The unique medical needs of every patient can not possibly be anticipated by policy-makers. Going back to the example of steroids… a pilot study has shown that micro-dosing testosterone, was a very successful therapy for women with treatment-resistant fibromyalgia. Who would have guessed that?
Choice and the doctor-patient relationship are fundamental principles of our medical system. But they aren’t fully protected, as long as we let our personal values and preferences dictate the medical treatment of people we know nothing about.
My own education on this issue has been illustrative of why the debate is so frustrating and compromise so elusive. One side only sees the issue from the perspective of the potential child and neglects the needs and desires of the woman standing in front of them. I certainly did many times on this blog.
It’s now become a no brainer for me the older I’ve become and faced the realities of how costly child and medical care can be, how much of a snag on a career a pregnancy can be, and how physically taxing the experience is for women who are going through it. It’s truly a denial of equal rights, autonomy and personhood to the woman to deny her this basic decision. Even if I still feel sadness about abortion, I can’t turn my back on the lived reality women face that I do not. I would feel a greater sadness to live in a world where their experiences and choices aren’t valued.
I respect Cardinal Sean for his leadership on many questions and find him to be a real moral voice in the Church, especially on sex abuse and immigration, but he said something at this weeks right to life march that stuck with me as the naïveté the other side traffics in. He positively mentioned the work of nuns and lay women who put a feminine face on the anti-abortion side in a referendum in Central America, saying something to the effect of “thanks to them, their country will have no abortions”. How woefully naive and tragically untrue. The reality is their country will have no safe abortions. I pray ours never goes backward on that road and am grateful we remain a place where they can be safe and legal as we work to make them rare.