Virginia proving to be anti-woman

Virginia Pro-Lifers Work to Increase the Abortion Rate

“Pro-life” politicians in Virginia are cutting off hundreds of thousands of dollars from preventative services at Planned Parenthood.

The Virginia Senate voted Wednesday to cut off state funding to Planned Parenthood of Virginia because it offers abortions, an action that could endanger hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid for women’s health-care programs.

The decision, a major setback for the Senate’s new Democratic majority, marks the first time in more than a decade that the Senate has decided against giving state aid to the organization because of its abortion-related activities.

Let’s be clear: Federal aid, and state aid from Virginia, are not paying for abortions. They are paying for pre-natal care, women’s health care, birth control, and sexual health education. Millions of women across the country benefit from those programs — and I’m one of them. I’ve used Planned Parenthood’s health care services in New York and in Washington State for annual exams and birth control when I didn’t have insurance. Without Planned Parenthood, I simply would not have been able to see a women’s health provider. I would not have been able to afford birth control. Planned Parenthood provides crucial services, and it does real damage to all sorts of women (but mostly lower-income and uninsured women) when those services are cut off in the name of “pro-life” politics. It also makes it more difficult for women to take care of the babies they already have when you make it harder for them to prevent pregnancy.

It also jacks up the abortion rate when women don’t have the resources to prevent pregnancy. If you make birth control expensive or inaccessible, it doesn’t mean that people will stop having sex — it just means that they’ll have riskier sex. It means that more women will get pregnant when they don’t want to. And that means that more women will terminate pregnancies.

It’s not rocket science, it’s common sense. And if “pro-life” legislators actually cared about saving fetuses (and born people), they’d be championing Planned Parenthood as the organization that has prevented more abortions in this country than any other. They’d be throwing money toward birth control, sex education, and HIV/AIDS programs.

Instead, they’re cutting them off.

And because they care about children so much, Virginia pro-life Republicans are also trying to cut teachers’ salaries by $227 million.

(Feministe)