When anti-choicers *coughBushcough* make you angry...

...donate!

President Bush has decided to leave us a nice little legacy with his 'right of conscience' rule that protects health care workers who refuse to provide certain medical services because of their religious beliefs.  According to the Washington Post:

The rule, which will cost more than $44 million to implement, gives more than 584,000 health-care organizations until Oct. 1 to provide written certification of their compliance. Those that do not comply face having their funding cut off or being required to return funding they have received.

Not only does it apply to those doctors, nurses, techs, janitors, and secretaries who are opposed to abortion, but they now also have the federally-enforced right to refuse to dispense Plan B emergency contraceptives or even birth control pills, provide infertility treatments to single women or lesbian couples, and any other form of contraception that is equated to abortion in their personal opinions.  It also can provide protection for health-care providers who oppose certain types of end-of-life care or withdrawal of care.  While laws provided protection for these employees since the 1970s, never has the government forced employers to allow their employees to withhold care or treatment due to a nonmedical judgement.  This could even stretch to ban abortion clinics from not hiring people who oppose some aspect of the services provided.

In one corner, we have the Family Research Council, Christian Medical Association, Concerned Women for America, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Catholic Health Association.  In the other corner, with have the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Hospital Association (not to mention Planned Parenthood, NARAL, 28 senators and 110 House representatives, and more than 12 state attorneys general).  Call me crazy, but shouldn't the AMA, ACOG, and AHA have more credibility?

So, when I feel like the world has been pulled closer to the dark side, I give what I can.  One of the great non-profit organizations is the Lilith Fund. It provides direct financial assistance and counseling to women seeking abortions, as well as education and outreach about reproductive rights.  Abortions can cost over $1,000, making it extremely difficult for lower socioeconomic statused women to obtain them.

And of course, you can always donate to Planned Parenthood.  If anyone has any other favorite organizations that promote reproductive rights, let me know and I'll link to it.

Church and State

I just found guidelines to churches and pastors in which it outlines how to discuss politics via the Missouri Right to Life. I am an advocate of the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, those lines are blurred in the United States. It is known that almost all churches are tax-exempt. They, however, cannot participate in political campaigns, but:

"Pastors and churches are free to discuss the positions of candidates on issues – including criticizing or praising them for their positions. This is called issue advocacy."

In other words, you can get away with discussing "moral" issues and stating that a candidate's stance on abortion, or stem cell research, or sex education is immoral. While they may not be endorsing a candidate directly, we can tell who they vote for. I find it an outrage that churches continue to be exempt from taxes. The very fact that there are guidelines that tell pastors and churches what they can get away with politically should be an indication that many churches are indeed political organizations.

I'm not questioning anyone's faith here, but religion has no place in government. They can be effectively used like political organizations, yet are exempt from being taxed!

One last link that I found entertaining from Saint Louis Abbey...one of the churches on the list of Missouri Right to Life sponsors. The article is titled "Why I Don't Preach Politics" written Oct. 28, 2008.

Here is a taste of the article and the hypocrisy within it:

"I understand that as your priest, it is not my job to tell you who to vote for. And I also understand that many good Catholics—good, loyal, loving, God-fearing, church-going, Catholics will weigh the issues and arguments of their parties and politicians and decide that the evil of abortion is outweighed by the evils at play in matters of immigration, health care, the economy…the War on Terror...” I understand that....But I don’t see how I can stand up here and preach on text which says, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Stand up here at this pivotal juncture in our nation’s history when so many Catholics find themselves so caught between so many weighty moral dilemmas—stand up here, preach on love of neighbor, and not point out that we as a nation have murdered 45 million children."

(Bold added by me)
http://www.stlouisabbey.org/publications/homilies/augustine20081026.pdf

Enjoy!

An Extended Welcome/Introduction...

Let me first start by thanking you for visiting our blog and welcome! As you obviously know by now, Students for Reproductive Choice advocates reproductive freedom, choice, and education.

We stress the importance of prevention. We believe that more open access to education and contraception will result in fewer numbers of sexually transmitted infections, diseases, and unintended pregnancies. And yes, we believe that women are in the best position to make the decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.

This is my first blog post so let me go ahead and introduce myself. I am a senior political science major at Truman State University. I'm one of the guys of the group, so I might bring a different perspective to the table (and I'll be easy to spot at the meetings).

I joined Vox in fall 2008 because what the group represents are issues that are important to me. What I hope to bring to this blog are the current issues in Missouri pertaining to sex education and reproductive choice.

That's all I've got for now. Be sure to check back later!

Holla!

So welcome to our blog! We'll have multiple bloggers blogging about their bloggish interests, so get ready for a bloggerama.

I am a junior health science major at Truman with a focus on community and public health programs (i.e., sex ed). Coming to a conservative school, I was disheartened by the lack of pro-choice movements until I found Vox, a vehicle in which I could hand out free condoms galore and watch facial expressions of (and therefore judge) people walking by our table full of sexual health information. And hooee, now that we have a blog, just watch out world; you're gonna get pro-choiced from all sides.

Just to remind ourselves how much we need factual sex education, check out this Missouri government recommendation from 2006.

And a grassroots network was born...

Yo! I must admit this is pretty exciting stuff. We, Students for Reproductive Choice, are officially a part of the cyberspace grassroots network, blogging our way closer to reproductive freedom and choice.

Students for Reproductive Choice formed fortuitously as an offshoot of Truman State University's VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood group. In VOX, we focus on promotion of good reproductive health habits. We sponsored a Gardasil night at our Tri-Rivers Planned Parenthood clinic in Kirksville, Missouri, we hand out "health packs" on campus, and in the past have held VOX talks on issues such as women in the media.

Students for Reproductive Choice was born after a desire to adopt a more political voice for choice, something that we could not do as VOX. We figured a good way to do this was to jump on the blogging bandwagon and start doing some work on the internet.

Keep in mind we are in the early phases of our blogging project but we hope to bring you a variety of Truman State University pro-choice voices speaking on a diverse range of reproductive health topics in the near future. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!