Support Choice

NARAL is asking voters to sign a petition to keep women's reproductive rights in the 2008 debate. Republicans found that even a conservative state such as South Dakota will not support banning abortion. Citizens do not support the Christian Right's agenda. Republican candidates will trip over each other to please James Dobson. They can't campaign on increasing the tax burden on the middle and lower classes.I want to see Republican presidential candidates constantly explain their position on Roe v. Wade.

The media has been running Christian Right talking points and has shown great ignorance into reporting late-term abortions. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting noted how the media dropped the ball in reporting how the Gonzales v. Carhart Supreme Court ruling endangers the lives of poor women.

Those circumstances, according to the ACOG’s amicus brief, include the woman having certain chronic medical conditions (like bleeding disorders or heart disease) or pregnancy complications, or the fetus having certain abnormalities (such as severe hydrocephalus, a greatly enlarged head).

What Ginsburg also made clear in her scathing dissent, though it went virtually unmentioned in the media, was that young women and poor women are more likely than others to need intact D&E, because they’re less likely to be able to access abortions in a timely manner. Adolescents often don’t realize they’re pregnant or fear their parents’ reaction, and poor women may have trouble getting together sufficient money for the procedure.

The court has ruled, in effect, that all of these women will now still be able to terminate their pregnancy, but they may be compelled by the state to do so in a way that puts their health in jeopardy, against the best judgment of their doctor. That lack of health exception both endangers real women’s lives now and opens the door for further erosion of women’s reproductive rights and health in the future, whether the court reverses Roe v. Wade or not. But that reality was too often missing from media’s reporting on the subject.

Sign the petition.