Natasha Chart at Open Left highlights a commenter's question: "why can't women just get abortions in hospitals or at the regular clinics they go to so the disturbed, whackjob protestors don't have such an easy and obvious target?"
Damn good question.
Chart's answer? To make it easier to shame those sluts -- it's a modern day scarlet letter.
Whether anti-choice protestors are on the milder side, asking women to "consider what the Lord would think," or if they're screaming about Satan drinking their babies blood, they're invading privacy and making assumptions out of disrespect for the female sex. Most (though definitely not all) claim to make exceptions for cases of rape, but never consider that they might be harassing a survivor. Nor do they consider that the pregnancy might pose a danger to the woman's life. Or that maybe the woman they're harassing isn't even going for an abortion -- clinics provide a range of other reproductive health services.
And of course it would be too much to expect them to trust women recognize and recognize that one in three members of the female sex are not murderers.
Then there's the severe danger to the doctors themselves in being isolated in a private, easy-target practice. (And given this, I wouldn't be altogether surprised if the whackjobs out there starting target women who have had an abortion as well.)
Reproductive health is health, and you should be able to access the entire range of reproductive health services at any hospital or clinic. No scarlet letter required.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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