Support Birth Control this Saturday!
This Saturday, June 7th, marks the 43rd anniversary of the Griswold v. Connecticut decision in the Supreme Court, which established constitutional privacy protection for married couples’ use of contraception in 1965. Unmarried women obtained the right to use birth control a little later in 1972.
Sadly, despite the Supreme Court’s decisions, women across America are still fighting for their right to contraceptive access. From the financial barriers millions of women face in accessing contraception to pharmacists’ refusals to fill birth control prescriptions, women are left to defend their right to contraception. However, those aren’t the only barriers. Many in the anti-choice community are working not only to abolish the legal right to abortion but also to end women’s right to access birth control!
This Saturday, the American Life League is staging “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills Babies” demonstrations across the country to protest the anniversary and women’s access to contraception. Their accusations about the dangers of the birth control pill are medically inaccurate and show the dangerous extent to which our opponents will go to control women’s bodies and their reproductive health. Show your support for women’s access to birth control by counter-demonstrating this Saturday!
The protest is only the beginning. Even more terrifying is the current campaign by anti-choice and conservative organizations to reinstate the “Domestic Gag Rule.” In May, over eighty conservative organizations, led by the Family Research Council, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to reinstate the “Domestic Gag Rule,” which would effectively strip family planning clinics’ eligibility for Title X funds if they refer patients for abortions or share facilities with abortion providers.
Title X is an essential source of funding for family planning clinics and, in fact, is the only federal program dedicated solely to funding family planning and related reproductive health care services. This restriction could severely harm the health of millions of women across the country and prevent them from obtaining needed contraception! Please take a moment to send an email to Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, showing your support for Title X!
By Myra Batchelder