Author: mopress

By Greg Moses

First you make their pregnancies more likely, then you dismantle
services that would support their children, finally you talk them out
of
abortion. This is the new "pro-life" regime of public policy, thanks to the
Texas Legislature.

In a personal account of being turned away
from her annual exam, an Austin Indymedia
reporter writes about the morning she and 25 other
women ("women of color of course!") were advised by Planned Parenthood
staff of the new state order. A story at the Planned Parenthood
website explains that funding was shifted by the legislature "from
family planning clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, that provide
health services and contraception for low-income women, to so-called
‘pregnancy counseling clinics’ that devote their resources to
convincing women who have unintended pregnancies not to have abortions".

Similar stories have been written in Amarillo, Waco, and Pharr. The Brownsville
Herald reports that "1,500 women in Brownsville may lose access to the
services the clinics in town provide, such as: diabetes and
hypertension screenings, women’s health exams, cervical and breast
cancer screenings and birth control."

In an AP story archived at North Texas
Planned Parenthood, researchers find that over the past decade an
increasing percent of births are not wanted by mothers. The AP
report trades quotes between anti-abortion activists who say the trend
shows a "pro-life" shift and reproductive rights activists who say the
numbers reflect decreased access to "abortion providers."

Strangely missing from the AP report is consideration of the logical
possibility that the increasing number of unwanted births might also
reflect how the attack on "abortion providers" has resulted in
decreased availability of birth control services, as reported by Austin
Indymedia.

Also missing from the analysis is consideration of the effect of
worsening conditions for parenthood over the past decade, exemplified
in Texas by attacks on children’s health insurance. Poor family
services might also account for why mothers increasingly report
unwanted births.

The problem with the so-called anti-abortion agenda is that it focuses
too narrowly on a single, isolated moment of choice. The effective
result is a war on rights to reproduction and parenthood.

To reduce the
number of abortions requires attention to an expanded range of
choices, not only in terms of whether to have an abortion or not, but
in terms of birth control and support for parenthood services,
too. But since the broader agenda would involve empowerment and
solidarity, the so-called anti-abortion movement is not
interested. What they prefer is a hypocritical agenda of judgment and
constraint that reminds us of the Right Rev. Dimsdale in Hawthorne’s
"Scarlett Letter". What they really mean by "pro-life" is
pro-patriarchal control.

A
true agenda of liberation would make the choice of abortion less likely
by increasing the percentage of planned and wanted pregnancies in an
environment that welcomes children through robust services for health
and education. Try telling that to the legislature in Texas.

ACTION ALERT

Stop Raiding My Child’s Education !!

LULAC Urges its Members to Call and Write Their Senators Now and Let Their Voices Be Heard !

Washington, DC-The League of United Latin American Citizens is outraged
by the House’s latest efforts to cut education funding from critical
programs.
All LULAC members and public officials are strongly urged to
call, write, and email their state senators now demanding to eliminate
these budget cuts before they become law. It is critical that the
members on the U.S. Senate hear from their constituents today to let
them know that they wholeheartedly reject these education budget cuts.

In all, the House adopted a package of three bills that
imposes the largest cut in student aid in history, cutting $12 billion
over the next five years and making it more difficult and expensive for
students to borrow money to attend college.

The defense spending bill and the budget reconciliation bill
were passed in the early morning of December 19th . The defense
spending bill passed decisively by over 200 votes, while the last two
bills were adopted marginally by six votes and two votes respectively.
The third bill, or the Labor-HHS bill, was approved last week.

Talking Points:

* Cuts in funding for ESEA and NCLB of $1 billion, in addition
to bringing the funding down BELOW the level that was provided three
years earlier.

* Disadvantaged public schools will be the hardest hit.
Under-funding will continue by over $27 billion and this proposal will
make further cuts on schools that cannot afford them.

* Threatens to put a college education out of reach for students by making it harder for students to receive aid.

* Cuts in the federal share of special education funding (from
18.6 percent to 17.8 percent), falling well short of the 30-year-old
commitment to fund 40 percent of special education funding.

* For the first time ever federal taxpayer-funded vouchers
will be established disguised as "hurricane relief": The American
people have consistently rejected national vouchers programs. They have
proven to be unaffordable, unproven, and unnecessary.

* Expansion of current loan forgiveness laws to include
private school teachers. Since taxpayer money will be used to fund
private schools with teacher recruitment, public schools around the
country will continue to be under-funded and experience teacher
shortages . Religious schools will be able to accept taxpayer dollars
with little to no accountability in comparison to public schools.

At a time when our children need a greater commitment and
greater investment from our national leaders, we cannot abandon them by
cutting funding in their education.

College tuition is rising every year, making it less
affordable for working class families to financially support their
children’s decision to go to college. If we allow Congress to make cuts
on federal grants, it will prevent poor students from receiving Pell
Grants, thereby making them less and less likely to be able to attend a
college of their choice.

Our children should not be penalized for living in poor
conditions, but rather they should be given the most aid to relieve
their families affected by poverty and Hurricane Katrina. Only through
education can we lift our communities up.

LULAC urges you to contact your Senator now! To get your
Senator’s contact information call the Capitol switchboard at (202)
225-3121 or go to http://www.congress.org or to http://www.lulac.org and email your
Senator.

Tell them:

* Say no to the Education Budget Cuts and to vouchers. Public education is critical to the success of our community.

* Our children need access, better resources, and more funding for their schools. Not cuts to their education.

* Higher education should be made affordable not impossible.

The League of the United Latin American Citizen (www.lulac.org)
advances the economic conditions, educational attainment, political
influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through
community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils
nationwide.

Note: Thanks to Angela Valenzuela for forwarding this item.–gm

The referendum to ban gay marriage passed 3-1 in November, but Equality
Texas says the election revealed a few legislative districts where
voters may be ready to trade up for equality-friendly leadership.

See the detailed analysis at Equality Texas.
It is encouraging to note that in districts with vocal
pro-equality legislators, the voters either defeated the
amendment, or opposed it by higher margins than the average in
their respective counties. 
This reinforces a lesson most of us know: elected
officials who take a leadership role in advancing equality for
all Texans can, and do, lead the communities they were elected
to represent.  Some
examples of these legislators and their district results are
below:

 

Excerpt from Equality Texas analysis of November election results.

An AFSC Press Release (posted below) about Minutemen being shunned by the Austin
City Council has attracted some site traffic from White Nationalists
and right-wingers on campus. Not only have they swarmed the AFSC press
release, but they have voted it down, too. Meanwhile the income
tax poll, which
usually verges on yes by a slim margin has tipped to no. No
income taxes for education. At least the White Nationalist crowd
votes consistently. Robust public education probably would not be good
for the Nazi movement. Probably explains something about attitude
in the lege, too.

Anyway, welcome Nazi readers. Hang out, linger over the archives. And don’t miss
the clip on race history printed in the Washington Post. We’re
all brothers and sisters of Africa, ultimately. And Aztlan is
what you might call the family reunion (yes, you read it here first!).