Issue Position: Protecting Reproductive Freedom

Issue Position

Issue Position: Protecting Reproductive Freedom

Thirty-five years ago, the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision affirmed a woman's right to privacy and moral authority when making childbearing decisions. Since that time, reproductive rights debates have focused almost singularly on the narrow question of whether someone is "pro-choice" or "pro-life."

And although the right to choose abortion has been legal throughout this entire period, we have seen individuals' rights to make important life decisions for themselves and their families eroded by both policy and politics. Throughout this struggle, too many elected officials have been timid about showing leadership, failing to stand up and speak out. Our elected leaders must ensure that individuals are allowed the freedom to make the reproductive health decisions that impact their lives so significantly.

In order to promote the health, safety, and privacy rights of women, we must remove barriers to access and ensure affordable, quality family planning services and education. We need to repeal the federal abortion ban—the first ever legislative ban on a rare and sometimes-safest medical procedure; repeal the three-decades old Hyde Amendment, which effectively took away the right to abortion care for many poor women by not allowing Medicaid to fund them; stop wasting federal dollars (over $1 billion to date) to fund failed and unproven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that put our young people at risk by withholding essential health information; and finally, we must eliminate the so-called "global gag rule," an attempt by the Bush Administration to use international aid to impose anti-abortion politics and export our failed policies to the rest of the globe.

Reproductive freedom is too important—too fundamental—to be subject to the changing makeup of Congress and the political views of the nine Supreme Court justices. With a Democratic majority in Congress and a Democratic president in the White House in 2009, I believe we can pass legislation proposed by Senator Barbara Boxer which would prevent the right to choose from being subject to new state restrictions and reinterpretation by the Supreme Court.

I believe there is common ground that reflects common sense. Abortion is prevented with education and services. We will reduce the need for abortion by redoubling our commitment to health education and family planning. Unintended pregnancy is best prevented with quality sexual health education, support for parents, open and honest talk within communities and families, and ready access to affordable reproductive health care health services for all women, men and teens,.

The decision to have an abortion is a deeply personal one that should not be made by politicians, but instead, by individual women in consult with their families and their physicians. In Washington, I will continue to work as I have in the legislature to protect a women's right to make this personal decision.

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