The Stupak Amendment will limit reproductive choices for some of our most vulnerable members of society. How can we think through this issue?
On Stopping the Stupak Amendment:
1- What life for working, minimum wage mothers will look like if it becomes illegal for them to exercise control over their own bodies when it comes to reproductive choices?
2- What is the current law on abortion? Why is it not illegal - this involves both medical science & the law? How does this inform the debate?
3- How does the dynamic between husband & wife/ boyfriend and girlfriend change if poor women are no longer able to have control over their reproductive choices?
4- Are there women working today who might not be working in their profession, if they did not have control over their reproductive health choices? Imagine someone from poverty who has managed somehow to navigate the educational system to earn a degree from Harvard.
5- The US is a leader - particularly in our neighboring, poorer, Central and South American countries, when it comes to human rights and the law. How will US policy changes, which may then take place because of a major change in our own laws regarding the reproductive health care choice rights of poor US women, impact poor women in these countries?
6- If working women are not able to freely make reproductive health care choices, what will this mean for the US social services budget?
7-Who stands to benefit from taking away a reproductive health care choices from women living in or near poverty? Which groups/ industries/ wealthy/ poor or middle class Americans?
8- Politics: Rs are salivating at the the thought of Stupak passing. It would open wide the door to republican female candidates (particularly women veterans) to run against encumbent dems in conservative and mixed states- think Virginia, for instance.