Planned Parenthood announced the launch of an aggressive initiative intended to expand abortion access across every state in the U.S., alleging Tuesday that the president and vice president are grave threats to women’s healthcare.
“Today, we’re going on the offense. We’ve been marching, mobilizing, and organizing — and now we’re channeling that into real policy change,” said Planned Parenthood’s Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens in the official announcement of Planned Parenthood’s initiative launch. “The Trump-Pence administration has been attacking our patients’ fundamental rights and access to health care, emboldening state politicians to follow its reckless lead. We need to do more than just fight against the bad policies — now is the time to push for good ones,” Laguens continued.
Planned Parenthood’s initiative launch charges that President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed policies intended to strip Americans of so-called “basic rights” to controlling one’s body. “No matter what Trump and Pence say, your body is your own. If it is not, you cannot be truly free or equal,” Laguens posits.
The program launch includes pushing for expanded abortion access in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The launch also pushes for birth control coverage protections and inclusive sex education.
Planned Parenthood’s initiative launch comes largely in response to a number of 2017 pro-life legislative successes. Nineteen states have adopted 63 new restrictions on abortion access in 2017, according to a Jan. 2 Guttmacher Institute report. That total is the largest number of abortion restrictions enacted in a year since 2013. Including those adopted in 2017, states have enacted 401 abortion restrictions since January 2011, the Guttmacher Institute also reported. Legislators in 30 states have introduced abortion bans, with six states enacting new laws in 2017.
Twenty-one states adopted proactive measures to expand access to reproductive health services or to protect reproductive rights in 2017. (RELATED: Changes In Abortion Legislation Are Sweeping Across The Country. Here’s What You Need To Know)
Guttmacher senior manager, Elizabeth Nash, notes that 2017 has seen a “dramatic upsurge in proactive efforts to expand access to abortion, contraception, [and] other reproductive health services,” but that many of those efforts have been unsuccessful. Those efforts have largely been a “reaction to all of the abortion restrictions that have been moving,” Nash added, according to The Hill.
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Twenty-nine states were “hostile or extremely hostile” to abortion rights in 2017, according to Guttmacher. (RELATED: Here’s How Planned Parenthood Is Celebrating Valentine’s Day)
Following the launch of the 2018 initiative, Planned Parenthood is celebrating Valentine’s Day by staging a protest on Trump’s budget cuts, alleging the latest budget proposal will be damaging to American families.
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