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Posts tagged ‘abortion’

Jan 22

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The Politics of Single Issue Abortion Voters

About 81% of self-identified evangelicals voted for Trump.  My parents voted for Trump.  Many of my relatives voted for Trump.  And many of them voted for him because they are single-issue voters on anti-abortion issues.  People vote with a focus on abortion access on the left, too.  In her contribution to Liza Featherstone’s edited collection False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Clinton, Maureen Tkacik argues that Democrats also want to keep the abortion as an issue alive even though it could have been put to rest by making medical abortions more accessible.  That didn’t happen because the same pharmaceutical companies that support Democratic candidates made the pill so expensive that the pill cocktail for a medical abortion costs $600, which in some cases is more than a surgical abortion costs.  If abortion was cheaper, something that could be done in your local doctor’s office, and most often done at 8-10 weeks, it’d become less of a political divider.  But it would also do less to get people to the polls for both Republicans and Democrats.  Then they’d really need to make a case to people that their programs are good for us.  Read more

Jan 7

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Undue Burdens: Abortion and Paternalism

The 5th Circuit Federal Appeals Court heard arguments today to determine whether the Texas law that requires abortion clinics in Texas to be ambulatory surgical centers is constitutional.  If upheld, the law would cause 80% of abortion clinics in Texas to close, which would mean many Texas women would have to travel hundreds of miles to procure an abortion, as reported by NPR.  Many of the women affected are poor, many are Latina, some are undocumented.  For many, their only source of healthcare is their local Planned Parenthood.  I know this because I used to live in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the places where the local abortion clinic would have to shut down. Read more