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Who Decides? Not low-income women

Posted by Jill C. Morrison, Senior Counsel | Posted on: July 23, 2007 at 01:17 pm

by Jill Morrison

Three tidbits of information crossed my desk last week that once again led me to think of that old pro-choice refrain- Who Decides?

(1)I was talking to a colleague at National Advocates for Pregnant Women who was working on a case challenging a judge’s “order” which forbade a woman in Rochester from having any more children until she could afford them.  The judge said that her right to have children was outweighed by society’s right not to have to support them. Yes, she was also a drug user, but the judge really emphasized that she couldn’t afford kids and that “the system” shouldn’t have to pay for her transgressions. 

(2) NWLC was representing a woman who wanted IVF but was turned away from the clinic because she is single. The clinic changed its policy.  (yay!) But while reviewing the clinic’s “new and improved” policy, my boss was especially disturbed by this, describing how the clinic will choose who to accept for treatment:

All women, with or without a partner, using donor insemination will meet with a health psychologist for an interview with particular emphasis on:

  • Emotional maturity
  • Support structure available for help in pregnancy, delivery and childrearing, and;
  • Financial considerations related to raising a child.

“Whhhhaaaat?”  My boss said, “Oh my gosh--how much would ever be enough?”  She’s a mother, and she knows that if anyone really took “financial considerations” into account, the entire nation would be populated only by people named Hilton and Trump. Not a good thing.  Who am I (or a judge, or an infertility doctor) to say how much money a parent needs to raise a child?  Who Decides?

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The Chorus Grows Louder: Taxing Private Equity

Posted by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security | Posted on: July 20, 2007 at 03:26 pm

by Joan Entmacher

Yesterday’s Financial Times editorialized in favor of taxing the compensation of private equity firm managers at ordinary income tax rates, just as the compensation of all other workers is taxed. If  you are not familiar with the Financial Times, it is one of the most widely-read business news dailies in the world (it is also the only newspaper we can think of that is printed on pink paper). 

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Voters Support Reproductive Health

Posted by Steph Sterling, Director of Government Relations and Senior Advisor | Posted on: July 20, 2007 at 01:12 pm

by Steph Sterling

The National Women’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood Federation of America recently announced the results of a new national opinion survey on reproductive health.  The results are in, and Members of Congress should take notice. 

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A vote for right priorities, or for the wrong direction?

by Cristina Martin Firvida

Today, the House of Representatives is voting on the spending bill (H.R. 3043) that funds many of the federal programs that make the greatest difference in the lives of American women and their families – programs like Head Start, Pell grants, Title X family planning, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant. 

This is the bill that makes the spending decisions most of us care about – money to make it more affordable to find good child care for our children, to make sure schools can prepare them for a strong future, and to put a college education within the reach of more Americans. This is the bill that funds the research to find a cure for cancer, and to support health services in local community health centers. Many of these priorities have gone by the wayside for the last six years, and the bill being voted on today, while it falls far short of meeting unmet needs, certainly is better than anything we have seen in a long time.  Yet the President has threatened over and over to veto this bill because it spends $10 billion more on these kinds of priorities than his own budget proposes to spend – and to be clear, in many cases, his budget would cut a lot of spending that you and I care about. 

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