Conversation over abortion continues 39 years later

As for front-runner Mitt Romney, although he has not explicitly expressed a desire to ban birth control, the two-time presidential candidate has voiced his support for eliminating Title X, the federal program that helps provide reproductive health services to low-income and uninsured Americans. “This is an unusual topic that you’re raising,” Romney said after being asked about the birth control issue by moderator George Stephanopoulos at an ABC/Yahoo! News Republican debate last Saturday. He went on to say that he believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Goldberg is particularly worried about Romney, who, unlike Santorum, stands a good chance of winning the GOP nomination and maybe, the presidency. In response to attacks by GOP contender Newt Gingrich, the former Massachusetts governor has been dialing up the antiabortion rhetoric in the past few days, stressing his commitment to the “protection of life” to South Carolina voters.

Anna Holmes

Anna Holmes is a contributing columnist for the Style section. She is the founder of Jezebel.com.

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(Mark Wilson/GETTY IMAGES) - Former U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum has made no bones about his opposition to contraception and his willingness to use the presidency as a religious pulpit from which to politicize Americans’ personal lives.

“I think it’s incredibly likely that he would fill his administration with anti-choice hard-liners and would be every bit as bad as George W. Bush, if not worse,” she says. “We’ve already heard about how he acted as bishop — when he had direct authority over women, he acted in pretty callous ways. And then there’s the fact that he’s going to be beholden to the Republicans in Congress and need to prove himself to them.”

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“We are in the middle of a maelstrom,” adds Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst for the reproductive and sexual health nonprofit Guttmacher Institute. The institute announced on Jan. 6 that by the end of 2011, there had been about 600 measures introduced in the United States that threatened to negatively affect women’s reproductive rights and health. By the end of the year, 135 of those measures had been enacted, what the organization called “a record number of abortion restrictions.”

The fact that the issue of birth control is even up for debate and that its detractors and naysayers aren’t being laughed off the public stage is profoundly depressing: Birth control and, by extension, abortion have changed women’s lives. They’ve certainly changed mine. Ninety-eight percent of Americans will use some form of birth control over the course of their lives; one-third of American women will have an abortion by the age of 45. And were we in a sane society, one where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not only celebrated but encouraged, such political or ideological posturing would be, as Goldberg puts it, “completely disqualifying” for candidates.

But maybe it’s also something to rejoice over. After all, the newly explicit GOP attack on reproductive health services underscores what many abortion-rights activists and advocates have known all along: that opposition to abortion is not always about opposition to pregnancy termination or the fantasy of saving cute, chubby babies but to the very idea that women can, and should, make decisions about their own bodies, and that sex is for more than just procreation.

“In some ways, I’m appalled and in some ways, I’m relieved,” says Jodi Jacobson, editor of the online women’s health advocacy outlet RH Reality Check. Jacobson points out that the next few weeks are likely to bring a decision by the Obama administration regarding the “conscience clause,” which would allow religious organizations to deny insurance coverage for employees’ contraceptive and reproductive health needs.

“I understand that it may sound unbelievable, but sometimes you don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone,” she continues. “I used to say it all the time: It’s not just about abortion, it’s about contraception. And people would look at me like, Get this woman a straightjacket.

“Finally, the real agenda is coming out.”