Obama 'Disappoints' Advocates With Removal Of Family Planning From Stimulus Bill, Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 04 Feb 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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President Obama "may have scored big with female voters" when he repealed the "global gag rule," also known as the "Mexico City" policy, and passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, but women's rights advoacates say they were "disappointed" when when he agreed to remove a provision of the economic stimulus bill that would have allowed states to expand eligibility for Medicaid family planning services, Washington Times columnist Adrienne Washington writes in an opinion piece. Washington writes that the "fiery debate has focused on whether this much-anticipated female- and family-friendly president threw poor women under the bus to win Republican support that was never going to materialize," noting that no House Republicans voted for the bill despite the provision's removal.

Advocates are "now upset that the president offered little defense of the programs when he asked to remove the funds" and that few Democratic colleagues of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) "rose to her defense" when she was "unmercifully ridiculed" for defending the provision, according to Washington. She writes that the advocates' comments "that hint at betrayal ... are a far cry from the hopeful accolades I heard heaped on the new president during a packed EMILY's List luncheon ... during the inaugural week activities." For example, Washington writes that Loretta Ross -- national coordinator of the Atlanta-based SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective -- said that she was disappointed with Obama's decision. Ross added, "If you worship at the altar of bipartisanship, you don't get what you want and you (tick) your friends off.'" Ross added that the opposition to the provision was "'very cynical in its manifestation. We're not even talking about the third rail of abortion here.'"

Washington writes, "Some silly -- or sinister -- folks today, mainly male politicians with hidden agendas, I'm sorry to say, pretend they cannot compute when it comes to 'Basic Biology 101,' family planning and the milk money, as Ms. Ross suggests." Washington continues that what "unnecessarily became an issue ... under trumped up rhetoric was simply an attempt to provide for easy and affordable access to birth control, contraceptives and objective counselors." Washington writes, "This has a direct impact on a poor parent's pocketbook in the face of a tough economy, which has an even deeper, crippling effect on their daily lives than it does on the well-heeled politicians who argue against it." However, advocates such as Ross are "taking a wait-and-see approach to see whether the Obama administration makes good on its promises to women's rights advocates in the form of reinstating family-planning funding policies here and abroad" (Washington, Washington Times, 2/1).

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