Last week, the SLU College Democrats put up posters throughout campus that highlighted problems with the existing American healthcare system and encouraged students to contact their representatives to support reform. All of these posters can be seen on our earlier post. Many of these posters were posted on stakes in the quad and along West Pine Mall Blvd. On Friday, 10/16, between noon and 1 pm, these posters were subjected to vandalism. On 12 of the signs in the quad and along West Pine, “abortion is not healthcare” was written in permanent marker. We do not know who is responsible for this and we are not making any accusations. However, we are extremely disappointed by the complete lack of respect for our organization. Sadly, this incident reflects the wider issue of a decline in the level of the political discourse in our country.
That being said, I wish to use this incident to elevate our political discourse. Clearly, the person(s) who vandalized the signs have concerns about how health insurance reform will affect abortion rates in America. There is a widespread myth that current reform plans will, as House Minority Leader John Boehner claimed in July, “require (Americans) to subsidize abortion with their hard-earned tax dollars.” The non-partisan politifact.com has called this statement “false”. In fact, most reform bills in congress contain provisions specifically prohibiting the use of tax-payer dollars to fund abortion.
I found the vandalized poster pictured to the right particularly interesting. The poster points out the incredible costs of pregnancy for an uninsured woman. A 2005 study by the Guttmacher Institute shows that nearly 3/4 of women who have abortions list financial instability as a major reason for their decision. If all of these women had health insurance, the financial burden of having a child would be eased, and many of them might not have chosen to abort.
My intention is not to take a position for or against Roe v. Wade, but to argue that health insurance reform will reduce the elevated abortion rate in America by providing women better options for raising a child. Regardless of a person’s opinion on the legality of abortion, everyone can generally agree that giving women better reproductive options is a good thing. The current health care system fails to provide these options, and often creates incentives for women to choose abortion. Insurance companies, motivated by profits, have an incentive to avoid the costs of covering pregnancies. As a result, they charge higher premiums for women during their reproductive years, and they even drop women’s coverage when they become pregnant, citing the pregnancy as a pre-existing condition.
I invite the person(s) who vandalized our posters to respond to this argument in a peaceful, nondestructive manner. I have no interest in the apprehension or punishment of these person(s) as I believe that their actions were motivated by a good intention of speaking out about something they passionately believed was unjust. I only hope that in the future, they will do so in a way that elevates the political discourse rather than disrespecting others and their property.
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