Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Right to Decide
T. Forman; Fireworks Graphics;
Inkworks Press; Prairie Fire Organizing Committee
Offset, 1989
Berkeley, CA
3766
Late Januaryu 2016 a Texas grand jury investigating claims that Planned Parenthood was illegally selling fetal tissue has cleared the organization of wrongdoing and, in an interesting twist of events, indicted two of the anti-abortion activists who first publicized the false claims.
David Daleiden, head of the anti-abortion group The Center for Medical Progress, was indicted on a second-degree felony charge of tampering with governmental records and a misdemeanor charge related to the purchase and sale of human organs. Daleiden had posed as a biotechnology representative to secretly videotape Planned Parenthood officials explaining how the organization shares fetal tissue with researchers. The videos were heavily edited to suggest that the tissue was sold for profit, and in one of the videos, Daleiden even presents footage of a still-born child found online.
These videos, which were released in the summer of 2015, were used by Republicans to promote the defunding of Planned Parenthood, a key provider of primary care for low-income families across the country, whose services include cancer screening, STI testing, and more. Although Planned Parenthood does provide legal, safe, and accessible abortions, the organization, like all health care providers in the U.S., is prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to perform an abortion unless the patient's life is in danger or they are a victim of rape.
CSPG's Poster of the Week defends people's right to a safe abortion. Abortion was criminalized in the United States between the late 1800s and 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal in the U.S. Prior to legalization, countless people obtained illegal abortions. These abortions were extremely dangerous, often leading to permanent sterilization or death. The coat hanger, one of many tools used to perform self-induced abortions, became a symbol for the desperation and danger faced by those wishing to end a pregnancy.
As anti-choice politicians and jurists continue to make abortion less accessible, more people are taking unsafe and desperate lengths to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. According to the World Health Organization (2008), "Some 47,000 women per year are estimated to lose their lives from the complications of unsafe abortion, almost all of which could have been prevented through better access to sexuality education, fertility awareness, contraception, and especially safe abortion services."
When will we ever learn?
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