Tradition of Choice luncheon

On the25th anniversary of our local chapter of Planned Parenthood, over 600 people gathered to hear former Texas state senator Wendy Davis and author Jonathan Eig speak about trusting women with the freedom to take care of their own bodies. Eig spoke of his most recent book, The Birth of the Pill: How four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution. He is a fascinating speaker and I am eager now to buy his book. My great grandmother helped Margaret Sanger by bailing her out of jail every time she was arrested...which was often. Back 100 years ago there were laws set up for entrapment. You could not discuss, disperse or own any information about women's health and family planning. So the opposition would mail Sanger a packet of information, and then she would be conveniently arrested accepting the package. Women at that time were begging for information to save themselves from having 14, 15, 20 pregnancies. Many died, before turning 40, during complications of childbirth. Doctors would tell them to "sleep on the roof".
Since Texas closed all but 10 clinics that handle access to birth control and pap smears last year, over 200,000 Texan women have tried to end their pregnancies on their own. It is a grim statistic. Our politicians use the female body as a political wedge that ignores the real tragedies of the people.

Jonathan Eig

Wendy Davis

Outside the convention center a line of all white male anti-abortion foes held up graphic posters of mutilated babies. Whether you are anti-abortion or pro-choice, I still believe that a woman (not a male) should be trusted and given the freedom to make her own choices as to how many babies to have and when she wants to have them. Raising a child is a complicated and complete choice. The same states that persecute a woman for freedom of choice, are the same states that have tough (inhuman) juvenile prison laws and also easy access/minimum background checks to gun purchasing. Such political hypocrisy highlights how the argument of the "Sanctity of Life" falls deaf on my ears and on those other 625 ladies doing lunch.