By all accounts, President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday, Jan. 20, was a rousing success for all members of the American population who do not ?identify as a straight white male.
Obama touched on key social rights advancements. Most notable was his ?groundbreaking rhetoric: for the first time in history, the word “transgender” was used in the State of the Union ?address.
Obama’s recognition of America’s transgender and gender-nonconforming population led many to herald a new era in our nation, one of progressive social reform and liberty and justice for all.
Those heralds suddenly struck a very dissonant chord Thursday, when the ?United States House of Representatives voted 242-179 to pass a bill that would clear the path for a ban on ?federal funding for abortions, further limiting women’s ?reproductive rights.
Deepening the sting was the historic significance of Thursday’s date as the 42nd anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that upheld the same rights the current House is so eager to snatch away.
Just when I’ve begun to rejoice our country’s development into a nation of open minds, open hearts and ?liberated legislation, a disillusioned fraction of our government hurls us 242 votes backward.
The bill would eliminate abortions from Medicaid ?coverage and limit a woman’s ability to buy insurance plans that include abortion coverage. Small businesses that include abortion in their employee insurance plans could no longer receive a tax credit.
By endorsing this legislation, the House has essentially refused to acknowledge the obvious fact that reproductive healthcare is healthcare and therefore necessary to improving one’s quality of life. The bill implies that women who choose to abort their pregnancies do so for recreational or frivolous reasons, which could not be farther from the truth. It horrifically trivializes what is, for many, an emotional and ?challenging decision.
The bill reduces women to substandard citizens by ?asserting that their reproductive healthcare is not vital enough to be covered by insurance providers, thereby making what is often an already-traumatic situation into an impossible crisis for low-income women who cannot afford the procedure without help from insurance.
I am embarrassed to claim a nation as my homeland that refuses to extend equal healthcare coverage to ?women. Our reproductive freedom has been explicitly attacked and diminished, and our status as legally inferior Americans must change now.
Those who celebrated the president’s progressive statements Tuesday were not wrong; we are indeed on the cusp of a new era of true equality in this nation. Every day I see local and national strides toward equality for all Americans and all of ?humankind.
As a self-declared model of freedom and justice, we as Americans must amend this error and continue to blaze trails too long overgrown with the backward, antiquated misunderstandings of ?yesterday.
sbkissel@indiana.edu
