Abortion justice is health care justice
Glenn Hurst is a family physician in southwest Iowa and a
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
In my very first days of private practice, I met a patient with an aggressive form of breast cancer. She was young, in her 30s. She and her husband had two children under the age of 5 and were doing the same struggling most young middle-class Americans do at that point in life. They worried about bills, insurance, saving for big purchases. They were not likely thinking about retirement, and they had no plans for a medical emergency. Now their family was faced with a medical crisis that no one could have predicted.
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Abortion justice stands in peril across this nation. With the U.S. Supreme Court allowing Texass abortion ban to remain in effect, it is clear that politicizing the Supreme Court by nationalist oligarchs has been successful. As a body that once stood above partisan politics, it is now entangled in politics from which it may be impossible to unwind.
Their ruling fails women in that it continues to authorize state control of their bodies. It is inherently racist, ableist, and classist, making abortion a procedure reserved for the rich, those who can easily travel out of the state to have it performed. It fails all Americans in that it allows other states to put the same questionable law on the books, wasting taxpayer money and legislative time as its legality remains uncertain. Until it is ultimately rejected, these laws will allow not just the state, but also your neighbor, into your medical choices. As Iowa faces the possibility of such a law, every voice should be raised in opposition to the injustice of it.
Abortion justice is health care justice. Health care justice is economic justice, which is ultimately social justice. And social justice is the path to equity of opportunity, privilege, and property. Justice for all is the value that every person should be able to get behind.
Iowa needs leaders who will not equivocate on this value. We can provide the leadership who will not only support codifying Roe v. Wade but who are willing to write the law. I am committed to writing the law to make Roe v. Wade the law of this country.
https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2021/12/14/abortion-justice-is-health-care-justice/