Letter to the Editor: Be aware
BY Sonia Sniderman, Tulsa
Thursday, October 11, 2012
10/11/12 at 2:47 AM
When I was in college and for the first few years after graduation, Planned Parenthood was my primary source of yearly checkups and any other health needs that arose. I couldn't afford a private doctor but Planned Parenthood filled that need.
Oklahoma women will no longer have that option ("Oklahoma ends WIC provider contract," Oct. 4). After 18 years of providing women here with birth control, testing, screening and other health needs, Planned Parenthood's funding has been cut.
Terry Bryce, program chief for Oklahoma Women, Infants and Children, disingenuously denies political motivation. But Planned Parenthood has been in the cross hairs for anti-woman zealots in the Republican war on women for years. Planned Parenthood has NOT been providing abortions in Oklahoma. Nevertheless the organization is the prime target of the right-wing vendetta against sexual health services for women.
In an effort to shut down reproductive services they oppose, the extremists in the national Republican Party started with smear campaigns and progressed to cutting funds. Oklahoma merely follows the national trend started in Texas, Arizona and Indiana where conservative governments have cut off federal funding from Planned Parenthood. Never mind that with the funding from the Women, Infants and Children program, Planned Parenthood has been providing food vouchers and nutritional counseling for some of our most vulnerable populations.
In the upcoming election, women should be aware of how Republicans have fought to reduce and eliminate women's choices. It's time for women of this state to vote against those who would politicize women's health.
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