With the election of 45 as the leader of the free world, there has been a resurgence of pro-life. With plans to reform the Affordable Care Act (ACA or more properly known as Obamacare) and the state of Iowa attempting to reform Medicaid, folks have been rallying to cut funding from healthcare providers that offer full women's health services, including abortions. Planned Parenthood has been the main target of these rallies, despite the fact that no federal or state funds can be used to pay for abortion services. But I digress from the point of this blog.
There has been a call for folks to rally around being Pro-Life in the political sphere. What I find interesting and puzzling at the same time, is that the same people who insist that life starts at the moment of conception and all babies must be born, despite who they were created or if they're wanted also argue that we need to cut funding for social programs that include but are not limited too: Head Start, senior meal programs, Meals on Wheels, Medicare/Medicaid... Individuals are being told they will lose the right to choose to have an abortion and that they will have no support to help raise the children they'll have.
I see a disconnect here. You have to be born but there will be little help for those people once they enter the world. I see this with the Benton/Iowa Decat Board I serve on. We were hit with a 60% funding decrease for the current fiscal year. We are being told not to expect a return of any of those funds and to expect a possible cut again. These funds are used to provide supports to children and families to keep them from being involved with DHS (Department of Human Services). We provide a variety of supports from safety items to parenting classes to assessments and individualized action plans. Without funding, the already overburdened "system" will have more work to do and more people waiting for help.
I see the disconnect here when we require children to be born, tell them to serve our country and we will reward them with benefits, but then we cut the funding to provide those benefits and have a serious backlog across the system.
I see a disconnect in calling these folks part of the pro-life movement when they stop showing concern for others once they are born. I would argue that this movement and those who support it are not pro-life, they are pro-birth. If your concern for an individual ends once they leave a woman's body, when you make policies that perpetuate the "pull yourself up by your own boot straps" mentality, you are about pro-birth, not pro-life.
Pro-life should mean that you support an individual from birth all the way to death. You should make sure they have affordable healthcare, including mental health, making sure they can get a quality education without being in debt for the rest of their life, that people can eat decent meals, that people who serve their country get all of the benefits they are promised. Pro-life should mean a holistic approach to every person. Anything less then that is pro-birth.
I pray that those who say they are working for all people (despite being mainly old, white, men who have spent that majority of their professional lives in public office) be consistent about their stance and if they truly want to be pro-life, they work to ensure that all people have a life that is worth living and not just a birthday.
There has been a call for folks to rally around being Pro-Life in the political sphere. What I find interesting and puzzling at the same time, is that the same people who insist that life starts at the moment of conception and all babies must be born, despite who they were created or if they're wanted also argue that we need to cut funding for social programs that include but are not limited too: Head Start, senior meal programs, Meals on Wheels, Medicare/Medicaid... Individuals are being told they will lose the right to choose to have an abortion and that they will have no support to help raise the children they'll have.
I see a disconnect here. You have to be born but there will be little help for those people once they enter the world. I see this with the Benton/Iowa Decat Board I serve on. We were hit with a 60% funding decrease for the current fiscal year. We are being told not to expect a return of any of those funds and to expect a possible cut again. These funds are used to provide supports to children and families to keep them from being involved with DHS (Department of Human Services). We provide a variety of supports from safety items to parenting classes to assessments and individualized action plans. Without funding, the already overburdened "system" will have more work to do and more people waiting for help.
I see the disconnect here when we require children to be born, tell them to serve our country and we will reward them with benefits, but then we cut the funding to provide those benefits and have a serious backlog across the system.
I see a disconnect in calling these folks part of the pro-life movement when they stop showing concern for others once they are born. I would argue that this movement and those who support it are not pro-life, they are pro-birth. If your concern for an individual ends once they leave a woman's body, when you make policies that perpetuate the "pull yourself up by your own boot straps" mentality, you are about pro-birth, not pro-life.
Pro-life should mean that you support an individual from birth all the way to death. You should make sure they have affordable healthcare, including mental health, making sure they can get a quality education without being in debt for the rest of their life, that people can eat decent meals, that people who serve their country get all of the benefits they are promised. Pro-life should mean a holistic approach to every person. Anything less then that is pro-birth.
I pray that those who say they are working for all people (despite being mainly old, white, men who have spent that majority of their professional lives in public office) be consistent about their stance and if they truly want to be pro-life, they work to ensure that all people have a life that is worth living and not just a birthday.
Comments
Post a Comment