Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Trump's Anti-Abortion Policies Aside, He's Not Really A Pro-Lifer
Whenever I hear Donald Trump described as the most pro-life president ever, I think well then, I would not want to meet the runner-up. Pro-lifers, and yes, I am one, do not debate which people are people. Or think of even the most remorseless criminals as less than human. “These are not people,” Trump has said of some of the immigrants being deported. “These are animals." He’s frequently called gang members and school shooters and terrorists animals. (And he reportedly has no patience with animals.) ...You cannot really value life and speak this way. (Melinda Henneberger, 5/29)
President Donald Trump’s plan to withhold federal funds for organizations that perform abortions or make referrals for them will endanger women’s access to a wide range of health care, such as birth control, Pap tests for cervical cancer and testing for breast cancer and sexually transmitted infections. Trump’s effort is designed to placate a group of social conservatives who are determined to crush Planned Parenthood, damn the consequences. They view the women’s health organization as evil because some of its clinics perform legal abortions. They constitute a small fraction of Planned Parenthood services, and no federal funds are used for the procedures. Trump opts to put women’s health at risk just so he can pander to a group that can’t seem to see anything beyond the abortion issue. (5/28)
President Trump is trying to turn family planning — what most of us consider good for mothers, fathers, children, and families — into something bad, even shameful. He’s also trying to make abortion – part of women’s health care for 45 years – into an abomination so nasty that clinicians dare not speak its name. (Margery Eagan, 5/28)
I had hoped the political conversation around abortion would fade. I had hoped that people who were firmly against abortion could take comfort in knowing that they would never be forced to have one. But our politicians have never let it fade. And yet women still want and need abortions. In a perfect world, no one would need one. Birth control would be perfect, finances would be perfect. But that’s not how it is. (Joan Finn-McCracken, 5/25)
