"Roe v. Wade is nothing but a shameful footnote in our nation’s history books.” (Reuters, 6/13/11)
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When it comes to women’s health, Texas Governor Rick Perry is a Texas-sized threat.
His stance on women’s issues is beyond the mainstream; his approach to reproductive rights is patronizing, his policies on women’s health are regressive and his bury-your-head-in-the-sand attitude about sex education belies the facts and the needs of his state.
Simply put: President Perry is truly a scary prospect – join women across the country to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Since becoming Governor of Texas, Rick Perry has consistently promoted policies that eviscerate access to health care for women, no matter the consequences and despite his rhetoric. While Perry claims to “hate cancer,” he recently slashed funding for family planning by 66 percent, cutting off access to health care for nearly 300,000 women, including funding for HPV screenings.
And he brags about it on the campaign trail. Insult, meet injury.
In an effort to impose his extreme views on Texas families, Perry pushed his ‘emergency’ ultrasound bill. This law would require women seeking abortion care to undergo an ultrasound and have the images displayed and described to the woman and the heartbeat made audible even if she did not want to see or hear it. It also requires most women to come to the health center twice, one at least 24 hours before the abortion to have the ultrasound and to receive certain state-mandated information.
This new law insults a women’s capacity to make decisions about her health care and undermines the patient-doctor relationship. It stretches the idea of what information should be provided to women seeking abortions to such limit that a federal judge intervened to block the ultrasound requirements, ruling they likely violate the First Amendment by forcing doctors to engage in government-mandated speech.
The judge ruled that Perry’s law "compels physicians to advance an ideological agenda with which they may not agree, regardless of any medical necessity, and irrespective of whether the pregnant women wish to listen."
Now as a presidential candidate, Perry wants to apply his state-level humiliation to women everywhere.
In July 2011, Perry stated he thought abortion access ought to be decided at the state level. But just one month later, he signed a pledge from the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony Fund.
Perry has also repeatedly worked with his allies in the Texas legislature to end successful sex education programs that keep Texan young adults healthy, which includes championing the “abstinence-only” education movement.
In 2010, Perry rejected $4.4 million dollars in federal funds for comprehensive sex education. In fact, 94 percent of Texas school districts have an abstinence-only curriculum that avoids discussing responsible pregnancy, safer sex, or disease prevention – and another two percent of schools districts don’t teach sex education at all.
Meanwhile, on Rick Perry’s watch, a teen gets pregnant somewhere in Texas every 10 minutes according to the University of Texas Prevention Research Center in Houston. Texas has the second highest rate of repeat teen pregnancy in the nation, and the third highest teen birth rate. The teen birth rate in Texas is so high, the state accounts for 12 percent of all teen births in the nation.
The reason Perry supports abstinence-only education? “From my own personal life,” Perry says, “abstinence works.” It’s a claim worthy of Saturday Night Live, not of a state governor, and certainly not of the president of the United States.
There is no question that Rick Perry has made Texas worse when it comes to women’s health. This would be bad enough in itself, but now he’s running for president.
He needs to know that women across the country will not accept his rhetoric or failed policies seeking to undermine women’s health – the stakes for our country’s future are too high. He needs to know women are watching.
Key Anti-Women’s Health Votes
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Perry Speech on Emergency Ultrasound Bill (KXAN, 2011) Governor Perry promotes an onerous bill that would require women who are seeking abortion care to have an ultrasound beforehand, and be forced to see the images and hear the heartbeat. http://youtu.be/N0GckuIqyMY
Rick Perry Signing The SB7 - Taxpayer money never be used to fund abortions. Rick Perry Signing Senate Bill 7 - "...this bill helps protect those who need our protection the most, the unborn, underscoring our ongoing commitment that taxpayer money never be used to fund abortions." http://youtu.be/XrhFDcd9K7I
Rick Perry, in an interview with the Texas Tribune, struggled to answer why he supports failed abstinence only until marriage programs when Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. Perry could only say, “Abstinence works… it is the best form to teach our children.” (Texas Tribune, 8/29/11)
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Rick Perry, in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network said: "I support the federal marriage amendment and I also support the same with the issue of abortion.” (Christian Broadcasting Network, 8/4/11)
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Rick Perry criticized stem cell research saying he was “disturbed by studies that turn ‘the remains of unborn children into nothing more than raw material.’” (Reuters, 6/13/11)
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Rick Perry, at an anti-choice rally, in criticizing President Obama overturning the restrictive anti-choice global gag rule, said, "With the stroke of a pen, abortion essentially became a U.S. foreign export.” (Reuters, 6/13/11)
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