24 March 06
Sigh! I'm sad
I posted a couple of days ago, about how the president of the Oglala Sioux tribe on Pine Ridge Reservation had said that if South Dakota legislators wanted to outlaw abortion, she’d just open up a Planned Parenthood.
Well unfortunately the Planned Parenthood that serves Minneapolis, North Dakota, and South Dakota have turned down the offer in favor of continuing to support their greater effort to oppose the law being passed.
Which makes sense. I totally understand them wanting to continue to support the one existing clinic where they have to fly a doctor in to perform 10-25 abortions a week. But! This seems like a public relations coup!
Why not take advantage of it? Why not collect donations from folks to create a clinic on Pine Ridge which just so happens to be in the top five poorest regions of the country. Why not increase the access for poor women to reproductive health care? Why not turn this into an education center to train residents of the reservation in reproductive medicine? Why not take advantage of all this publicity? Why not use this as the perfect opportunity to bring health-related industry to reservations? Not just at Pine Ridge, but everywhere? Especially everywhere that states are pushing to outlaw abortion.
I want the SD ban to be overturned. But then I think they’ll just try it again with a clause allowing abortion in the instances of incest and “simple rape”. But in case the SD ban does go through. In case the state of SD does get enough money from folks outside the state to fund their legal fight, I hope that Planned Parenthood nationwide starts working with reservations all over the country. Cause it’s honestly not just about abortion, it’s about reproductive health care, accurate sex information, accurate disease treatment (prayer ain’t gonna fix syphillis, yo! if it did, George Washington mighta lasted longer) It’s one small aspect of a much, much bigger and nefarious plot and I’d really like to see the pro-choice groups start focusing more on the health of women. That’s a diversionary rant for another time. For now, I’m going to be hopeful that either President Fire Thunder gains enough money to create her own clinic or the ban gets overturned. We’ll see how it plays out, though.
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