Soon after Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States, women rushed to get an IUD while their health insurance covers the expenses of birth control methods. Trump’s stand on planned parenthood, abortion, and women in general, have not been encouraging for the minority group, which caused that IUD made it to Twitter’s trending topic.
Trump’s presidential campaign has alarmed women because his proposed policies on birth control and women’s rights have made feel the group helpless if he happened to win. And now that he did, women could be returning to a dark era where they had to risks their lives to get an abortion. More concerning, Mike Pence, who has a record for limiting women’s rights in Indiana while he was governor, is the vice president of the nation.
Because of fear, women have rushed to medical centers to get an IUD. It is the only procedure that they can get done while health insurances cover it and that it would continue to protect them from an unwanted pregnancy if Trumps administration denies women their right to birth control methods. Some IUD can last up to twelve years, and a government, four. And even if Trump gets re-elected, women could still avoid pregnancy with the device if they want it to.
Women started to urge other women to get an IUD Wednesday, although others were more precautious and began to warn people to get the birth control device at the beginning of November. The term IUD was trending on Twitter for a brief time yesterday after women on the internet advised each other to get an IUD in case they lose their insurance or birth control becomes hard to get during Trump’s presidency.
Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosely, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, stated that it is “too early” to confirm that more women requested IUD after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections. He added that the centers of the agency would continue to teach women about birth control and abortion.
The new president of the United States said during his campaign that women who had abortions should be punished in some way. During the third presidential debate, Trump also stated that he would nominate Supreme Court justices who would be likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion in America, protecting million of women from getting hurt while trying to do the procedure illegally.
A recent victory for women’s rights struck down abortion restrictions in Texas and hopes rose believing the same would happen across the country to finally live in a nation that respects women’s right to choose. But since Trump’s victory, the future does not seem so bright, and women fear to lose what took them generations to fight for: Legal and safe abortion clinics.
Women fear to be denied abortion, birth control pills, and a decent life
Besides Trump, who has said in public that he had sexually assaulted women, Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States, has been more extreme when it comes to depriving women of their human rights. Pence has signed some of the strictest abortion restrictions into law while he was Indiana governor, including forcing women who have miscarriages or abortions to bury or cremate the fetuses.
Even when Trump and Pence are against women choosing over their own body, changing what has taken years of constant legal fights and injustices will not be changed so easily. Nancy Northup, president of the advocacy group Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement that America would not go back to dark times where women were forced to put their lives at risk to get a safe and legal abortion.
Abortion is not the only thing at risk during Trump’s administration. Contraception is another right that could be violated while Trump is the American president. Americans United for Life and other abortion opponents want to eliminate Obamacare’s coverage of contraception.
The groups also seek that Congress ends $500 million in annual federal funding to Planned Parenthood because, according to Clarke Forsythe, the acting president of the Americans United for Life “Essential gynecological care for poor women can be addressed by many more community health centers and state and local government.”
Trump has said he wants to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a Republican Congressional mission as well. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to provide birth control pills for women at no cost. Republicans maintained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday, which troubles many women who fear for their health.
The “pro-life” organizations also want to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and only allowed the procedure to be funded by federal funds in case of rape, incest, or when the mother could lose her life because of the pregnancy.
The consequences of not funding contraception and abortions: America would return to medieval times
According to a study published in New England Journal of Medicine, exclusion of Planned Parenthood in Texa’s state-funded planning program in 2013 led to a drop in reimbursement claims for IUDs, which meant that fewer women were getting the device. At the same time, the number of women on Medicaid who gave birth rose significantly compared to the states that enjoyed Planned Parenthood.
If contraception stops being funded and abortion starts to be more restricted than it is now, more women, including young girls, are going to give birth babies they did not plan nor want. Teenagers are not mature enough to raise a child, and the pregnancy will stop them from living their youth, finish college and have a better job. And women that did not plan the baby might struggle to raise them in a country where women’s health rights are violated, and their choices over their bodies are ignored.
Source: The Huffington Post