Election season is approaching, and, as usual, sharp rhetoric is flying between the Democrats and Republicans. This year, however, women's health issues - such as contraception and abortion - dominate much of the debate. These issues center on a growing controversy that some call a "war on women," and women's reactions to it have the potential to shape the outcome of the 2012 elections.
This past year has seen a series of contentious and inflammatory events surrounding women's health, such as the Komen Fund/Planned Parenthood controversy, the sharp backlash to Rush Limbaugh's comments about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke and the debate over the implications of the Affordable Care Act. As media coverage ramps up and partisan divides escalate, many women, including Director of the Women's Center StephGauchel, see these incidents as a fundamental challenge to the rights of women.
"While these issues and attacks are not new, there has recently been an incredible increase in politicians' and large portions of the media's aggressive and relentless attack on women's rights to control and make decisions about their health, privacy and their own bodies," she told the Daily in an email.
In February, Fluke testified before the House Democrats in support of national insurance coverage for contraceptives. She spoke out against Georgetown's lack of birth control coverage, arguing that "contraception is basic health care." In response, conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh called her a "slut" and a "prostitute," igniting a furious public reaction and earning Fluke a phone call from President Barack Obama.
Sophomore Aliza Gordon believes this issue is indicative of systemic health-related inequalities for American women. Gordon is president of Tufts Voices for Choice (VOX), a student organization that promotes reproductive rights and is affiliated with Planned Parenthood.
"People that need basic medical care, want their birth control covered, are being called 'sluts' on a national level and are being told that they're asking people to pay for their sex," Gordon said. "How can you be saying that we're in a post-feminist world when stuff like this is continually happening? It seems like we're backtracking in terms of women's health, which is really in terms of equality."
The increasing focus on women's health can also be traced back to Obama's signature healthcare overhaul, which became law in March 2010 after nearly a year of intensely partisan debate.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a mandate that employers must cover contraceptives in their insurance, with the exception of churches and places of worship. But the mandate did not specify exemptions for religious institutions that are morally opposed to contraception, sparking outrage from Catholic institutions and from Republican presidential candidates, who said the mandate was an affront to religious liberty.
In response, Republican senators proposed the Blunt Amendment, which was co-sponsored by Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (LA '81). This sweeping amendment would have allowed any employer to exempt themselves on moral objections from any provision of the healthcare law. It was defeated in the Senate, and an accommodation was implemented to allow religious institutions to deflect contraception coverage to the insurance companies rather than provide it themselves.
Sinclair Stafford, president of Tufts Republicans, sees the healthcare law and its contraception provision as the government trampling religious and moral convictions.
"The fact that it violates religious liberty, especially Christians' religious liberty, is a big deal for the GOP. It should be a big deal for everyone," she said. "[Many people] don't understand that to Catholics, this is a big deal, and even just to be an accessory to providing birth control is essentially the equivalent to doing a grave sin."
Many women, however, have strong negative reactions to the Republican Party's stance on these issues, particularly former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's positions to restrict abortion rights and contraceptive use.
"There's a blunt assertion by dominant elements of the Republican party that women's reproductive rights should be regulated. It's an assault on the reproductive rights of women," Associate Professor of Political Science Richard Eichenberg, who concentrates on gender politics, said.
"It's upsetting, it's insulting to me, the things they've said about contraceptives," freshman ZobellaVinik said. "It's really disappointing to me that I don't feel like there is a Republican candidate that can say, 'I'm standing for women, I want women to have equal pay, I want women to pay the same for health insurance as men, I want women to feel safe and feel like they can get the services they need.'"
Along with access to birth control, abortion is another hot topic within the debate on women's access to health care. At Let's Get Political, an event cosponsored by VOX and Tufts Democrats in early April, representatives from Massachusetts Planned Parenthood spoke about their ongoing battle against "state attacks on women's health."
Recent anti-abortion measures include Virginia's law requiring that women considering an abortion undergo an external ultrasound to gain information about their pregnancy. The original form of the law stipulated that women undergo a transvaginal ultrasound, which was widely condemned as invasive.
Many states have instituted 20-week abortion bans and Indiana, New Hampshire and North Carolina have eliminated state funding to Planned Parenthood, which provides many women's health services, such as mammograms and pelvic exams, in addition to performing abortions and providing access to contraception.
According to Gordon, the strong presence of these issues in the media is fostering widespread anger, particularly among women.
"Every single day in the news, there's something that's happening, an attack against women's rights," she said. "I think that is bringing a sense of awareness to this and creating a sense of outrage."
Eichenberg sees this outrage among his students and advisees at Tufts.
"My perception is anger, that young women are angry that their rights are being challenged," he said. "It's not the ordinary amount of interest or concern about this or that political issue. I would go so far as to say that they are very angry."
Eichenberg said this anger has huge mobilizing potential for young, women voters and will have a substantial impact on the presidential race. He said that since the 1980s, women voters have been more likely to support Democrats than Republicans, so any event that pushes women even further toward the Democrats gives that party an advantage.
"The evidence is overwhelming, from the last two to three weeks, that this is happening in a major way," he said. "Surely women are angry and mobilized on the issue of reproductive rights - but what's being overlooked is that the entire question of access to quality healthcare is one that women favor slightly more than men and tends to associate them with the Democratic Party."
In addition, Eichenberg asserts that youth - and young women in particular - will be an invaluable voting demographic for the Democrats just as it was in the 2008 election. He cited a recent poll in USA Today that showed an overwhelming shift of women's support toward Obama in key swing states. While 30 percent of women under 50 support Romney, 60 percent support Obama. Obama leads all women by 18 points, and women identify as Democrats by 41 percent to 24 percent.
"Anywhere from the middle to the left of the spectrum, on reproductive rights and access to healthcare, this is a mobilizing and energizing constituency that will help Obama," Eichenberg said. "This has been, on the part of the Republicans, a supreme act of political suicide."
Vinik said these issues have motivated her to be more politically active.
"In the last presidential election, I was somewhat involved, but this is the first one I'll be voting in," she said. "That's extremely exciting and because of that, I feel like I need to be more engaged. As a woman, these women's issues are very important to me."
She will not only vote but will also take action by encouraging more women to register to vote. Another priority of both Vinik and Gordon is increasing education on women's health issues within their communities and at Tufts.
"I think the biggest thing that needs to be done is that people need to know what's happening," Gordon said. "Honestly, if they know what's happening, especially at Tufts, I feel like they're going to understand where the reproductive rights community is coming from on this."
