When you think of “women’s health”, what do you think of? Breast cancer? Heart attack symptoms? Fibromyalgia?
ThinkProgress and similar groups would rather you think of one thing, and one thing only: abortion.
For example, do you know who said this?
“You’ve got a state legislature up here that sometimes acts like it knows better than women when it comes to women’s own health-care decisions,” the president said at a typical rally in New Hampshire during the last campaign. “You know, my opponent’s got the same approach.”
An interest group hack? Nope. That was President Obama.
According to Jonah Goldberg:
Even the most ardent pro-life activist readily concedes that there are instances when an abortion is in the interest of the mother’s health. But it is bizarre to suggest that women’s health and abortion rights are interchangeable. The biggest killer of women is heart disease, followed by cancer, then stroke. I couldn’t find “lack of a timely abortion” on the CDC list.
Abortion is probably one of the lowest things on the ladder of women’s health, somewhere near “tampon misuse” and “sex change surgery complications”.
A study by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute asking women who had abortions why they had them found that only 4% aborted because of their own health concerns—a number that isn’t even statistically significant.
So how again is abortion synonymous with women’s health? And what would a woman against abortion be—against her own health?
It just goes to show how changing the language changes the debate. And how quickly it can spread—even up to the President.
