Monday, 12/7/09
XXXXXXXXXXX Street
Orlando, FL XXXXX
TO: Senator Bill Nelson
United States Senate
716 Hart Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
re: Health reform
I'm not optimistic about the healthcare bill passing. As usual, the Republicans have started waving the Anti-Abortion red flag around in order to derail any healthcare initiative. You know, I'd rather pay for abortion on demand than the endless expenses of the unwanted, abused and neglected children produced by our nation's wholly inadequate sex education and counseling programs -- inadequate because Republicans and the so-called Moral Majority and Religious Right refuse to move forward into the 21st century.
The "just say no" approach isn't and never was rational or realistic. We've restricted adequate healthcare and counseling to minors based on the faulty premise that it is the parents who are primarily responsible for their children's well-being and information. Well, statistics show that we don't have a country of uniformly responsible and rational parents. Minors need alternatives for rational, unbiased information and resources. Meaningful school sex-education has been brought to a standstill by Republicans and special religious interest groups. Access to reproductive healthcare is restricted both by gender and age -- disparately impacting underage but reproductive-age women. I would think that was grounds for anti-discrimination measures, but our patriarchal legislators don't seem to see past what they want for their affluent, educated daughters toward what's just and equable for all the young women of this country.
Arguments about my tax money being paid for abortions doesn't wash, either. Ask any tax payer, if it's an inexpensive abortion or footing the bill for 18 years of welfare programs and anti-poverty initiatives for an unwanted child and its mother, which would you rather pay? Which could you afford to pay? And healthcare for women is already biased. Many healthcare providers don't cover contraceptives and some reproductive procedures for women -- but they pay for Viagra for men. Like the cigarette industry, healthcare insurance corporations are intent on breeding an endless supply of consumers.
Well, I'm tired of footing the bill. I'm tired of the rhetoric and I'm tired of legislators who live in the rarified atmosphere of Washington deciding how best I'm to be served, based on their lifestyles and religious beliefs. Put the vote directly to us, the regular taxpayers, on whether we want the healthcare reforms. End the insurance industry's stranglehold on our financial futures, the medical profession's insane prices for service, and get us some realistic options.
And tell the Republicans, if they want to be the fathers of their country -- fine. Every woman who has a child she didn't plan for and can't afford should be able to put a Republican representative's name on the birth certificate and let him pay child support. Watch how fast abortion becomes sacrosanct.
Good luck up on the Hill. I know you're trying.
Florida Cracker
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