__________
Dear Mr. Olson,
I'm writing today as a concerned citizen of not only your district but of the United States. The recent election has shown the racism and lack of education rampant in the US. As an educated woman who works at a university, I am appalled that such things exist at all, and to see them within our government is even more troubling. There are several such issues about which I have specific concerns, and, unfortunately, many of them are listed on your website among the issues about which you are passionate. The most troubling of these issues is that of women’s healthcare. While I will try to keep this letter brief, please be advised that I work in a Writing Center and value knowledge and rhetoric backed by data and statistics rather than, as Stephen Colbert puts it, “truthiness,” or believing something because it feels like it should be right. Since such truthiness has now become the ideological stance of the nation, I feel I must speak out and let you know the actual truth in order to become the best representative you can be.
To begin with, you say on your website that you are a “staunch defender of the unborn.” However, I see nowhere on your site where you mention protecting the lives of children after they have been born; indeed, on your website, you seem to dismiss the lives of many children born to immigrant parents, claiming that Obama’s decision to give children immigrant children under 16 amnesty was “illegal.” Similarly, I see nothing about funding children’s healthcare expenses, particularly for those mothers who, like you, believe that they should not get an abortion and are forced to carry their child to term, despite not being able to financially care for them. Quite the contrary; in your section on health care, you seem to make the claim that getting rid of Obamacare would “...[encourage] a competitive healthcare market.” While this claim has merit in theory, the truth is that the only accomplishments achieved by this action would be “...[increasing] the federal deficit by as much as $353 billion over the next decade” and that those making over $250,000.00 per year, “would escape ACA-related tax increases.” (1) Since Obamacare was signed into law, nearly 17 million people have been given access to healthcare who would not have otherwise gotten it. (2) Since the only benefit to repealing Obamacare would be for the wealthy and would hurt literally millions of Americans--including those who have young children and the children themselves--I must wonder what your true motive is in your many attempts to repeal it. If you are truly pro-life, to use the commonly-used term, will you step up and be pro all life, or just pro unborn life?
Aside from your double-speak stance on healthcare and abortion, there are other facts related to women’s health on your site that are misleading or simply untrue. For example, your belief that “life begins at conception” would make every woman capable of producing ovum to be an occasional murderer. Scientifically and medically speaking, while sperm may quite often find an egg and fertilize it, it is also as likely that the now-fertilized egg will then not take root on the uterine lining. When this happens, the fertilized egg is shed as though it had never been fertilized at all. For more information about a way a woman’s body works, I would invite you to view the Crash Course series on the reproductive system: https://youtu.be/RFDatCchpus Furthermore, I would invite you to consider your position from a woman’s point of view; would you want to be called a murderer by someone who has no idea what pregnancy and, for that matter, your natural reproductive cycle are actually like? I say these things not to antagonize, but to invite you to consider these issues from the perspective of those whom this will affect.
Yet another issue on your website that is rife with misinformation is the Planned Parenthood issue. Your belief is succinctly illuminated by the statement “I do not believe taxpayer dollars should be spent on these organizations.” Your website would suggest, as do many other conservative websites, that Planned Parenthood’s major function is to perform abortions; you use language such as “organizations that perform abortions” when talking about Planned Parenthood. This language is not only biased but reveals a lack of information and helps to spread misinformation to those who view your site. According to Factcheck.org, only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s patient care is for abortions; 35% goes to contraceptives (which prevent abortions in the first place), another 35% to Sexually Transmitted Illness screening, 16% to cancer screenings and prevention, and 11% to other health services, most of them specifically women’s health services. More importantly, by law, abortions cannot receive federal funding; all the current funding goes to desperately needed health services for women. (3) Once again, I must question your motives, since, as with your healthcare stance, it seems you wish to defund programs for those who need it the most. I therefore must reiterate my question: are you really pro-life?
Related to this issue is your discussion of the video which surfaced in 2015 of the so-called “undercover footage” from Planned Parenthood. Whether or not this is simply outdated information or an example of willing suspension of disbelief in favor of cognitive dissonance, I don’t know, but as of August 27, 2015, these videos had been exposed as fake; Jackie Calmes, in a New York Times article, reported that “‘A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict,’ the analysis of a private research company said.” (4) I would like to request that you update this information on your website in light of this fact and please not continue to spread this misinformation. I would also hope that this may help you to reconsider your view on organizations which help women such as Planned Parenthood.
As a woman, I am very concerned by the aforementioned issues and your stance on them. It is deeply disconcerting to discover that decisions can be made about your body over which you have no control. I am fortunate in that I have a condition known as Premature Ovavrian failure with Primary Amenorrhea, which means that I am unable to produce ovum and cannot naturally conceive; because of this, I have to take birth control in order to get the needed hormones for my body to function correctly. Therefore, personally, I am concerned that I may have to once again begin paying for birth control if Obamacare is repealed, which is an added expense that I, a middle-class single woman, cannot afford. Frankly, I am also scared that these restrictions on women’s health are just the tip of a larger, anti-women iceberg. As a final plea, please take the time to read the account of a deeply religious LDS woman from Utah who had to have a late-term abortion in order to save her own life; she describes it as a harrowing experience, none the less so because she had to wait for an ethics committee to decide whether or not her life could be saved(!). (5) Because of all of this, I must inform you that, until your stances change and you publicly denounce Donald Trump, my colleagues, friends, and I will not be voting for you during the next election cycle--and believe me, we will be voting.
All the best,
Katie Hart
_____________________________
1 http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-cbo-repealing-obamacare-20150619-column.html
2 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-06/health-how-17-million-people-got-insurance-under-obamacare
3 http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/planned-parenthood/
4 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html?_r=0
5 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/20/1584899/-After-the-debate-a-Utah-woman-stepped-up-to-share-her-late-term-abortion-story-and-it-s-going-viral
Thank you for writing this. You have said what I was unable to.
ReplyDelete