National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers

Considering that my post from last year got two comments from the same anti recently I think that this year I will focus on why we mark this day. Why March 10th?

Dr. David Gunn

[On] March 10, 1993 [was assassinated] when a lone assassin, drunk on the vitriolic rhetoric of spite-filled anti-abortion and church leaders, shot him three times in the back as he tried to enter a clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Dr. Gunn was the first, but not the last, casualty in America's undeclared civil war.

President Clinton's response:

I was saddened and angered by the fatal shooting in Pensacola yesterday of Dr. David Gunn. The violence against clinics must stop. As a nation committed to rule of law, we cannot allow violent vigilantes to restrict the rights of American women. No person seeking medical care and no physician providing that care should have to endure harassment, threats, or intimidation.

Today we would be more correct to call Gunn's assassination as an act of terrorism. One that was repeated six more times in the United States. Terrorism that occurred in homes and at work places. Terrorism that are committed by fellow Americans. Dr. Gunn was a simple man providing health care to women.

As the bumper sticker says, don't believe in abortion? Don't have one.

In today's Chicago Tribune it is pointed out that reproductive health services is suffering from the economy:

As the economy worsens, providers of reproductive services say they are fielding more calls from distraught women facing difficult decisions about pregnancies they didn't plan and can't afford.

The interviews also suggest that more women are struggling to afford contraception and that, in some cases, they are risking their physical and emotional health by delaying abortion procedures for weeks as they seek a way to pay the cost.

Abortion is not an option that women seek out because it is enjoyable, it is a survival decision. 60% of women who have abortions already have children. They know what they are doing and don't need to be shown ultrasounds or protected by Supreme Court justices. Even women who haven't given birth know what is happening.

And every year I say thank you to those who provide a needed health procedure.

Anti comments will be deleted.

The photo is from the Feminist Majority and includes a personal hero & friend, Jeanne Clark