Letter to the Editor: Scott Brown Does Not Stand up for Reproductive Freedom

Dear Editor,

As someone who has watched a close friend make the overwhelmingly difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy in her late teen years, the issues of choice and women’s reproductive health hit close to home. I remember the arguments she had with herself and the tears she shed from rage, guilt, and sadness. At the time, I could do nothing but listen and offer a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. But the lasting effect of this experience is a reinforcement of the importance that we do not let our elected officials treat reproductive issues like a political football.

Which brings me to Scott Brown. On reproductive issues, the senator frequently touts himself as a pro-choice Republican defender of women, sporting a pretense of championship of Roe v. Wade and the rest of the legal arsenal for women's reproductive rights. But his full stance on reproductive issues is not so cut and dried as many would be led to believe. Let's take a moment and compare the talking to the walking.

Brown says that abortions should always be legally available, especially when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape, and that we should aim at reducing the number of abortions. However, Brown voted for a bill that would have eliminated funding for both Planned Parenthood and the Title X family planning program, which is the only existing federal grant program completely devoted to providing comprehensive family planning services to individuals.

Moreover, the US Senator co-sponsored the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed insurers and employers with moral or religious objections to deny insurance coverage of birth control. This measure mirrors the once state senator’s failed amendment which would have allowed any hospital to deny emergency contraception to rape victims on grounds of a religious objection.

What should give pause to the pro-choice community is that the senator has embraced endorsements from anti-choice organizations such as Massachusetts Citizens for Life and the National Right to Life Committee, the latter from which Brown received an 80% anti-abortion voting score. NARAL Pro-Choice America, furthermore, rated the Senator at only 45% pro-choice, putting him in a category it calls “mixed-choice”.

These facts simply don't add up to a candidate voters can trust to be a consistent pro-choice advocate and to vote one hundred percent of the time to support the autonomy of women over their own reproductive health.

Standing beside my friend as she struggled with the decision to terminate her pregnancy, it was obvious that this wasn’t a frivolous matter. Still, it was important that she make the decision herself, and I was pained to think that she could have been spared the whole ordeal had she had better sex education and access to contraception.

What offends this idea is that Senator Brown has verbally advocated efforts to reduce the number of abortions in spite of his numerous active efforts to inhibit the availability of family planning services that precede abortion.

The bottom line is this: women in Massachusetts, my friend included, deserve to be represented by someone who will stand up for their reproductive freedom every time, not just when it’s politically convenient to do so.

–Justin Matheus, Randolph

http://www.ontheissues.org/Social/Scott_Brown_Abortion.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/scott-brown-abortion_n_1900784.html

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/2012/voter-guide/brown-scott.html

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/indexpend.php?cycle=2010&cmte=C00111278

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169945/scott-brown-lying-about-his-reproductive-rights-record#

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00036