Last month, controversy erupted following the volatile remarks of Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, when he stated that after a woman has an abortion, "nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children." Marshall also referenced the Old Testament practice of dedicating firstborn children to God, adding that "there's a special punishment" when those first pregnancies are aborted.
Much has been made of the exact wording of Marshall's statement, to determine whether he was implying that children with disabilities are God's punishment for a prior abortion. You can decide for yourself. Marshall has both apologized and defended his statement, saying that his words had been "misconstrued" and "taken out of context."
Yet the fact remains that Marshall intended to scare women out of their legal right to choose by reprehensibly using children with disabilities as a pawn against them. No potential mother would ever prefer her child to have a physical or mental handicap, if she could prevent it. It is worth noting that Marshall cited a Virginia Commonwealth University study that proposed a possible link between previous abortions and low birth weight or pre-term births. The full text of the report is available for free from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, and interested readers should certainly take a look for themselves. Abortions, as with any medical procedure, carry a small risk of complications, but the preponderance of medical evidence indicates that it is a very safe procedure and should not affect a woman's fertility or her ability to carry future children to term. There is a great deal of research available on the subject that is not politically affiliated and is worth reading.
Although the VCU study and the findings of other research have a legitimate place in political discourse about abortion, Marshall's sanctimonious invocation of God's vengeance does not. Unless Marshall has an intimate knowledge of the Almighty that the rest of us sadly lack, then it is not his job as a Virginia state delegate to propose that children with disabilities are a special form of divine punishment. Nor is it his place to construct public policy off of his interpretation of the Old Testament, or to speak for the entire Christian community, as he seems to believe that he does.
Each religious tradition has its own take on the morality of abortion, and the wisdom of those traditions can be a valuable guide to assist in making personal decisions. However, in a democratic nation, religious beliefs, whether held by a majority or a minority of the population, should not deny any individual the right to make choices about his or her own body.
Just as importantly, Marshall's implications that people with disabilities are some form of punishment and anything less than valued members of our society is demeaning both to the disabled community as well as to those who elected Marshall to office. Marshall has affirmed that he considers all human life sacred, regardless of that person's abilities or disabilities, and I do believe him. But it saddens and angers me that he would manipulate the existence of a certain group of people in order to advance his anti-choice agenda.
In the midst of the controversy that those comments ignited, the false claims he and others made about Planned Parenthood have largely been ignored. Marshall met for a press conference Feb. 18 in the General Assembly Building with a group of social conservatives known as Virginia Christian Action, to petition for an end to state funding of Planned Parenthood. He inaccurately said that the organization receives about $500,000 from the state of Virginia and mockingly proposed calling the health provider, "'Planned Barrenhood,' because they have nothing to do with families, they have nothing to do with responsibility." Marshall could not provide evidence to support this figure, most likely because he had none to begin with. In fact, according to the Department of Medical Assistance Services, Planned Parenthood's state funding comes solely from Medicaid reimbursements for gynecological/prenatal care and family planning services. It totaled only $35,000 for fiscal 2009.
As of 2007, Planned Parenthood affiliates operate 880 local health centers across the U.S., and abortion comprises only 3 percent of the organization's services. Planned Parenthood offers comprehensive, supportive, and low-cost health care to women, men, teens, and families, including cancer screening, STI testing and treatment, education, primary care, and contraception. The organization clearly supports a woman's right to choose, and when that choice is for parenting or adoption, Planned Parenthood works with adoption agencies and social services to provide the best possible outcome for all parties. Accusing Planned Parenthood of being anti-family is almost as ludicrous as a certain other statement made by Del. Marshall.
Regardless of these repeated falsehoods, Virginia Christian Action is likely to get what they want. The Commonwealth's top elected officials, Gov. Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli are staunchly pro-life and have a record of animosity towards Planned Parenthood. Vox: Voices of Planned Parenthood at the University thinks that it's time for Virginians to stop being bullied and lied to by elected officials like Marshall. Luckily, we have the power to change what goes on in Richmond every two years, and we should never forget that.
Margaret Lipman is the secretary for Voices of Planned Parenthood.
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