In today’s Charleston Gazette, WV Free director Margaret Chapman Pomponio leads her commentary with the following:

I work for a reproductive justice organization. That means that for almost 10 years, I’ve been advocating for West Virginia families to improve education on reproductive decisions, increase access to affordable birth control, and protect personal decision-making, including decisions about whether or when to have a child. This means that we at WV FREE support access to abortion care because it’s what women sometimes need as part of their basic health care.

Take that paragraph in for a moment.  Go back and read it again.  I’ll wait.

Still reading?

Done?  Good.

Did you get her main point?  Here it is: reproductive justice requires you (taxpayers) to directly finance abortion on demand – as a basic part of health care.

I’m not making this up!  In the mind of WV Free, procedures that suck pre-born children out of the womb are equal and akin to penicillin for the common infection.  In her mind, abortion is to reproductive justice what antibiotics are to a festering wound.

But, then Ms. Chapman-Pomponio has the audacity to pen these lines:

We want health reform legislation to succeed. We support and applaud efforts of our allies and policymakers in making tremendous strides toward a comprehensive health plan that will help millions of people across this country and in our state get the care they need.

So I am disappointed that the badly needed legislation to expand health-care coverage has turned a woman’s health care into what seems like a game of political football.

No, Ms. Chapman-Pomponio, this is not a political football – this his human life we are talking about.  Real children and real moms with real life (literally) consequences.  Like you, we are working to provide health care for all of West Virginians – born and pre-born.  Instead of standing for health care for all, Ms. Chapman-Pomponio misdirects with the same, tired line: “the Hyde Amendment bans abortion in health care.”  Sorry, Ms. Chapman-Pomponio, we already answered that one here.

While I would love to work with Ms. Chapman-Pomponio to overhaul health care, I simply cannot if this is her stated goal:

Let’s work in partnership and remain firm in our commitment that if a woman gets pregnant, she has the ability to make the best decision for herself and her family.

No ma’am.  The decision to destroy a human life is never the “best decision for herself and her family.”  Moreover, you will not have my partnership, nor my commitment, to continue to line the pockets of WV Free and Planned Parenthood with the money I and countless West Virginians have labored long to earn.

In my mind, you promote reproductive justice that is neither.

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