Editor’s Note: The following is a letter Tammy forwarded to us after she sent it to Senator Johanns.
Senator Johanns,
It was with huge disappointment that I read your letter dated September 24, 2010, in which you responded to my request that you consider supporting legislation which would allow American women fighting for the United States to be allowed to obtain a legal medical service, paid for with their own money, at military facilities.
Your letter is without logic, and frighteningly chauvinistic. You state, “No matter how important the defense authorization legislation is, it should not be used as a vehicle to advance a radical, pro-abortion agenda.” How is asking that women fighting for this country’s freedoms be allowed to exercise their freedoms radical??
Also, your use of the term pro-abortion is purposely inflammatory and a traditional tactic of your rigid point of view. I am certainly not pro-abortion, but I am absolutely in favor of abortion being legal because I am absolutely in favor of abortion being safe when a woman decides to have one. If you actually cared about life, you would have educated yourself by now on what actually reduces the numbers of abortions, and you would be aware of the terrible price paid by desperate women around the world who have unsafe, illegal abortions.
The only radical agenda here is yours. You want to advance an agenda that is anti-women, anti-freedom, and anti-American. Since your obvious intention is to make abortion unattainable, your agenda is not even pro-life. There are enormous amounts of evidence showing that the countries with the LOWEST abortion rates in the world are those where abortion is legal, education is effective and widespread, contraception is widely available, and universal healthcare exists. The countries with fewer than 10 abortions per year per 1000 women of child-bearing age are those where abortion is legal and the other components previously listed that go along with this attitude of respect for women are also present.
If you were truly as adamantly pro-life as you claim, you would be working as hard as you can in order to promote the things that are proven to reduce the numbers of abortions — which is maintaining the legality of abortion, and increasing the quality and availability of education, contraception, and healthcare. Until you do these things, it is wrong for you to call yourself pro-life. Pro-choice IS the true pro-life position.
I burst out laughing when I reached the part of your letter where you state, “Overall, I am disappointed by the attempt to use this legislation, intended to authorize crucial funding for our troops and defense programs, to advance partisan policy issues unrelated to defense spending.” Oh my, nothing is more disappointing — or more partisan — than you denying female troops their right to choose a legal medical procedure for your own selfish political purposes! And, considering that the health and well-being of troops is directly related to defense costs — this issue is certainly related to defense spending.
To re-cap: To deny American women the right to use their own money in order to have a legal medical service in military hospitals is definitely a radical agenda — it is an anti-women, anti-freedom agenda that worries me a great deal.
Sincerely,
Tammy Hansen Snell
