Abortion-rights supporters in Mississippi.(AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis)
“I just want to state some facts,” Deja Foxx, a 16-year-old activist, told Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) at a town hall meeting in April. “I’m a young woman, and you’re a middle-aged man. I’m a person of color, and you’re white. I come from a background of poverty, and I didn’t always have parents to guide me through life. You come from privilege, so I’m wondering, as a Planned Parenthood patient and someone who relies on Title X, who you are clearly not, why it’s your right to take away my right to choose Planned Parenthood.”
Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
The confrontation, which went viral, occurred on the same day that President Trump signed a law allowing states to deny Title X family-planning funds to health clinics that offer abortions. Flake supported the bill, along with 49 other Senate Republicans. With two Republican women breaking ranks, Vice President Pence cast the tiebreaking vote to force the bill through. As Foxx explained to Flake, the care she receives at Planned Parenthood is helping her take charge of her future and achieve the American dream. “I can’t sit idly by while women like me are countlessly and constantly being ignored on Capitol Hill,” she said in an interview after the exchange.
The Title X measure is just one of many unnerving examples of women having their interests ignored—or, worse, threatened—in Washington. While much of the media and political establishment are gripped by the scandals engulfing the administration, Trump and the Republican Party have been waging war on the health of women everywhere.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.