This is what democracy looks like | Guest op

By Staci Whitehouse/For the Kent Reporter

My great-grandmother’s name was Beatrice, but she was fondly known to our family as Honeyma.

She was the hard-working, very small, loving matriarch of my family, born in 1902, 18 years before women in this country were given the right to vote. I take this for granted sometimes, assuming the absence of this fundamental right was so far in the past that it doesn’t have an effect on my life, but that simply isn’t true. Honeyma was the same age as my adult daughter is now by the time women were given the right to vote in the U.S., and she was a huge part of my childhood.

The United States will celebrate the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage during the presidency of Donald Trump. This is a milestone all Americans can celebrate with pride. The paramount accomplishment of Trump’s campaign last year for me was the light it shined on some fundamental women’s rights that will need to be protected over the next four years.

Contraception

Planned Parenthood had a 900 percent increase in women scheduling appointments to get an IUD when Trump won the presidency. IUD’s are effective for three to six years, a good choice for long term birth control, especially for anyone worried about the future availability of affordable contraception. A promise made during Trump’s campaign was that he would immediately begin working to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). One pillar of the ACA was that women would have access to contraception with little to no out of pocket cost. Because millions of women now have access to affordable contraception, abortions are now at a 30-year low.

It should make perfect sense to anyone that if you don’t put obstacles in the way of women obtaining contraception to “prevent pregnancy,” that there would be fewer “unintended pregnancies.” Under the ACA at least 67 percent of insured women on the pill were projected to pay nothing for it in 2014 (up from 15 percent in 2012). That is huge for women seeking to plan the number and spacing of their children, giving them autonomy over their own reproduction. Americans, this is what we call “family planning.” When the ACA is replaced, we must insist that this pillar stands strong in the new plan.

Funding Planned Parenthood

Another campaign promise made by Trump was that he planned to defund Planned Parenthood because they provide abortion services. A woman’s right to abortion was litigated and won in front of the Supreme Court with the case Roe v. Wade in 1973 and in subsequent cases that challenged that decision.

Abortions are now and will remain legal. Because of this, the government should not be threatening to remove federal funding from Planned Parenthood because they don’t want to pay for the legal service of abortion. Planned Parenthood is the largest single provider of reproductive health services, in the United States. They offer birth control, emergency contraception, breast exams, cervical screening, pregnancy testing, STD testing, vasectomies and abortions. They are open in more than 700 locations in all 50 states, including right here in Kent. The name Planned Parenthood has become synonymous with abortions, as if that is the only service they offer. I would argue that they are the single largest abortion prevention clinic because of the quality family planning services they offer.

Paid leave

At some point, most women will need to take time off work to care for a new child. “Unpaid” leave is available to less than half of workers under the Family and Medical Leave Act but many can’t afford to take “unpaid” leave. A few companies offer paid leave to their employees but they are the exception, not the rule. Mr. Trump has proposed offering six weeks of paid leave to new mothers who have given birth and while this is a move in the right direction, it is far from adequate. This right should be extended to both parents, regardless of gender.

According to the Pew Research Center’s website, the United States is the only country among 41 nations that does not mandate any paid leave for new parents. The smallest amount of paid leave required in any of the other 40 nations is about two months. A single woman should not lose her job and be forced to go on welfare because she needed a break to give birth. If we want to put America to work, then we should demand legislation that protects the jobs of new parents.

Affordable child care

Many two-parent households are forced to decide whether to have both parents work and pay a sizable amount of their monthly income to a childcare provider or have one of the parents stop working outside the home to care for children. Trump has proposed allowing working parents to deduct child care expenses from their income tax, allow parents to enroll in tax-free dependent care savings accounts, provide low-income households an Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit in the form of a childcare rebate and match it up to $500 and to incentivize employers to offer childcare in the workplace. These are all progressive ideas that we should stand behind. Trump has gone back on many of his campaign promises. This cannot be one of them.

Income inequality

Even though women make up nearly half the workforce and earn more than 50 percent of college degrees, they make 80 cents on the dollar compared to men for doing the same work. This trend is true in nearly all occupations. In addition, workers in jobs mainly done by women earn only 66 percent of workers in jobs mainly done by men. Both men and women need to stand up and demand equal pay for equal work.

And so I remain thankful for Trump’s campaign last year and the light it shined on the rights that will need to be protected over the next four years. They are rights that, like Honeyma getting the right to vote nearly 100 years ago, need to be fought for. Sometimes we fight by writing letters to our local and state representatives, sometimes we fight by volunteering or donating money to organizations that are important to us, sometimes we fight by changing what we accept from the people around our dinner tables or offices or churches, sometimes we run for city council to become part of the change, sometimes we march in the streets.

As I marched in Seattle on Saturday, Jan. 21, with 200,000 other concerned citizens who chanted, “Show me what democracy looks like, this is what democracy looks like,” and millions more worldwide, I thought about Honeyma and how her fight to be heard in the voting booth is going to be carried on by her great-great-granddaughter’s fight to control her own reproduction and fight to be treated fairly in the workplace.

The work continues. As women, men and children protested in the streets of Washington, D.C., the day after the inauguration the chant was this, “Welcome to your first day, we will not go away!”

This, I say, is exactly what democracy looks like.

Staci Whitehouse is a writer and columnist living in Kent.