Pro-Choice Physicians Celebrate Presidential Election, Results of Three State Ballot Initiatives

“Barack Obama’s victory offers us a chance to heal the body politic and restore important reproductive rights that have been denied to women over the last eight years.”

New York, NY—Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health today released a statement from board chair Suzanne T. Poppema, MD, responding to the results of the presidential election and ballot initiatives in California, Colorado, and South Dakota:

“Today is a hopeful and joyous day for physicians who care about women’s health. Barack Obama’s victory offers us a chance to heal the body politic and restore important reproductive rights that have been denied to women over the last eight years.

“After two terms under a president who ignored scientific evidence and put women’s health at risk, we look forward to working with President Obama to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable birth control (including emergency contraception), medically accurate sex education, and unbiased information about abortion. We depend on our president to make critical decisions—from appointing policy makers at the Department of Health and Human Services, to nominating Supreme Court justices—that will protect Americans’ right to make their own private healthcare decisions.

“Voters in California, Colorado, and South Dakota yesterday affirmed their belief that government has no place in Americans’ life decisions about abortion, contraception, and childbirth. For the third time in four years, voters in California supported a young woman’s right to private and confidential medical care, defeating a proposition that would have required parental notification for abortion. In Colorado, an overwhelming majority voted against Amendment 48, an initiative that would have intruded into women’s lives and medical care in an unprecedented way. Meanwhile, South Dakota voters once again rejected an extreme ban on abortion that would have tied physicians’ hands and left women’s health at risk. We may have differing views of abortion, but Americans clearly believe this decision is best left in women’s hands, with support and consultation from their doctors and families.

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