A Woman’s Right to Choose

I support a woman’s right to choose.

The government should not interfere in the most deeply personal decisions in our lives.

Prevention is the top priority. We should do all that we can to reduce unintended pregnancy.

Broad legal access to contraception is critical to helping women out of poverty. Teen pregnancy is one of the principal barriers to economic advancement. I strongly support the new emergency contraception law, so that women will have timely access to the “morning-after” pill. And I support access to reproductive health services for all women, regardless of economic circumstance.

I also believe strongly in broad dissemination of the information that women and men need to make sensible choices about parenthood and to avoid unintended pregnancies.

I voted for the “buffer-zone” bill that helps protect the privacy of persons visiting reproductive health clinics.

 

UpDate: Senator Brownsberger recewived requests from constituents to support several pro-choice bills in the 2015-2016 session.  A sample follows:

Dear Senator Brownsberger,

As a constituent and voter in your district, I’m writing to urge you to
support NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts’ legislative agenda.

When the bill filing deadline comes, your colleagues in the legislature
will be filing bills that:

– Ensure every woman has access to no-copay contraception
Protect confidential health information by allowing recipients of care
to specify how they receive their explanation of benefits (EOBs) rather
than continuing to send all EOBs to the primary policy holder
– Ensure that state funding is spent on science-based, comprehensive
reproductive health and not so called “crisis pregnancy
centers”
– Encourage comprehensive sex education
– Make the age of consent for abortion care in Massachusetts the same
as it is for other procedures and provide at-risk minors with
alternative options when parental consent may not be safe
– Repeal out-of-date anti-choice laws

I also hope that you will stand with women in our district and around
the Commonwealth and oppose anti-choice bills that would:

– Impose a targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP) law that
would institute an unnecessary, burdensome new licensing requirement on
clinics. Proponents of this new bill have said the purpose of this bill
is to create “a disincentive to remaining open for many
facilities.”
– Create an unnecessary intrusion into personal medical decisions that
delays care. The so-called “Woman’s Right to Know” bill would
force a woman seeking an abortion to delay her medical care and subject
her to intrusive and unnecessary state-scripted information, regardless
of her circumstances. This bill is designed to coerce and shame a
woman, making it more difficult for her to obtain an abortion.
– Ban safe, medically appropriate abortion methods. Using convoluted
and medically inaccurate terminology, a proposed ban on so-called
“partial-birth abortion” would make it a crime for a doctor
to perform certain types of abortion procedures after the first
trimester.
– Exploit concerns about gender-based discrimination to ban abortion.
This bill purports to outlaw terminating a pregnancy if it is believed
that a woman is doing so due to gender bias.  This attempt to restrict
access to safe abortion under the guise of preventing sex selection is
harmful to women’s health and counter to a human rights agenda
– Use junk science to promote politics over women’s health. This bill
would essentially ban abortions after 20 weeks, regardless of the
circumstance of the pregnant woman. Based on unproven theories, this
legislation prevents doctors from using accepted medical standards and
their own medical judgment. This bill interferes with women’s medical
decisions and could jeopardize the health and well-being of pregnant
women.
– Create a la carte taxation to prove a political point. This bill
introduces the dangerous concept of allowing residents of the
Commonwealth to pick and choose where their tax money does and does not
go. This legislation opens the door to a la carte taxation for the sole
purpose of diverting money away from the critical Medicaid program that
so many Massachusetts residents depend on.

Thank you for your attention to these important issues.

 

For the 2015-2016 legislative session Senator Brownsberger co-sponsored the following related bills:

 

SD1189, An Act relative to women’s health and economic equity

SD1421, An Act relative to updating public health laws

SD1362, An Act relative to healthy youth

HD3072, An Act relative to gender identity and non-discrimination

HD362, An Act relative to the repeal of certain archaic laws

SD1021, An Act relative to protecting access to confidential health care

HD460, An Act to provide health care for young women