WHY SINGLE WOMEN VOTERS MAY SWING NOVEMBER ELECTION



The Lighthouse



The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration's ban on over-the-counter emergency
contraception may contribute inadvertently to the mobilization of one
of the largest voting blocs in the American electorate — single women.



In an
op-ed published last week in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, Brigid
O'Neil, a researcher with the Independent Institute's Center on Peace
& Liberty, explains that the FDA ban is one of a number of recent
government restrictions on reproductive choice that may induce
America's 50 million single women (fewer than half of whom vote
regularly) to vote in larger numbers this November.



“On the
issue of reproductive choice alone, government intrusion into women's
health care has reached epic proportions,” writes O'Neil. “Many safe
and effective abortion procedures performed in the 12th to 15th week of
pregnancy, for example, are now prohibited under the deceptively named
'partial-birth abortion' ban” — despite protestations by, among
others, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.



“Consequently,
the available options for family planning have become dangerously
narrow, with only 14 percent of all counties in the United States
offering any abortion providers at all,” O'Neil continues. “More than
30 states now have informed-consent laws, which require women to listen
to state-mandated 'lectures' with a typical waiting period of 24 hours.
For most women and civil libertarians, it's a law that reeks of state
paternalism.”