Rod Blum doesn’t support women’s freedom

March is Women's History Month and we recognize those women who have fought long and hard and sometimes suffered great hardship to secure their share of the freedoms we enjoy. There are exemplary women in our communities, states, and countries in the world.

However, U.S. Rep. Rod Blum seems to think differently. If re-elected, Blum will continue to support legislation to strip women of the very freedoms to which they are entitled. Blum has whittled away the Constitutional law of the land and voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Women are simply asking for the right to make decisions about their bodies; there should be no question. Further cuts to Title X would shut down funding for clinics at which abortions are available for any reason.

Women deserve to be insured at the same rate as men, as well. Before President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, there was a practice called 'gender rating,” where women were charged one and a half times as much as men for insurance premiums.

The Trump administration's plan to skirt ACA provisions further diminishes a women's health care and access to treatment for illness and preventive medicine.

By defunding Medicaid, the most vulnerable women would suffer as services are slashed by trillions of dollars in the next decade.

Rep. Blum continues to support reducing these types of services. We must vote for someone who will protect the fundamental freedoms women have as equal citizens of Iowa and the country.

Helane Golden

Cedar Rapids