I mean it.
What Rush and his women-hating, slut-calling, reproductive rights bashing cronies have done is the best thing that could have happened for women in this election year.
I know you think things are horrible, what with us now having to fight the battle for reproductive rights all over again, and on 50 different fronts.
But don’t you see? That battle has been going on for years – you just weren’t really aware.
Rush and his pals who oppose reproductive rights were all here last year, when you thought your reproductive rights were safe. They were here in 2010, when Arizona became the first state to limit insurance coverage of abortions. They were here when the Hyde Amendment was cemented into law and when George Bush, Jr reinstated (and Obama reversed) the Global Gag Rule limiting family planning funding across the globe. They were here when 20 our 50 states passed laws regulating ultrasound use prior to abortion, while others mandate counseling (often including erroneous health information) prior to abortion or limit insurance coverage of this legal medical procedure.
During all this time, if you did know they were there, you thought they were just against abortion – you did not realize that they were also against birth control. You thought their agenda was pro-life, not anti-woman. You thought you and they shared common ground, but now you know that ground is filled with landmines targeting women’s rights and your ability to plan your own family.
Thanks to Rush, we’ve finally started the conversation about reproductive rights in America that we should have been having for the past decade.
Like a family with a secret that is finally coming out, that conversation is exceedingly uncomfortable. Fine – let’s have at it. But don’t talk amongst yourselves – make sure your local, state and federal representatives know what you think.
Because what Rush and his buddies don’t realize is that what they’ve actually done is wake up a sleeping giant. That giant is the 98% of Catholic women who have used birth control, the one in five American women who has used Planned Parenthood’s services at some point in their lives and the 40% of women who has had an abortion. That giant is the majority of Americans who support the provision of contraception as part of preventive healthcare – every woman and man who recognizes the value of a society where every child is wanted, loved and born to parents with the resources to care for them. And that understands that spending on contraception makes sense financially for us as a nation, because cutting back on contraceptive prescription coverage ultimately results in women and their partners using less effective over the counter contraceptives, resulting in higher rates of unplanned pregnancy and abortion.
So thank you, Rush, for waking us up.
Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a lot or work to do.
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In 2011, states passed 92 restrictions on abortion, and many are also targeting family planning services. Where does your state stand? Do you know who represents you and how they stand? How about the Presidential candidates?
And all this time I assumed he’d never do anything useful for society.
I might even go so far as to say that the agenda is not to attack women’s reproductive rights, but more women’s power over there own destinies. Except I might be labeled as an extremist. You know, for not wanting twelve children. Or for having a career…
It feels like they’re trying to make it more and more difficult for a woman to have a career, so they can feel like “real men” and keep their women at home, dependent, subordinate.
I say we go Lysistrata on them and refuse to have sex with men unless they’re active in supporting our rights. Lesbian sex is fine, as is gay male sex. So if there’s some exploration, all the better!
I thought we were way past the bare foot and pregnant view and treatment of women, but I guess it was, as you say, always there ready to jump out and bite us. It is all about control and women must be able to control their own reproductive lives.
sing it, doctor peggy! thank you for the helpful links. i knew i felt besieged recently, but the naral information confirms that yes, there has been a bundle of anit-choice legislation.
the underlying theme of restricting women’s autonomy is reinforced by people like rush, and by candidates (and their supporters) rushing to declare the ever-more-punitive measures they would adopt if allowed. somehow the notion of “freedom” has been perverted to mean: “my freedom to dictate the most personal aspects of your life.”
it is truly alarming that there is this concerted effort to go after the availability of birth control. the right of women to access birth control was settled before i came of age. i am 54 years old now, have both a career and two well-loved children (whom i was able to support), and i am horrified.
i once met a woman, a field worker whose family migrated to california during the dust bowl because they were starving, who was pregnant 25 times altogether. she lost about half those pregnancies, and was unable to devote a lot of attention to the surviving children, what with needing to work the fields in order to barely feed them; she had no access to birth control in the 1930’s-40’s. i met a woman who had an illegal abortion and nearly died; she was desperate because she could not care for the children she already had; she had no access to birth control in the 1940’s-50’s. i met a woman whose husband cut up her diaphragm (she had no access to the pill in the early 1960’s – this was a poor family), raped her, then left her when she turned up pregnant again.
is this the kind of “respect for life” that these blowhards mean to impose by restricting access to women’s health care?
I’m so glad Rush is finally getting some REAL push-back. He’s been a radio bully for too long.
You can also check out unitewomen.org. They’re organizing rallies in as many states as possible on April 28, as a collective concerted effort to keep momentum going into the election.
Thanks for the info!
Peggy
Jiminy. My daughters, who live in Alabama, went to a rally yesterday against yet another (and exceptionally egregious) ultrasound bill some whacko is trying to pass there. One of the signs they saw, carried by a little girl, said “Didn’t my grandma already set ya’ll straight about this?” Indeed.
dr. jen has an excellent post about a life without contraception: http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/a-life-without-contraception/
Awesome Dr. P! I love it.