“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Benjamin Franklin
The assault on a public option for health care is a mounting obscenity as Republicans, insurance lobbyists, and some Democrats roll out a propaganda campaign designed to scare Americans – and Congress – into turning their backs once again on the American people in favor of corporate greed.
Contrary to industry propaganda, the system we have does not work. High costs are bankrupting families and businesses and our quality of care is abominable. The United States is the richest country in the world but it provides the poorest health care among Western industrialized countries. According to the World Health Organization, The United States ranks 37th – lower than all the Western European countries. We rank lower than Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Israel, and Canada. (France is ranked #1, Italy #2, and Japan #3.) What a miserable shame we can’t – or won’t – do as well
Ranked by “Health System Attainment and Performance,” the U.S. was 72nd, between Argentina and Bhutan!
Nor is the U.S. any better than some Third World countries in average life expectancy. According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s rankings for 2009, the U.S. ranks 50th, (78.11 years), between Wallis and Futuna (You aren’t alone if you never heard of these two tiny islands in the South Pacific.) and Albania. In comparison, Japan’s average life expectancy is 82.12 years, Canada’s 81.23 years, and France’s 80.98 years.
With respect to infant mortality, the U.S. has the worst rate in the Western world, ranking 37th with 6.37 deaths per 1,000 live births, between South Korea and Croatia. In comparison, Sweden’s infant mortality rate is 2.76 deaths per 1,000 live births. Keep in mind that these are average rates. In America’s inner cities, the rates are much worse. In 2007, Washington, D.C., had the highest rate: 12.22 deaths per 1,000 live births. In New York City, the infant mortality rate for black babies was 9.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births compared with 3.9 deaths for every 1,000 live births among white babies. Minnesota had the lowest infant mortality rate in the U.S.: 4.78 per 1,000 live births.
The U.S. maternal mortality rate is scandalous, ranking 41st among 171 countries surveyed by the United Nations. Even South Korea has a lower maternal mortality rate than the U.S. Based on the United Nations’ 2005 estimates, one in 4,800 American women carry a lifetime risk of death from pregnancy, something the anti-choice crowd doesn’t bother to mention. In contrast, among the ten top-ranked industrialized countries, fewer than one woman in 16,400 carry such a risk. The most probable reason is that many European countries and Japan guarantee women high-quality health care and family planning services.
For those who tout the U.S. health system as “the best in the world,” there’s an important qualification – IF YOU’RE RICH. Anyone in the top one percent of wealthiest Americans can buy the best health care in the world no matter where they have to go to get it. But the majority of American citizens have to fight their way through a maze of bureaucratic fine print to obtain health care that, in far too may cases, is no better than that in the Third World. Families have the triple financial whammy of foreclosures, lost jobs, and mounting healthcare costs while insurance executives and pharmaceutical companies rake in huge profits. Paying for health care is the major reason for personal bankruptcies, a situation that analysts say will continue unless Congress passes meaningful health reform.
Our current healthcare system is not only a burden for citizens, it also burdens physicians. By enabling insurance companies to run our healthcare system, Congress usurps physicians’ medical expertise and burdens them with voluminous paperwork and restrictions. The nation’s doctors want to be healers not secretarial assistants to health insurance companies. Doctors – not insurance companies – are the experts in providing medical services, yet in too many cases, insurers dictate medical decisions to doctors and hospitals. Sometimes patients die because an insurer has delayed or denied needed medical care. Yet those who support corporate profits rather than public health don’t seem to give a damn.
President Obama calls for a public option. The message of the last election is that the people support a public option. Now is the best opportunity since Clinton’s failure on health care for Congress to pass a real health reform bill. If our elected officials turn their backs on we-the-people this time, such an opportunity may not come again in our lifetime.
NOTE: Since publishing this post, economist Dean Baker has published an excellent commentary on Truthout. See ""Spreading the Wealth Around to the Insurance Industry and Friends," Truthout, June 22, 2009.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Terrorists In Our Midst
So a woman-hating, American terrorist has struck again. Murdering Dr. George Tiller, a healer, in his Wichita, Kansas, church. The alleged murderer, Scott Roeder, a so-called “pro-life” advocate, has taken a life. Some anti-choice spokespersons quickly rushed to condemn Dr. Tiller’s murder, express their “shock” and attempt to disassociate themselves from this heinous crime. But they drool hypocrisy. Over the years, the antiabortionists’ inflammatory rhetoric has incited the most extremist, perverse, and maniacal among them to break the law and commit crimes.
Linking abortion to murder, genocide, and the holocaust, the anti-choice movement has done more to incite domestic terrorism against women and the medical profession than any other home-grown group. “Pro-life” has always been a misnomer. These groups are not pro-life of the mother. Many endorse the death penalty. They are pro-defamation of character, pro-misinformation, pro-harassment, pro-extremist, pro-anti-woman, right-wing propaganda. Media that buy into the “pro-life” label should step back and look at the anti-life positions these groups support.
Yes, there are many well-meaning, nonviolent people who oppose abortion. Although I disagree with their position, they have a right to their opinion. But they do not have the right to impose their views on everybody else. They do not have the right to harass women seeking medical services. They do not have the right to bomb clinics and murder doctors. While calling for “peaceful protests,” many of the movement’s leaders speak with forked tongues. Even as Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry issued a statement of shock and grief, he implied that Dr. Tiller’s murder was justified. After all, Terry said, Tiller was a “mass murderer.” It was Operation Rescue that coined the term “Tiller the killer,” which was taken up like a mantra and endlessly repeated as “Tiller the baby killer” by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, cheerleader for violence.
One group, calling themselves the Army of God, are celebrating Scott Roeder as an “American hero” on their toxic website. With a variety of Biblical quotations and a ribbon of animated “hell fire,” this website condones murder and has links to several articles, such as “Why Shoot an Abortionist,” by Paul Hill, who was executed September 3, 2003, for murdering Dr. David Gunn and his bodyguard outside a women’s clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Hill is also portrayed as a hero on the Army of God’s website.
But Dr. Tiller was no killer. For three decades, he was a compassionate physician, a practitioner of family medicine, a protector of women’s legal right to control their reproductive biology.
Terrorist attacks on women and their doctors have been waged for decades in the United States. According to the National Abortion Federation, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 10 murders, including that of Dr. Tiller, 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 619 bomb threats, and 1264 incidents of vandalism. In addition, there have been 383 death threats and 655 bioterror threats. Dr. Tiller survived an assassination attempt in 1993 and his personal information, including his address and names of family members, was posted on antiabortion websites. Such invasion of privacy, even to the extent of going through people's garbage, is a favorite tactic of some anti-choice groups. In Kansas, at least one clinic employee was harassed by parking a trailer with loudspeakers across from her home. The intent of such tactics is to frighten employees into leaving their jobs.
This terrorism must stop. Congress must take the antiabortion terrorists as seriously as it takes Al Queda for they are no less dangerous. Like other religious extremists, the antiabortion terrorists claim they are carrying out “God’s will,” that they are on “holy” missions. George W. Bush made the same claim in leading this nation into a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq. One should always be wary of any movement or politician that justifies violence as the will of any god. The founding fathers, fresh from the terrors of Europe’s theocracies, provided for the separation of church and state in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Of course, the ultimate goal of the anti-choice zealots is to take away a woman’s freedom and her right to control her own body. By murdering, intimidating, and assaulting doctors, these extremists aim to terrorize doctors into closing their clinics, making abortion inaccessible. These modern-day terrorists are in line with centuries-old male-dominated efforts to control women. Incredibly, some women also support these efforts that go against their best interests.
As I have written in the new update to my book,
Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates, “Although we now live in the 21st century, superstitions, practices, and attitudes from a prescientific era are still with us. Even in technologically sophisticated countries like the United States, women’s reproductive autonomy is threatened by fanatical groups that would turn back the clock on contraception, ban abortion and, in effect, make women’s bodies property of the state. . . . In line with male subversion strategies in other species, the antiabortion movement is driven largely by fundamentalist religious groups led predominantly by men.”
Unfortunately the terror tactics are working. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, the number of abortion providers has declined almost 40 percent since the peak of 1982. Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider and some women are forced to travel long distances to obtain an abortion. Yet Americans support reproductive choice. A recent Gallup Poll showed that 76 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or certain circumstances.
Right now, we have a minority of hoodlums waging a terror campaign against a vital legal health service for women. It can be stopped if we the people bombard our members of Congress with calls to protect reproductive choice and treat domestic antiabortion terrorists with the same vigilance and vigor that our government exercises against foreign terrorists.
Linking abortion to murder, genocide, and the holocaust, the anti-choice movement has done more to incite domestic terrorism against women and the medical profession than any other home-grown group. “Pro-life” has always been a misnomer. These groups are not pro-life of the mother. Many endorse the death penalty. They are pro-defamation of character, pro-misinformation, pro-harassment, pro-extremist, pro-anti-woman, right-wing propaganda. Media that buy into the “pro-life” label should step back and look at the anti-life positions these groups support.
Yes, there are many well-meaning, nonviolent people who oppose abortion. Although I disagree with their position, they have a right to their opinion. But they do not have the right to impose their views on everybody else. They do not have the right to harass women seeking medical services. They do not have the right to bomb clinics and murder doctors. While calling for “peaceful protests,” many of the movement’s leaders speak with forked tongues. Even as Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry issued a statement of shock and grief, he implied that Dr. Tiller’s murder was justified. After all, Terry said, Tiller was a “mass murderer.” It was Operation Rescue that coined the term “Tiller the killer,” which was taken up like a mantra and endlessly repeated as “Tiller the baby killer” by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, cheerleader for violence.
One group, calling themselves the Army of God, are celebrating Scott Roeder as an “American hero” on their toxic website. With a variety of Biblical quotations and a ribbon of animated “hell fire,” this website condones murder and has links to several articles, such as “Why Shoot an Abortionist,” by Paul Hill, who was executed September 3, 2003, for murdering Dr. David Gunn and his bodyguard outside a women’s clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Hill is also portrayed as a hero on the Army of God’s website.
But Dr. Tiller was no killer. For three decades, he was a compassionate physician, a practitioner of family medicine, a protector of women’s legal right to control their reproductive biology.
Terrorist attacks on women and their doctors have been waged for decades in the United States. According to the National Abortion Federation, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 10 murders, including that of Dr. Tiller, 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 619 bomb threats, and 1264 incidents of vandalism. In addition, there have been 383 death threats and 655 bioterror threats. Dr. Tiller survived an assassination attempt in 1993 and his personal information, including his address and names of family members, was posted on antiabortion websites. Such invasion of privacy, even to the extent of going through people's garbage, is a favorite tactic of some anti-choice groups. In Kansas, at least one clinic employee was harassed by parking a trailer with loudspeakers across from her home. The intent of such tactics is to frighten employees into leaving their jobs.
This terrorism must stop. Congress must take the antiabortion terrorists as seriously as it takes Al Queda for they are no less dangerous. Like other religious extremists, the antiabortion terrorists claim they are carrying out “God’s will,” that they are on “holy” missions. George W. Bush made the same claim in leading this nation into a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq. One should always be wary of any movement or politician that justifies violence as the will of any god. The founding fathers, fresh from the terrors of Europe’s theocracies, provided for the separation of church and state in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Of course, the ultimate goal of the anti-choice zealots is to take away a woman’s freedom and her right to control her own body. By murdering, intimidating, and assaulting doctors, these extremists aim to terrorize doctors into closing their clinics, making abortion inaccessible. These modern-day terrorists are in line with centuries-old male-dominated efforts to control women. Incredibly, some women also support these efforts that go against their best interests.
As I have written in the new update to my book,
Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates, “Although we now live in the 21st century, superstitions, practices, and attitudes from a prescientific era are still with us. Even in technologically sophisticated countries like the United States, women’s reproductive autonomy is threatened by fanatical groups that would turn back the clock on contraception, ban abortion and, in effect, make women’s bodies property of the state. . . . In line with male subversion strategies in other species, the antiabortion movement is driven largely by fundamentalist religious groups led predominantly by men.”
Unfortunately the terror tactics are working. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, the number of abortion providers has declined almost 40 percent since the peak of 1982. Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider and some women are forced to travel long distances to obtain an abortion. Yet Americans support reproductive choice. A recent Gallup Poll showed that 76 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or certain circumstances.
Right now, we have a minority of hoodlums waging a terror campaign against a vital legal health service for women. It can be stopped if we the people bombard our members of Congress with calls to protect reproductive choice and treat domestic antiabortion terrorists with the same vigilance and vigor that our government exercises against foreign terrorists.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
THE GLOBAL WAR AGAINST WOMEN
It happens every minute of every day. Women and girls somewhere in the world are humiliated, raped, beaten, sold into sex slavery, genitally mutilated, blinded, set on fire, and murdered. They are victims of the most vicious animals on planet Earth – not the four-legged kind but men -- male specimens of our species Homo sapiens. But neither Homo nor sapiens applies to such men. Police know about these crimes. Government officials know about these crimes but the criminals are rarely arrested or prosecuted. All too often, assaults on women are not taken seriously. They are excused as “family matters” or “honor killings”. But what kind of honor resides in killing a woman?
Atrocities committed against women seem to be cropping up more frequently on the news these days. Just today, a Muslim man in Buffalo, New York, confessed to beheading his wife in what is apparently an “honor killing.” She had filed for divorce and had an order of protection that removed him from their home as of February 6, 2009. This past Sunday (February 15, 2009), the CBS television program, 60 MINUTES, aired a report on Pakistan that mentioned the Taliban recently blew up five girls’ schools. On Saturday night, February 14th -- ironically Valentine’s Day -- ABC World News featured a story about young women in Pakistan whose faces are disfigured by acid thrown by men – spurned suitors, husbands, or other disgruntled males. The scarred faces of these once beautiful women are haunting reminders that the most pervasive, destructive, yet undeclared world war is that waged against women. Yet no country raises an army to combat the terrorism that women have endured for centuries. There is no “coalition of the willing” to protect women. The question is, Why not? Why no international force to protect mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, grandmothers, children? Why?
The ugly fact is that no other species treats its females with such cruelty. In her 1981 book, The Woman That Never Evolved, anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy wrote: “ . . . women in so many human societies occupy a position that is far worse than that of females in all but a few species of non-human primates.” What is going on? Why do some human males have such a feeble sense of masculinity that they believe their manhood depends on raping or beating up women? Why do young women in some countries bear the burden of a concept of family honor based on their chastity? It’s a fragile sense of honor that resides in an intact hymen!
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I have to say right now that this is not a tract against men in general. I do not hate men. There are intelligent, tender, compassionate, creative, liberated, wonderful, supportive men who treat each other and women as full human beings. I am married to one such man and my son and son-in-law are among many others. The men who mistreat women also mistreat each other and the planet. The only foreign policy they understand is war. They construct economies based on weapons and violence. They seem beset by a madness that hates all life, including their own. In their suicidal frenzy, they act to destroy life for everyone and everything around them. Even the basic animal survival instinct seems to have left them.
I suspect that the worldwide battle to control women rages as a sub-text of all other wars. This is not the proverbial “battle of the sexes”. It is a savage war, powered by attitudes that females are less than human and deserve mistreatment. A Pakistani woman interviewed on the ABC News report was asked whether women are considered second-class citizens in her country. She replied, “We are not even citizens. We are commodities.”
In some countries, women are treated worse than farm animals. Recently I was reading about The Carter Center's “latrine revolution” in Ethiopia. The goal of this project is to fight trachoma, a crippling disease spread by flies that breed in human waste. But the project has an unexpected benefit for women. Without a latrine, people are forced to use the fields and woods as toilets. However, custom requires that women hold in their natural urge to relieve themselves until night so no one can see them. Latrines give women freedom to carry out basic bodily functions. Not surprisingly, women are now activist leaders of the latrine project and a latrine has become a status symbol in Ethiopia.
In many countries, groups of courageous women are protesting and speaking out, demanding justice, sometimes at great risk to their lives. But this is not just a women’s issue. Violence against women diminishes all of us. Everyone who cares for our common humanity needs to speak out and demand international action because the war against women is the most long-lasting and destructive ever waged in human history.
Rape has long been an instrument of war. A GOOGLE search for “rape + war” turns up 5,160,000 hits. One need only read recent accounts of the tens of thousands of women raped by soldiers in Bosnia, Congo, Darfur, East Timor, Haiti, and Rwanda. In Congo and Darfur, rape by soldiers has increased to the point where it is considered the “norm” and nothing is done to stop it.
Rape, genital mutilation, burning, and murder are the most extreme forms of gender terrorism. But there are other daily humiliations and restrictions that women, particularly those living under religious fundamentalist regimes, endure.
I am reading Iranian author Azar Nafisi's 2003 memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, about the literature group for women that she held in her home so they could take off their veils and freely discuss books forbidden by the Islamic fundamentalist regime. The intellectual deprivation was just one of the government’s attempts to subjugate women. Expelled from her university post in Tehran in 1997 for refusing to wear the veil, Nafisi, who is now a professor at Johns Hopkins University, describes the separate entrance women university students in Tehran were forced to use and the “morality police” patrolling the streets on the lookout for the least exposure of female skin.
Throughout the world, the restrictions and humiliations forced on women take many forms: denial of education, laws against owning property, job discrimination, punishment for listening to music, wearing Western clothes, driving, or going outside the home unless covered from head to foot and accompanied by a male family member.
Nor are such anti-woman actions confined to developing countries or Islamic regimes. Under Communist rule, Romania banned birth control and abortion. The result was unwanted children, many of whom were abandoned or sold by desperate parents overburdened by more children than they could afford. In the United States today, Christian fundamentalist groups are trying to outlaw reproductive choice and make women’s bodies property of the state. They even try to prevent pharmacists from filling doctors’ prescriptions for birth control. It’s as if birth should be punishment for having sex. Notably there are no organized protests against Viagra or other erection-promoting drugs. Male potency drugs are advertised on prime time television but there are no such advertisements for condoms or birth-control pills! “If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” said an anonymous taxi driver, quoted years ago by author Gloria Steinem.
It’s easy to forget that it was only in 1920 – less than a century ago – that the U.S. constitution was amended to allow women to vote. It was only on January 27, 2009, that President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act granting equal pay for equal work. Oh yes, we’ve come a long way, but the operative term is “long”. From the time this case was first filed, it took ten years to end this particular form of job discrimination against women.
Yes, Western women are much better off and enjoy many more liberties than our sisters in Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and a score of other countries. But one can never let down her guard. There is still a lot of work to do in extending human rights to women throughout the world. In the United States, maintaining the rights women have achieved continues to require vigilance because there are too many reactionary forces that would return women to the Middle Ages. Thankfully, we now have a President who respects and supports full equality for women.
Educated women and supportive men are the best -- and only -- hope for improving living conditions for all people and prosecuting the mad animals that wage the most brutal gender war in all of nature.
Atrocities committed against women seem to be cropping up more frequently on the news these days. Just today, a Muslim man in Buffalo, New York, confessed to beheading his wife in what is apparently an “honor killing.” She had filed for divorce and had an order of protection that removed him from their home as of February 6, 2009. This past Sunday (February 15, 2009), the CBS television program, 60 MINUTES, aired a report on Pakistan that mentioned the Taliban recently blew up five girls’ schools. On Saturday night, February 14th -- ironically Valentine’s Day -- ABC World News featured a story about young women in Pakistan whose faces are disfigured by acid thrown by men – spurned suitors, husbands, or other disgruntled males. The scarred faces of these once beautiful women are haunting reminders that the most pervasive, destructive, yet undeclared world war is that waged against women. Yet no country raises an army to combat the terrorism that women have endured for centuries. There is no “coalition of the willing” to protect women. The question is, Why not? Why no international force to protect mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, grandmothers, children? Why?
The ugly fact is that no other species treats its females with such cruelty. In her 1981 book, The Woman That Never Evolved, anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy wrote: “ . . . women in so many human societies occupy a position that is far worse than that of females in all but a few species of non-human primates.” What is going on? Why do some human males have such a feeble sense of masculinity that they believe their manhood depends on raping or beating up women? Why do young women in some countries bear the burden of a concept of family honor based on their chastity? It’s a fragile sense of honor that resides in an intact hymen!
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I have to say right now that this is not a tract against men in general. I do not hate men. There are intelligent, tender, compassionate, creative, liberated, wonderful, supportive men who treat each other and women as full human beings. I am married to one such man and my son and son-in-law are among many others. The men who mistreat women also mistreat each other and the planet. The only foreign policy they understand is war. They construct economies based on weapons and violence. They seem beset by a madness that hates all life, including their own. In their suicidal frenzy, they act to destroy life for everyone and everything around them. Even the basic animal survival instinct seems to have left them.
I suspect that the worldwide battle to control women rages as a sub-text of all other wars. This is not the proverbial “battle of the sexes”. It is a savage war, powered by attitudes that females are less than human and deserve mistreatment. A Pakistani woman interviewed on the ABC News report was asked whether women are considered second-class citizens in her country. She replied, “We are not even citizens. We are commodities.”
In some countries, women are treated worse than farm animals. Recently I was reading about The Carter Center's “latrine revolution” in Ethiopia. The goal of this project is to fight trachoma, a crippling disease spread by flies that breed in human waste. But the project has an unexpected benefit for women. Without a latrine, people are forced to use the fields and woods as toilets. However, custom requires that women hold in their natural urge to relieve themselves until night so no one can see them. Latrines give women freedom to carry out basic bodily functions. Not surprisingly, women are now activist leaders of the latrine project and a latrine has become a status symbol in Ethiopia.
In many countries, groups of courageous women are protesting and speaking out, demanding justice, sometimes at great risk to their lives. But this is not just a women’s issue. Violence against women diminishes all of us. Everyone who cares for our common humanity needs to speak out and demand international action because the war against women is the most long-lasting and destructive ever waged in human history.
Rape has long been an instrument of war. A GOOGLE search for “rape + war” turns up 5,160,000 hits. One need only read recent accounts of the tens of thousands of women raped by soldiers in Bosnia, Congo, Darfur, East Timor, Haiti, and Rwanda. In Congo and Darfur, rape by soldiers has increased to the point where it is considered the “norm” and nothing is done to stop it.
Rape, genital mutilation, burning, and murder are the most extreme forms of gender terrorism. But there are other daily humiliations and restrictions that women, particularly those living under religious fundamentalist regimes, endure.
I am reading Iranian author Azar Nafisi's 2003 memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, about the literature group for women that she held in her home so they could take off their veils and freely discuss books forbidden by the Islamic fundamentalist regime. The intellectual deprivation was just one of the government’s attempts to subjugate women. Expelled from her university post in Tehran in 1997 for refusing to wear the veil, Nafisi, who is now a professor at Johns Hopkins University, describes the separate entrance women university students in Tehran were forced to use and the “morality police” patrolling the streets on the lookout for the least exposure of female skin.
Throughout the world, the restrictions and humiliations forced on women take many forms: denial of education, laws against owning property, job discrimination, punishment for listening to music, wearing Western clothes, driving, or going outside the home unless covered from head to foot and accompanied by a male family member.
Nor are such anti-woman actions confined to developing countries or Islamic regimes. Under Communist rule, Romania banned birth control and abortion. The result was unwanted children, many of whom were abandoned or sold by desperate parents overburdened by more children than they could afford. In the United States today, Christian fundamentalist groups are trying to outlaw reproductive choice and make women’s bodies property of the state. They even try to prevent pharmacists from filling doctors’ prescriptions for birth control. It’s as if birth should be punishment for having sex. Notably there are no organized protests against Viagra or other erection-promoting drugs. Male potency drugs are advertised on prime time television but there are no such advertisements for condoms or birth-control pills! “If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” said an anonymous taxi driver, quoted years ago by author Gloria Steinem.
It’s easy to forget that it was only in 1920 – less than a century ago – that the U.S. constitution was amended to allow women to vote. It was only on January 27, 2009, that President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act granting equal pay for equal work. Oh yes, we’ve come a long way, but the operative term is “long”. From the time this case was first filed, it took ten years to end this particular form of job discrimination against women.
Yes, Western women are much better off and enjoy many more liberties than our sisters in Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and a score of other countries. But one can never let down her guard. There is still a lot of work to do in extending human rights to women throughout the world. In the United States, maintaining the rights women have achieved continues to require vigilance because there are too many reactionary forces that would return women to the Middle Ages. Thankfully, we now have a President who respects and supports full equality for women.
Educated women and supportive men are the best -- and only -- hope for improving living conditions for all people and prosecuting the mad animals that wage the most brutal gender war in all of nature.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Cleaning House
This morning I am proud to be an American, proud of my country for the first time in eight long years. Yesterday we rocked! Unprecedented numbers of Americans of all ages and backgrounds went to the polls and rejected the Bush/Cheney/Neocom politics of deception, fear, divisiveness, war-mongering, and greed. We rejected the anti-democratic Bush/Cheney efforts to shred our Constitution and establish a fascist police state. After eight years of trying to scare us to death, Bush was felled by his own petard – a crashing economy driven by unregulated corporate greed. Yesterday, Americans said “Enough!”
In a stunning outpouring of outrage and hope, Americans suffering losses of homes, jobs, retirement funds, and lack of healthcare, gave George Bush, Dick Cheney & Company, the boot. We cleaned house. Thanksgiving has come early.
By this extraordinary election, the majority of American voters also turned a page on the racism that for almost four centuries has brutalized, divided and dishonored our people and made a mockery of the promise of our Constitution. The election of Barack Obama is the closest we have ever come to fulfilling that promise of democracy, equality under the law, and justice for all.
I looked at the throng of people in Chicago’s Grant Park as they waited for President-elect Obama to speak. Young, old, black, white, Asian, Hispanic – faces lit with hope and tears of happiness that this moment -- Obama’s moment, America’s moment -- was actually happening. I could hardly believe it myself.
Obama’s mixed heritage is so profoundly American, reflecting our racial diversity, our demographic reality, our African and European history embodied in this young man who fearlessly seized the moment to undergo the grueling months of campaigning for President. And he has been tested. For almost two years, he steadfastly prevailed against an onslaught of malicious attempts to smear his character and defeat his candidacy. But the smear campaign backfired. In his steadfast refusal to stoop to his opponents’ sleaze level, Obama revealed his true character – calm, steady, focused on the issues – the kind of leader we need for the problems and crises that confront the nation. At last, we have a leader for our time, a man with a vision of our better selves and what we can become. A man who is not tied or beholden to past failed policies and bankrupt ideas. In his endorsement, General Colin Powell called Obama a “transformational figure.” And our country desperately needs transforming.
For eight years we have endured an administration that tried to dumb down America. The Bush/Cheney administration must surely rank as one of the most anti-intellectual -- if not the most anti-intellectual -- government in American history. This was a president who ridiculed science, censored scientific reports, and rejected facts whenever fantasy and lies better fit White House propaganda.
Inauguration day, January 20, 2009, cannot come too soon. It will be wonderful at last to have an intelligent leader in the White House, a leader who understands the complexity of our world, who commands global respect, who opposed the most reckless, unnecessary war in America’s history, who is not afraid to negotiate, who respects women’s right to reproductive choice, who supports science, and has compassion for the poor and empathy for the forgotten middle class.
In his speech to America last night, Obama said his election demonstrates that “government of the people, by the people, for the people has not perished from the Earth.” But we had a close call. It was on its way to extinction under the imperial Bush/Cheney administration. With President Obama, there is hope for protecting our Constitution, ending illegal assaults on our privacy, restoring international respect for our country, stopping the plunder of our national treasury to benefit greed-driven corporations, and investing in America’s greatest treasure – its people. Healing our nation and repairing the damage of the Bush/Cheney years will be difficult but not impossible. President-Elect Obama says, “Yes, we can.” Yesterday, we made a start!
In a stunning outpouring of outrage and hope, Americans suffering losses of homes, jobs, retirement funds, and lack of healthcare, gave George Bush, Dick Cheney & Company, the boot. We cleaned house. Thanksgiving has come early.
By this extraordinary election, the majority of American voters also turned a page on the racism that for almost four centuries has brutalized, divided and dishonored our people and made a mockery of the promise of our Constitution. The election of Barack Obama is the closest we have ever come to fulfilling that promise of democracy, equality under the law, and justice for all.
I looked at the throng of people in Chicago’s Grant Park as they waited for President-elect Obama to speak. Young, old, black, white, Asian, Hispanic – faces lit with hope and tears of happiness that this moment -- Obama’s moment, America’s moment -- was actually happening. I could hardly believe it myself.
Obama’s mixed heritage is so profoundly American, reflecting our racial diversity, our demographic reality, our African and European history embodied in this young man who fearlessly seized the moment to undergo the grueling months of campaigning for President. And he has been tested. For almost two years, he steadfastly prevailed against an onslaught of malicious attempts to smear his character and defeat his candidacy. But the smear campaign backfired. In his steadfast refusal to stoop to his opponents’ sleaze level, Obama revealed his true character – calm, steady, focused on the issues – the kind of leader we need for the problems and crises that confront the nation. At last, we have a leader for our time, a man with a vision of our better selves and what we can become. A man who is not tied or beholden to past failed policies and bankrupt ideas. In his endorsement, General Colin Powell called Obama a “transformational figure.” And our country desperately needs transforming.
For eight years we have endured an administration that tried to dumb down America. The Bush/Cheney administration must surely rank as one of the most anti-intellectual -- if not the most anti-intellectual -- government in American history. This was a president who ridiculed science, censored scientific reports, and rejected facts whenever fantasy and lies better fit White House propaganda.
Inauguration day, January 20, 2009, cannot come too soon. It will be wonderful at last to have an intelligent leader in the White House, a leader who understands the complexity of our world, who commands global respect, who opposed the most reckless, unnecessary war in America’s history, who is not afraid to negotiate, who respects women’s right to reproductive choice, who supports science, and has compassion for the poor and empathy for the forgotten middle class.
In his speech to America last night, Obama said his election demonstrates that “government of the people, by the people, for the people has not perished from the Earth.” But we had a close call. It was on its way to extinction under the imperial Bush/Cheney administration. With President Obama, there is hope for protecting our Constitution, ending illegal assaults on our privacy, restoring international respect for our country, stopping the plunder of our national treasury to benefit greed-driven corporations, and investing in America’s greatest treasure – its people. Healing our nation and repairing the damage of the Bush/Cheney years will be difficult but not impossible. President-Elect Obama says, “Yes, we can.” Yesterday, we made a start!
Monday, October 20, 2008
McCain/Palin – King and Queen of Sleaze
Yesterday General Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President and then firmly chastised John McCain’s hate-mongering ads and robocalls as “nonsense” and “over the top” for political campaigning. General Powell is a statesman. John McCain and Sarah Palin are moral meltdowns.
In the past few weeks, the deplorable duo have descended into the political sewer, belching out the same kind of gaseous slurs and lies that George Bush and Karl Rove used to defeat McCain’s Presidential bid in 2000. Remember? The smears reached peak stridency in South Carolina. McCain was accused of being homosexual, fathering a “black” child out of wedlock, and having a “dope-addict” wife. All lies. Now, after his commitment to run a “clean” campaign, McCain is indulging in even more vicious smears against Barack Obama. Fear-mongering robocalls accusing Obama of being a terrorist are clogging people’s phones in Virginia and other states. Racist TV ads that begin with Obama’s face in dark shadow visually suggest that the black man is dangerous. In every way possible, McCain is trying to make people afraid to vote for Obama.
Sarah Palin’s major function in the McCain campaign seems to be as the mindless attack dog and she acts as if she relishes the role. Forget any attempt at eloquence or intelligence. Palin follows a script filled with lies casting Obama as un-American and in league with terrorists. But who cares about lies? Following Karl Rove’s script, George Bush and Dick Cheney have conducted their entire administration based on lies. Who needs facts or evidence? Reality can be a hindrance. McCain and Palin are no different. After all, isn’t the lesson that if you repeat lies often enough, people will believe they’re true? Bush/Cheney started a war based on lies. Surely the same technique can be used to elect a president. It worked in 2004, defeating John Kerry.
Thankfully, increasing numbers of Americans are smarter this time. They see that John McCain and Sarah Palin’s lies are inciting hate and fear. At their rallies, people have shouted “kill him” when Obama’s name was mentioned. John McCain even had to take the microphone from a supporter who said she was afraid of Obama because “he’s a Muslim.” McCain was forced to defend Obama from the hate and fear his own campaign has stirred up. It’s more than a sorry spectacle from two adults in public office who should know better. It’s offensive and dangerous – the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that once incited mobs to lynch black men and burn women as witches.
But if we can believe the polls, the McCain/ Palin lies are backfiring. In trying to paint Barack Obama as someone voters should fear, McCain has painted himself as the scary candidate, too angry, unfocused and impulsive to be President. In ignoring the economic and social issues that are the real threats to people’s lives, McCain is sinking his campaign ship in the slop of his own making.
I have never been a McCain supporter, but even I find it sad to see a man who heroically served the United States demeaning himself for political gain. In stooping to such sleaze, McCain shows his willingness to put his political ambition ahead of the country that he says he loves.
Then there is the matter of McCain’s judgment. In addition to condoning what may be the nastiest presidential campaign in American history, McCain’s selection of the pitifully unqualified Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, demonstrates extraordinarily poor judgment. I find it hard to believe that a man who truly loves his country could jeopardize it by selecting a running mate as ignorant as Sarah Palin. Should McCain become President and suffer a health crisis – or worse – elevating Palin to the Presidency would be like putting a not-terribly-bright high-school student in the Oval Office!
Finally, in the last debate, McCain betrayed a shocking contempt for women. With huffing and puffing and much head and shoulder jerking, he mocked Obama’s support of a woman’s right to abortion to protect the health of the mother. Using air quotes, McCain dismissed women’s health as the “extreme pro-abortion position.” In that exchange, McCain In effect, was saying that women don’t count. Like George W. Bush and the Republican right-wing, McCain wants to undo all the hard-fought victories women have won for their dignity, their privacy, and their right to control their own bodies. McCain, like Bush, would take women backwards to a time when there was no birth control, no reproductive options. McCain, like Bush, would overturn Roe v. Wade, have government invade the womb, usurp women’s bodies as state property, and deny women’s most intimate and fundamental right to exercise reproductive choice. This position should be unacceptable to every woman and every enlightened man. Returning Americans to the pre-contraceptive tyranny of the gonads is not a tolerable platform of a 21st-century president.
And that’s the biggest problem. McCain hasn’t moved into the 21st-century and he seems incapable of doing so. It’s not just his age; it’s his attitude, one which the younger Palin shares. McCain is hopelessly locked in the past and his presidency would drag us all back with him. Yesterday, General Powell spoke of America’s need for “a generational change.” McCain represents a past generation. Obama has the vision, the world outlook, the understanding of complexity, and what Powell called “the intellectual vigor” to address the wretched problems left by Bush/Cheney. It’s Obama who presents the possibility for change you can believe in.
In the past few weeks, the deplorable duo have descended into the political sewer, belching out the same kind of gaseous slurs and lies that George Bush and Karl Rove used to defeat McCain’s Presidential bid in 2000. Remember? The smears reached peak stridency in South Carolina. McCain was accused of being homosexual, fathering a “black” child out of wedlock, and having a “dope-addict” wife. All lies. Now, after his commitment to run a “clean” campaign, McCain is indulging in even more vicious smears against Barack Obama. Fear-mongering robocalls accusing Obama of being a terrorist are clogging people’s phones in Virginia and other states. Racist TV ads that begin with Obama’s face in dark shadow visually suggest that the black man is dangerous. In every way possible, McCain is trying to make people afraid to vote for Obama.
Sarah Palin’s major function in the McCain campaign seems to be as the mindless attack dog and she acts as if she relishes the role. Forget any attempt at eloquence or intelligence. Palin follows a script filled with lies casting Obama as un-American and in league with terrorists. But who cares about lies? Following Karl Rove’s script, George Bush and Dick Cheney have conducted their entire administration based on lies. Who needs facts or evidence? Reality can be a hindrance. McCain and Palin are no different. After all, isn’t the lesson that if you repeat lies often enough, people will believe they’re true? Bush/Cheney started a war based on lies. Surely the same technique can be used to elect a president. It worked in 2004, defeating John Kerry.
Thankfully, increasing numbers of Americans are smarter this time. They see that John McCain and Sarah Palin’s lies are inciting hate and fear. At their rallies, people have shouted “kill him” when Obama’s name was mentioned. John McCain even had to take the microphone from a supporter who said she was afraid of Obama because “he’s a Muslim.” McCain was forced to defend Obama from the hate and fear his own campaign has stirred up. It’s more than a sorry spectacle from two adults in public office who should know better. It’s offensive and dangerous – the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that once incited mobs to lynch black men and burn women as witches.
But if we can believe the polls, the McCain/ Palin lies are backfiring. In trying to paint Barack Obama as someone voters should fear, McCain has painted himself as the scary candidate, too angry, unfocused and impulsive to be President. In ignoring the economic and social issues that are the real threats to people’s lives, McCain is sinking his campaign ship in the slop of his own making.
I have never been a McCain supporter, but even I find it sad to see a man who heroically served the United States demeaning himself for political gain. In stooping to such sleaze, McCain shows his willingness to put his political ambition ahead of the country that he says he loves.
Then there is the matter of McCain’s judgment. In addition to condoning what may be the nastiest presidential campaign in American history, McCain’s selection of the pitifully unqualified Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, demonstrates extraordinarily poor judgment. I find it hard to believe that a man who truly loves his country could jeopardize it by selecting a running mate as ignorant as Sarah Palin. Should McCain become President and suffer a health crisis – or worse – elevating Palin to the Presidency would be like putting a not-terribly-bright high-school student in the Oval Office!
Finally, in the last debate, McCain betrayed a shocking contempt for women. With huffing and puffing and much head and shoulder jerking, he mocked Obama’s support of a woman’s right to abortion to protect the health of the mother. Using air quotes, McCain dismissed women’s health as the “extreme pro-abortion position.” In that exchange, McCain In effect, was saying that women don’t count. Like George W. Bush and the Republican right-wing, McCain wants to undo all the hard-fought victories women have won for their dignity, their privacy, and their right to control their own bodies. McCain, like Bush, would take women backwards to a time when there was no birth control, no reproductive options. McCain, like Bush, would overturn Roe v. Wade, have government invade the womb, usurp women’s bodies as state property, and deny women’s most intimate and fundamental right to exercise reproductive choice. This position should be unacceptable to every woman and every enlightened man. Returning Americans to the pre-contraceptive tyranny of the gonads is not a tolerable platform of a 21st-century president.
And that’s the biggest problem. McCain hasn’t moved into the 21st-century and he seems incapable of doing so. It’s not just his age; it’s his attitude, one which the younger Palin shares. McCain is hopelessly locked in the past and his presidency would drag us all back with him. Yesterday, General Powell spoke of America’s need for “a generational change.” McCain represents a past generation. Obama has the vision, the world outlook, the understanding of complexity, and what Powell called “the intellectual vigor” to address the wretched problems left by Bush/Cheney. It’s Obama who presents the possibility for change you can believe in.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
McCain's VP Choice Insults Women, Endangers Nation
If there were any doubt about John McCain’s judgment, his choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate bares all. His choice was both impulsive and ill-informed. He didn’t even know her and she was not thoroughly vetted! The choice of Palin insults the intelligence of all Americans, but its cynicism is particularly insulting to women. Does McCain really think that women are such gender knee-jerks that they will embrace the Republican ticket simply because Palin is female? Women I know are outraged. Some men of my acquaintance wonder, “Has McCain lost his mind?” As Clinton supporters have pointed out, they voted for Hillary because she was qualified to be President of the United States. Aerial hunting Alaskan wildlife does not quality Palin to have her finger on nuclear triggers should that case arise. And it may. McCain is 72 years old, the oldest candidate ever to run for a first term as President. In a health crisis or worse, his vice president will become Commander in Chief. She is literally a breath away from the presidency. For all his bombast about the importance of experience, McCain has displayed his hypocrisy and poor judgment by choosing a person who lacks national experience and has no shred of international experience. Palin’s sudden elevation to the presidency could endanger the country even more than a McCain presidency.
Forced to abandon his first choices for vice president (Senator Joe Lieberman and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge), McCain reacted like an adolescent boy with an “Okay, I’ll-show-you” attitude. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want our country to be run by another adolescent boy or an adolescent girl trying to prove how tough they are. The voters, the country, and the planet would be the losers.
Republicans are making a lot of Palin’s “executive experience.” So far as I’m concerned, running a household is a kind of executive experience but it hardly qualifies a person to be President of the United States. Before becoming governor of Alaska, Palin was mayor of a suburban community of fewer than 6000 people. She has served barely two years as governor of the 47th least populous state. Alaska’s entire population—650,000—is less than one-fourth that of Chicago (2.8 million) where Barack Obama spent years as a community organizer before becoming a member of the Illinois state Senate, where he served for eight years before being elected a U.S. Senator. Palin has served a largely homogenous isolated population in contrast to the diverse communities that Obama has served and knows so well. At best, her experience is too limited to qualify her for CEO of a large company.
Beyond the demographics in Palin’s background, her fierce opposition to reproductive choice – even in cases of rape and incest – threaten women’s health and autonomy. McCain has already said he would work to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark case that freed women from enslavement to their gonads. A McCain-Palin administration would continue the war against women waged by Bush and Cheney. If Roe v Wade were overturned, women’s bodies would become, in effect, property of the state. The next President will likely fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court. One more right-wing justice in the mold of Scalia, Roberts and Alito would plunge women back to a medieval mentality that would not only outlaw abortion but also force contraception underground. Yes, Palin is a woman but she represents the good old evangelical boys’ club when it comes to their fanatical desire to control women’s bodies. Reproductive choice should be personal not state-controlled. There is no more intimate right than the individual freedom to control one’s own reproductive biology.
By selecting Palin, McCain has just upped the stakes in this critical election. He and Palin represent an unacceptable and intolerable past that is better relegated to history than to a future it is unprepared to meet.
Forced to abandon his first choices for vice president (Senator Joe Lieberman and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge), McCain reacted like an adolescent boy with an “Okay, I’ll-show-you” attitude. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want our country to be run by another adolescent boy or an adolescent girl trying to prove how tough they are. The voters, the country, and the planet would be the losers.
Republicans are making a lot of Palin’s “executive experience.” So far as I’m concerned, running a household is a kind of executive experience but it hardly qualifies a person to be President of the United States. Before becoming governor of Alaska, Palin was mayor of a suburban community of fewer than 6000 people. She has served barely two years as governor of the 47th least populous state. Alaska’s entire population—650,000—is less than one-fourth that of Chicago (2.8 million) where Barack Obama spent years as a community organizer before becoming a member of the Illinois state Senate, where he served for eight years before being elected a U.S. Senator. Palin has served a largely homogenous isolated population in contrast to the diverse communities that Obama has served and knows so well. At best, her experience is too limited to qualify her for CEO of a large company.
Beyond the demographics in Palin’s background, her fierce opposition to reproductive choice – even in cases of rape and incest – threaten women’s health and autonomy. McCain has already said he would work to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark case that freed women from enslavement to their gonads. A McCain-Palin administration would continue the war against women waged by Bush and Cheney. If Roe v Wade were overturned, women’s bodies would become, in effect, property of the state. The next President will likely fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court. One more right-wing justice in the mold of Scalia, Roberts and Alito would plunge women back to a medieval mentality that would not only outlaw abortion but also force contraception underground. Yes, Palin is a woman but she represents the good old evangelical boys’ club when it comes to their fanatical desire to control women’s bodies. Reproductive choice should be personal not state-controlled. There is no more intimate right than the individual freedom to control one’s own reproductive biology.
By selecting Palin, McCain has just upped the stakes in this critical election. He and Palin represent an unacceptable and intolerable past that is better relegated to history than to a future it is unprepared to meet.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Who Will Own Your Body?
Is there any woman out there who really wants her body to become property of the state? For women, that is the most critical question of the approaching election. If you want to control your body, the choice is a no-brainer. Voting for a candidate who opposes reproductive choice is a vote to hand over your body to the state as if it were a piece of real estate instead of the unique bundle of pulsating cells, strands of DNA, thoughts, feelings, and desires that make up you.
Think about it. Really think. The antiabortion position deprives women of their most intimate right – control of their own reproductive biology. If men got pregnant, abortion wouldn’t be an issue. How many politicians would be discussing how to deprive men of controlling their reproduction? Can you imagine a Congressional hearing about male sexuality, condoms or Viagra? ”If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” said an anonymous New York female taxi driver, quoted years ago by author Gloria Steinem.
Anti-choice rhetoric about “murder” is a smokescreen for a far more devious goal -- control of women – a medieval position in line with that of the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups headed by men.
Not surprisingly, most of the antiabortion groups in the United States are headed by men: James Dobson, Douglas Johnson, Pat Robertson, Randall Terry, Richard Viguerie, and Jack Willke, just to name a few. Like male insects that seal female insects’ sperm storage chambers with a kind of genital glue, men who oppose abortion make up a sperm protection society that seeks to force pregnancy and birth on a woman whether she wants it or not. Some years ago, I wrote about the similarity between male insects and men who oppose abortion in my book, Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates. In that book, originally published in 1992 and recently reprinted in a new edition by iUniverse.com, I wrote: “The so-called right-to-life movement may be perceived as a highly organized effort to legislate away women’s right to choose whether to reproduce.”
Although we are living in the 21st century, those who oppose reproductive choice – and yes, birth control, too – are trying to foist medieval notions on women and men. At various times in history, dispensing birth-control information has been considered subversion or an act of the devil. During the later Middle Ages, midwives were often persecuted as witches for assisting women with birth control and abortion. Sadly this persecutorial attitude rears its ugly head in the self-righteous political posturing of politicians like Presidential candidate John McCain and a number of local candidates running for Congressional seats in various states. While trying to woo Christian fundamentalists, these candidates are taking a vicious anti-woman position. McCain, for example, voted against requiring insurance companies to cover prescription birth control. What century is this man living in? True, he’s 71 years old, but there are lots of men his age and older who are in step with our time. McCain’s attitude would have been more appropriate a century ago. Keep in mind that many fundamentalists are trying to equate contraception with abortion. McCain has voted anti-choice 123 out of 128 times. And he voted against allocating money to preventative health services that would have reduced unintended teen pregnancies. McCain supports overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that liberated women from enslavement to the dark ages of reproductive tyranny. McCain, like George W. Bush, would take women backwards to a world pre-contraception, a world in which men and women had no options for limiting family size. Before contraception, men and most especially women lived at the mercy of their gonads.
Throughout history, various male leaders have enacted laws to dominate and restrict women by controlling reproduction. Whether among mice or men, once a male copulates, he no longer controls his sperm; he cannot force a female to use them to fertilize her eggs. Because of this biological fact, males throughout the animal kingdom, including men, will do virtually anything to control female choice and ensure confidence of paternity. Men in the antiabortion movement seem involved in trying to ensure a kind of group confidence of paternity. Sadly, many women support these efforts that only contribute to diminishing their individual freedom and basic human rights. But in the United States of America in this year 2008, there is no need for any woman to vote away personal autonomy over her body. Women have the voting power to swing this election away from a leader mired in the past toward a leader ready to move forward into a more enlightened future.
Think about it. Really think. The antiabortion position deprives women of their most intimate right – control of their own reproductive biology. If men got pregnant, abortion wouldn’t be an issue. How many politicians would be discussing how to deprive men of controlling their reproduction? Can you imagine a Congressional hearing about male sexuality, condoms or Viagra? ”If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” said an anonymous New York female taxi driver, quoted years ago by author Gloria Steinem.
Anti-choice rhetoric about “murder” is a smokescreen for a far more devious goal -- control of women – a medieval position in line with that of the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups headed by men.
Not surprisingly, most of the antiabortion groups in the United States are headed by men: James Dobson, Douglas Johnson, Pat Robertson, Randall Terry, Richard Viguerie, and Jack Willke, just to name a few. Like male insects that seal female insects’ sperm storage chambers with a kind of genital glue, men who oppose abortion make up a sperm protection society that seeks to force pregnancy and birth on a woman whether she wants it or not. Some years ago, I wrote about the similarity between male insects and men who oppose abortion in my book, Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates. In that book, originally published in 1992 and recently reprinted in a new edition by iUniverse.com, I wrote: “The so-called right-to-life movement may be perceived as a highly organized effort to legislate away women’s right to choose whether to reproduce.”
Although we are living in the 21st century, those who oppose reproductive choice – and yes, birth control, too – are trying to foist medieval notions on women and men. At various times in history, dispensing birth-control information has been considered subversion or an act of the devil. During the later Middle Ages, midwives were often persecuted as witches for assisting women with birth control and abortion. Sadly this persecutorial attitude rears its ugly head in the self-righteous political posturing of politicians like Presidential candidate John McCain and a number of local candidates running for Congressional seats in various states. While trying to woo Christian fundamentalists, these candidates are taking a vicious anti-woman position. McCain, for example, voted against requiring insurance companies to cover prescription birth control. What century is this man living in? True, he’s 71 years old, but there are lots of men his age and older who are in step with our time. McCain’s attitude would have been more appropriate a century ago. Keep in mind that many fundamentalists are trying to equate contraception with abortion. McCain has voted anti-choice 123 out of 128 times. And he voted against allocating money to preventative health services that would have reduced unintended teen pregnancies. McCain supports overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that liberated women from enslavement to the dark ages of reproductive tyranny. McCain, like George W. Bush, would take women backwards to a world pre-contraception, a world in which men and women had no options for limiting family size. Before contraception, men and most especially women lived at the mercy of their gonads.
Throughout history, various male leaders have enacted laws to dominate and restrict women by controlling reproduction. Whether among mice or men, once a male copulates, he no longer controls his sperm; he cannot force a female to use them to fertilize her eggs. Because of this biological fact, males throughout the animal kingdom, including men, will do virtually anything to control female choice and ensure confidence of paternity. Men in the antiabortion movement seem involved in trying to ensure a kind of group confidence of paternity. Sadly, many women support these efforts that only contribute to diminishing their individual freedom and basic human rights. But in the United States of America in this year 2008, there is no need for any woman to vote away personal autonomy over her body. Women have the voting power to swing this election away from a leader mired in the past toward a leader ready to move forward into a more enlightened future.
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