This is about so much more than just birth control and abortion, this is about a fundamental hatred of women and their health care of whatever kind. The religious Right Wing hates women so much, that they are willing to do anything in their power to ensure that we, as women, are all continuously paying for "Original Sin" until the end of time. As per The Long Island Populist Examiner
But based on statements and policies, the surge in "Personhood" amendments and the attack on Planned Parenthood - cast as a nostalgic longing for a "purer" America - it is a lot more purposeful than just being tone deaf. The Rightwingers want to return to a society where women were chattel to their husbands and slaves to the state, without the ability to make their own choices over the most fundamental issues affecting their lives and their future.
That was always the basis for the Pro-Choice movement - you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who cavalierly ends the development of a fetus. Pro-choice was always was about who should make those intensely personal decisions, not that abortion should be a ubiquitous form of birth control.
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And to hear the argument - that this is about Religious Freedom - is shocking in its absurdity. It is no different than the outrage that Santorum and the Bomb-Them-Now crowd have when the Taliban condones stoning a girl for being raped.
The feigned horror over the supposed Obama trampling of Religious Freedom seems to completely ignore the reality that no one is being forced to use contraception, and any woman who works for a religiously-affiliated hospital or school who follows those religious precepts would not be seeking contraception. This is about protecting the religious freedom of the rest of womankind.
But Santorum has actually characterized access to contraception - The Pill - as going down the path to the French Revolution, and where that leads is the guillotine.
Video from Al Jazeera, along with the following:
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE FACTS:
In 2011, 135 measures on reproductive health were passed by 36 US states
There was a 50 per cent rise in reproductive health provisions in 2011 compared to 2010
Sixty-eight per cent of reproductive health measures in 2011 restrict access to abortion
Ninety-two provisions enacted in 24 states restrict access to abortion
Republicans rule most states where abortion restrictions were enacted
The Republican majority in the US House wants greater limits placed on abortion
House Republicans have launched a probe into Planned Parenthood
Komen cited the House probe of Planned Parenthood while halting funding
Most Republicans oppose government funding of Planned Parenthood
Republican candidates have pledge to de-fund Planned Parenthood
All four candidates for the Republican nomination for the presidency have opposed abortion rights
From
Feminist Majority,
Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, each issued letters to Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, following his refusal to allow a minority witness to testify at a Congressional hearing: "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?" Ranking Member Cummings wanted to allow Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law School student, to testify at the hearing regarding the Obama Administration's recent ruling on contraception coverage under the preventive care package of the Affordable Care Act; however Representative Issa refused the request, stating that the hearing "is not about reproductive rights and contraception."
Representative Maloney criticized Issa's decision in her letter: "What I want to know is, where are the women? I look at this panel, and I don't see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventive health care services, including family planning...Of course this hearing is about rights-contraception and birth control. It's about the fact that women want to have access to basic health services [and] family planning through their insurance plan."
As per
The Nation,
The young people I saw at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington the week before last looked to me exactly like what you would expect from a bunch of college Republicans. They were dorks. They wore suits. Maybe some of the women’s suit skirts were short, but I was hardly scandalized.
But we learned last week that much of the conservative movement is still living in a different century—and I don’t mean the twentieth—with regard to women’s sexuality. Conservative bloggers were horrified that some young women at CPAC were dressed provocatively and engaged in loose sexual behavior with the young men in attendance.
CPAC has a well deserved reputation for being the time of year when earnest young conservatives unbutton their Oxford shirts, crack open a few Busch Lights and let loose. I see nothing wrong with that. But Erick Erickson, who runs the popular blog Red State, does. He wrote a lament that CPAC has gotten too debauched: “Young men, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, are intent on having sex, being boys, getting drunk—doing what young men in college often do. All to [sic] often there are also a few young ladies willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.”
Erickson’s commentary is such a caricature of an avuncular misogynist that it’s amazing his post isn’t actually a parody. He almost literally says, “Boys will be boys.” But girls, on the other hand, are responsible for warding off boys’ advances. They, and they alone, are charged with protecting the conservative movement’s morality. If they don’t, they are “shaming their parents.” The notion that there is nothing immoral with enjoying oneself, as long as you aren’t spreading disease, doesn’t even cross Erickson’s mind. Nor does he consider the possibility that women and men are equally responsible for restraining their sexual urges.
The prepared testimony of Sandra Fluke, who was considered by Rep Issa to be unqualified to speak at his hearing last week can be read
here. She was testifying because her friend, who is a lesbian, needed to go onto birth control because of polycystic ovarian syndrome and not for any means of contraception. She had been interrogated by the insurance representatives and the college clinic faculty to ensure that she wasn't lying about her symptoms just to get onto contraception and the insurance company STILL refused to cover it. They decided that she was lying and just wanted it to prevent pregnancy. This was student insurance, which is paid for by the students and is not funded by any other means whatsoever and without it being covered, they can cost as much as $3000 a year for contraception.
Of course, as per Simon Nguyen on Yahoo for the opposition,
While the Catholic Church opposes contraception, it does not actively campaign for the abolishment of all contraceptives. There is no advocacy for legislation to ban contraceptives and no pending court ruling regarding the legality of contraception. The issue at stake is religious liberty and not women's health.
The Catholic Church, like any prominent religious institution, has a doctrine that it solemnly abides to. Without these rituals and moral positions, there is no Catholicism. The church's members can decide whether or not to live by it, but the doctrine itself is unalterable. By requiring Catholic organizations - many of which are self-insured - to pay for or provide contraceptives through their insurance companies, the government is assaulting the church's identity and religious authority.
Proponents of the controversial policy have argued that the mandate is aimed at agencies affiliated with the church and not the church itself. This is clearly a mischaracterization. While a number of Catholic organizations are independent of the church, they almost always reflect Catholic values. For instance, many religious-affiliated schools and hospitals have moral clauses tied to employment.
If President Obama truly believes contraception is important to women's health, there are better alternatives than forcing religious institutions to directly or indirectly contradict their doctrines. Since the government loves to bail out Wall Street and creates new bureaucracy, it might well bail out low-income women who want contraceptives.
The administration could conceivably create a federal program that provides contraceptives to low-income Americans at little or no cost. The cost of such a program is likely to be miniscule, compared to the billions of dollars spent on bailing out Wall Street.
This is what we are fighting against! These people are bound and determined that we are simply asking for handouts and that there is nothing in it for them in the long run for women to NOT be pregnant & in the kitchen 24/7/365. I am so fucking tired of women being treated as if the only thing they are good for is sex, giving birth and taking care of their man and a woman isn't really a woman unless she has a man!