We
just spent a couple of days with three of our great grandkids. The youngest is still too young to go
camping, so she had to stay home. Two of
the three that came are girls. Their
mother was adopted into our family, so I feel that I can brag about them
without being too ego driven! These two
little girls are extremely bright. The
eldest, at 11, is at the top of everything she is in at her school. The honors orchestra, gymnastics, honor
classes. You name it, she is right up
there. The younger girl will be four
this Fall, but is as sharp as her older sister.
Our little boy is no slouch, but this blog isn’t about what he will have
to face in the future.
If
the conservatives in this country take control of the Federal government, they
will do what they are doing in too many state houses around the country. I’m going to start with the ridiculous
statement made by the Governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant, that the problem
with the educational system in this country is that too many women are working
outside the home. He ignores completely
that a great many women are working outside the home because the family needs
their paycheck to be financially viable.
And why is this paycheck needed?
Because the majority of state and federal legislators are men, and
because of the decisions they have made, the latest being sequestration, the
economy of this country is in such a lousy state that women have to work even
if they may not want to. But, take the
easy way out and blame the problems on the women.
The
other thing I am concerned about when I watch these beautiful young girls is
all of the anti-women votes that the conservatives are casting regarding the
restrictions on abortion rights. As I
have said before, I am very much opposed to abortion, but I am also a
realist. I know that women will have
abortions, laws or not. Roe v Wade was
decided in the first place because women were dying from botched home
abortions, or from infections caused by back-alley abortion providers who definitely
weren’t using sterile instruments.
Instead of spending time and effort determining what women need to help
them choose not to have an abortion, these conservative men (and a few women as
well) choose simply to use the law to prevent women from having safe abortions. These conservatives apparently think all
women are all alike and passing universal laws against abortions will take care
of the problem. Nothing is further from
the truth. Each woman is as unique as
each man, and any decision as profound and personal as abortion can only be
made by the woman, her doctor, and one would hope, the sperm provider. Perhaps a member of the clergy would be
involved as well, but other than that, legislators should stay out of that
decision.
We
have had some legislators who want to pass laws requiring women who have had a
miscarriage to report that to the local law enforcement authorities for an
investigation, presumably to have some man determine whether the woman did not
have an abortion. Not only is that a
stupid thought, but if the bills actually passed it would prevent many women from
going to a doctor for the pregnancy in case they might have a miscarriage. If no one but the woman knew about the
pregnancy, she would not have to report the miscarriage.
But
recently all of this uproar over the federal government and its spying programs
tick me off as well. We have
journalists, pundits, and legislators all either supporting the spying on the
basis of safety from terrorists, or decrying the violation of the Fourth
Amendment which guarantees “The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated,…”. It actually
was this 4th Amendment on which Roe v Wade was based, and that is that
a woman has the right to make decisions regarding her person. So here we have people upset and frantic over
the government doing what corporations have been doing for years but not giving
two hoots to hades about what these state legislators are doing to women.
Do
you want to talk about an invasion of privacy?
OK, talk about requiring, for any reason, a woman to have to undergo a
transvaginal ultrasound. Now you want to
talk about an invasion of privacy, I can’t think of anything to equal that!!
It
is my opinion that these conservatives who are in such an uproar over abortion
that they are requiring all sorts of unwanted invasions of privacy for women
are simply frantic over women having sex.
If they didn’t have sex, they wouldn’t need to have an abortion. But since they did have sex (wanted or forced
makes no difference), we will see to it they have to make reparation for
that. All of this God-talk about God’s
plan is to make babies is just so much smoke and mirrors to cover up this
horror of women’s sexuality. What concerns
me as well is that it is abortion and birth control now that the legislators
want to control for women, but what else can they come up with in the
future? Controlling women’s access to an
education? Right to work?
I
wish these conservatives would just grow up and face reality. Women are just as important as men, and can
make just as valid decisions about their own lives as men can make about theirs. And that is what I want for my three great
great-granddaughters.
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