The War on Women

Stock photo of pregnant woman from stock.xchg.

We can vote.  We can work.  We can own property.  We can be elected to office.  Our bodies are ours to do with as we will.  These rights have been granted to us by law.  So, it comes as no surprise to me that there are men (and women) out there who are so threatened by women having rights that they are trying to take one of the most important ones away from us:

The right to govern our own bodies.

Example numero uno: The governmental assault on Planned Parenthood.  For those who don’t know, and I’m not sure how anybody couldn’t know, Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides birth control and sexual reproductive education and services to low-income people and minors.  Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, has sponsored a bill called Title X Abortion Providers Act which if passed would end government funding of any organization that provides abortions, either directly or indirectly.  Planned Parenthood is one such organization that provides abortions.  Without the funding, PP would not be able to operate.  I sincerely doubt the amount of money their clients are able to pay would be enough to pay their electricity costs let alone anything else.  And in light of a scandalous video that has surfaced from Live Action, an anti-choice, fetal rights, fear mongering “youth organization”, some are saying it is all the more reason to shut PP down.

Although all of these “pro-life” groups who are lobbying for the criminalization of abortion seem to forget a very important judicial case by the supreme court called Roe v Wade which granted women the right to seek an abortion.  In 1973, the landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution.  It made abortions legal until the point of viability, a point no one has been able to establish.  Roe v Wade, along with some other cases at the time granted women autonomy over their own bodies.   By denying funding for Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, the government is essentially trampling the rights Roe v Wade gave to women.  It has all but been overturned.

Example numero dos: Georgia House Rep. Bobby Franklin (another fetal rights proponent) has introduced a bill in Georgia to criminalize abortion and states that any human intervention other than delivering a live fetus is a crime.  Now, comes the truly horrifying part.  That would mean miscarriages would also be illegal if another person, including the mother, had any hand in it.  Such as the mother not taking care of herself and being under stress, both of which can cause a miscarriage.  Under this bill, any miscarriage would have to be reported, whether it happen in a hospital or not, and a fetal death certificate would have to be issued.  If the woman doesn’t know how it happened, it would be investigated by what some opponents are calling the Uterus Police.  They’d be able to interrogate family and friends to determine how the miscarriage occurred.  If a woman cannot prove there was no human intervention that caused the miscarriage, she could face felony charges.

Does anybody else besides me see the huge potential for abuse?  A miscarriage can happen for any reason.  And there is usually no way to know what caused it.  I can see it now, some “investigator” interrogating a devastated woman in her hospital bed about her miscarriage, mind already made up that her explanation is not sufficient enough and charging her with murder.  What a great way for resentful men to “get back” at us women for the Women’s Lib movement.

Because I think that’s really what it all boils down to.  Some men are angry at us because they can’t oppress us anymore.  And they are trying to punish us any way they can.  They are literally hitting below the belt.