One Step Forward, One Hundred Fifty Million Steps Back

Dear Neighbors:

It is possible to become so comfortable with our lives that we forget how our lives came to be...comfortable. The one hundred fifty million is the approximate number of females in the United States today. In spite of our growing presence, we are failing in our responsibility to stand up for ourselves rather than abdicating our rights to those who would like to see us under their control. 

Did you know that in many countries, it hasn't even been one hundred years that women have been allowed to vote? 

Country & Year women became voters:

U.S. 1920

U.K. 1928

Australia  1894

Italy 1946

Bahrain 2001

This made sense to men. It never occurred to them that women would want or need a say in government, nor would anything we have to say be at all relevant. Abigail Adams asked her husband, President John Adams, to consider giving women the right to vote. He was not amused, and it took another 150 years to happen. 

In the '60's and '70's, women began fighting for equal rights in the workplace. Women have not only gained respect as professionals, but both men and women now share the burden of working in professions dominated by the other sex. The area in which women often lack equality is in how she deals with her co-workers. If she's assertive, she's a bitch. If she's sweet, she's too nice for this job. And if she holds her employees to high standards, she's back to the bitch thing again. A man, of course, can be as cruel as he chooses and he's considered a star. 

A woman cannot excel in the workplace if she cannot control her own reproductive system. The first birth control clinic was opened in 1916 by Margaret Sanger and two years later it became legal to use them. The states, however, were allowed to ban contraceptives and many states did just that. Soon, the restrictions and opposition to birth control lessened and finally, women were completely in charge of their own wombs. Why should that be a privilege, I wonder? Why isn't it a right? The kind of right that makes you say, "duh!".  There was a time when people really didn't know what caused babies. That time is long since over. Planning a family instead of being in a constant state of surprise makes much more sense. Not having ten kids when you can barely afford the nine you have also makes sense. Having laws that prevent a woman from controlling her own reproductive system does not make sense.

You know where I'm going with this. Abortion finally had its day in 1973. It passed 7-2, many justices having found no concrete basis for outlawing it -- though many admitted that they wished they had one. Since then, abortion rights have been chipped away, a little at a time, starting with availability. While California has over one hundred clinics, Arkansas, South Dakota and Wyoming each have only one. Imagine being a woman in need of an abortion in these states. All of the anti-choice fanatics (they can call themselves pro-life when they care about lives other than that of fetuses) have only one clinic to terrorize. There are so few clinics because doctors don't want to put their lives at risk against terrorists who will kill them on sight. Our legislators spend more time trying to once again strip us of this basic right to control our own bodies instead of protecting the women who are exercising a legal right to an abortion. 

Some women will tell me that it's all about killing a baby. This means they believe that a fetus has more of a right to life than they do. We're back in the stone age, apparently. Women who seek abortions aren't always irresponsible, but the point is that it doesn't matter why -- her body, her choice. 

And yet I'm still not finished, nor have I made my point. But I'm about to. 

My point is that once abortion is outlawed, where do you think the Anti-Women terrorists are going to strike next? They've already started trying to  re-define rape in order to have as many forms of rape excluded from being eligible for federal funding (rape, incest and risk to the mother's life are the common exceptions to these limitations). The result, of course is that any rape that did not require force (such as statutory rape, cases in which the victim was drugged, date rape, etc.) is not covered for federal aid. Remember that our laws are based on a precedent system. A man who drugs and rapes a woman can claim that because it wasn't forcible, it wasn't rape. The We Aren't Going To Give You Any Money Because You Weren't Raped -- You're Just A Whore law of 20__ will give him that precedent. This is what we call the slippery slope, folks. 

So now we've visited the end of birth control and the dumbing down of rape. And the next stop on the We Hate Women train? That would be birth control. If those vile terrorists can completely control our reproductive systems, they can control us. Limiting access to abortions and birth control or outlawing them altogether means that women will have a difficult time managing in the workplace. Kids tend to require their parents' presence at the most inopportune times. Once we're back to working menial jobs, it will be time to rescind our right to vote. 

Keep telling yourself that abortion is about babies. 

D