I admit it’s far easier to write a review of the latest Thud and Dunder Hollywood blockbuster, or talk about the latest video game and why the Mass Effect 3 ending sucked so bad, and being able to point readers toward a terrific book is one of my favorite things to do here on the blog.  But sometimes the world intrudes and I have to talk about unpleasant topics — like the all out assault on women’s rights that is currently underway in this country.  This is a story that has many threads that all come together into one terribly ugly quilt that is it’s best case makes women second class citizens in terms of their earning abilities (http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2013/02/14/gender-pay-gap-wider-2012-and-its-great-for-women/), and their rights to make health decisions for themselves, and in the worst case enslaves and imprisons them.

I’m going to start with a little story, but bear with me there is a point to this.  (I feel like Jolee in Knights of the Old Republic.  There, there’s the obligatory nod to games).  Back when I was in law school we were required to do a clinical program dealing with real clients and real courts.  I ended up a public defender at a place called Centro Legal.  We handled low level cases — DUI, minor marijuana possession, that kind of thing.  What I learned during that summer in a very visceral and in my-face-way was there is one kind of justice for the poor and minorities and it’s too often brutal and demeaning.  I also discovered that most of my clients shared a particular mental quirk — the seemed utterly unable to predict consequences.  The idea that if they did A B would inevitably follow seemed to elude them.

I see this same mental disconnect among Republicans as regards birth control and abortion.  Across the country states are making it more and more difficult for women, particularly poor women, to obtain family planning help and advice.  Sometimes this means an abortion.  Sometimes it’s getting a prescription for birth control, or a mammogram or a pap smear.  They have aggressively pushed “abstinence only” education even though in study after study it has been demonstrably proved to fail at keeping horny teenagers from “doing it”.  Surprisingly pregnancies result when unprotected sex is practiced, but sex education classes have been severely curtailed in many high schools.

Under the new ACA birth control is supposed to be provided free of charge by insurance companies to women of child bearing age as part of preventative care.  Certain companies owned by powerful right wing people have sued to be allowed to avoid this requirement on the grounds this is against their religious convictions.  Mind you these are not churches or organizations funded by churches that have been exempted from this requirement.  These are for profit companies like Hobby Lobby or Domino Farms.  (You can find a full list of the companies in this article.the-18-for-profit-companies-fighting-to-eliminate-the-birth-control-benefit)  They are claiming this under the so-called “Conscience Clause” and it is being aggressively pushed by Republicans in Congress.  Right now the courts all all over the board on their rulings, but the latest ruling by a George W. Bush appointee has struck down the ACA requirement arguing that since corporations are people they have the right to religious convictions as well.  Which is patently absurd.  Extraordinary rights are being extended to a corporation while we ignore the rights of the very real people who work for those companies and may not share the same religious beliefs or attitudes.  And these business owners are not in fact providing the birth control, insurance companies are providing this coverage.

So now we have women denied the ability to control their reproduction and decide when they wish to have a child.  Add to that the ferocious effect to make access to abortion more and more difficult in many Republican controlled states — Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas,  I could go on and on.  And here’s the disconnect comes in.  If you don’t educate teenagers, and allow kids to buy condoms and don’t allow women easy access to birth control women will get pregnant and some of them will want to have an abortion, but the Republicans profess to hate abortion so why won’t they support efforts to prevent the pregnancy in the first place?  If A happens B will result.  Simple, but it seems to elude these legislators.

Now add to this a Wisconsin law that allows the state to imprison a pregnant woman if it’s believed she is on drugs.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/us/case-explores-rights-of-fetus-versus-mother.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0  Is is smart for a pregnant woman to take drugs?  No.  Are there better ways to deal with it then forcibly locking her up, assigning a lawyer for the fetus, but not for her?  Assuredly.  The result is that women become afraid to seek pre-natal care which is far more dangerous than the problem the law is meant to address.  In Virginia the Republican currently running for Attorney General of that state proposed a law that would require a women to report her miscarriage to the police within 24 hours.  mark-obenshain-miscarriage-bill_n_3307578.html.  All of these laws functionally strip virtually all rights from the woman.  One could go so far that this is reaching the point where a woman once she is pregnant can be enslaved by the state and forced to bear that child.  Are all the rights of a woman secondary to the fetus?  Is she merely an ambulatory womb without rights or volition?

Finally there is the Congressman who suggested that schools should be required to teach “appropriate gender roles”  http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/06/19/2182311/gingrey-teach-gender-roles/.  This was in a debate over gay marriage, but the message is clear.  Women need to know their place — in the kitchen and preferably pregnant.

Where is all of this coming from?  I think it goes back to the old Madonna/Whore dichotomy where women are concerned.  I agree with my friend, Sage Walker, a retired doctor, that of all the amazing changes and advancements in the twentieth century nothing had the impact of the birth control pill.  Not the internet, not computers, not airplanes.  Nothing had the potential to reset the societal board the way the pill did.  People could have sex just for fun.  They didn’t have to worry about sex outside of marriage.  Women could enjoy multiples partners.  Women were on an equal footing with men where sex was concerned and by extension in public life as well because when you can delay childbirth or choose to forgo it all together you can finish law school or medical school, found your own company, become an astronaut, etc. etc.  In the minds of many on the right the pill made all women “whores”, and whores must be punished.  They must be forced to get pregnant when they have sex outside of marriage.  They must be forced to bear that child even if they don’t want it, can’t afford it, even if that child was conceived in rape or incest because somehow the woman was “asking for it”.

So, yes, there is a war on women and it’s getting worse every day across the entire nation.  If any one who visits my site happens to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico please, please, please go out and vote on Tuesday November 19th.  A ban on all abortions after 20 weeks is on the ballot and it has be defeated.  It’s a small election, just some city counsellors, but this bill makes this a very big election and worth you making the effort to go and vote.  If I still lived in Albuquerque you can bet I would vote and be helping get people to the polls.  Show these people we’re not whores, we’re not mere wombs and we have rights.