Holy War on Women

　
Holy War against Women
March is Women's History month. In the middle to late 1800's, Aaron A. Sargent, a Republican US Senator from Califonia resided right here on Broad St. in Nevada City with his wife Ellen Clark Seragent. Ellen Sargent formed the first Suffragist movement in Nevada City in 1869 and Susan B. Anthony was a friend and vistor to their home. Aaron Sargent was moved by their struggle for an equal political voice and is attributed with the wording of what would become the 19th amendment. The bill would be introduced unsucessfully each year for 40 years, but it wasnt until after their deaths that the 19th amendment was voted into law in 1920.
So, where are the men who stand up for women's rights today?
President Obama has been a friend to women's health with new contraceptive guidelines under the Affordable Care Act. The ACA ended the discriminatory practice of insurers charging women 50% more than men for health coverage. He has made sure that ALL women have access to contraception by compromising wih religious institutions who will not have to provide contraceptive coverage that conflicts with religious beliefs. A woman's insurer will be required to offer her coverage without additional cost. The compromise resolved religious liberty concerns while respecting the health needs of women. The Catholic Health Association has lauded the decision. But that's not good enough for some.

The League of Women Voters has issued an alert regarding the Blunt-Rubio amendment being introduced in the Senate which would limit access to contraceptive services for women if any employer or insurance plan had a "moral objection" to it. Since when is an employee's medical record the business of an employer? What is the boss doing in our bed?
And can I hear the word Vasectomy? Just once? Vasectomies are covered by most health insurance. But Conservatives dare not mess with the male vote. Let's be clear, women, if men were the ones to get pregnant, it would interfere with their golf swing.
All four standing candidates in the Republican Presidential Primaries have stated their intent to repeal the health care reform law which eliminates the economic barriers to contraception. In other words, wealthy women will still be able to shop till they drop for contraception, undergo abortions in spa-like surroundings , and hand pick surrogate mothers to carry their children. Working women, not so much.

Why are the voices we hear not from women, but from fanatical politicans like Rick Santorum and religious celibates like Archbishop Tim Dolan, who blur political platform and Church Law. It has become a holy war for Rick Santorum. Like a comical Jughead in a lopsided mitre, Santorum continues to spew his personal religious edicts from the bully pulpit in a flagrant disregard for American women under the Constitution: their needs, their rights, their choices, their voices, and their place in society.
The truth is.... family plannng is a moral responsibility. Not a sin. And Abstinence rarely works.
If an American woman does not have freedom over her own reproductive health choices, made in most cases with her own husband and her doctor, then that woman is as much imprisoned in a radical religious culture as her counterparts in the Muslim world.
Republican Governor Bob McDonald of Virginia recently introduced an invasive Intravaginal Ultrasound bill which would require a woman seeking an abortion to submit to a mandatory Intra Vaginal ultrasound. Alabama, Virginia , and Pennsylvania quickly followed suit. Lets get this straight........Rep. Rand Paul refuses to go through an airport security patdown because it is an invasion of his liberties. A patdown. But a woman seeking an abortion must submit to a mandatory 10 inch ultrasound wand intravaginally?
We cannot wait for Darrel Issa to ask a woman or a woman's health advocate to speak before Congress on the issue of Religious Rights and Women's Health. It didnt happen. Apparently, women ovulate, lactate, and dilate, but only men can dictate when it comes to womens reproductive health. Women in this nation need to sit up in the stirrups and ask the question....Whose body is this, anyway? We must speak loud and clear with the vote handed down to us by the women, and men, who fought long and hard for a woman's voice in politics almost 100 years ago. We must use our voice in our vote and speak out for ourselves.
Pssst, Contraception prevents Abortion.