EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Reproductive Rights Redux
Americans hate to be told what to do–even when it’s in our own best interests.
Today’s brouhaha over the Obama Administration’s decision to require employers to provide insurance fully covering birth control is a case in point.
Catholic employers are protesting that “It’s not the issue of contraception, but religious freedom,” according to today’s Washington Post, which quoted one Sister Carol Keehan as saying: “It’s not about preventing women from buying anything themselves, but telling the church what it has to buy, and the potential for that to go further.”
Let’s remember that no one is making women go out and buy contraception. The ruling is simply intended to make contraception, including the morning-after pill, available to all employees free of charge through normal employer health coverage.
Excuse me, isn’t this a great thing?
I remember when Viagra was first introduced commercially, women were outraged over the fact that insurance companies were willing to give men coverage to maintain their erections, but women who wanted to prevent pregnancy had to pay for it out of pocket.
And women’s contraception isn’t cheap! Whether it’s a diaphragm, an IUD, or hormone pills and implants, it’s expensive for women to opt out of reproduction. It’s not equivalent to a man picking up a condom over the counter at the drug store. All of the methods I’ve listed above involve visits to a prescribing doctor, which significantly ups the price.
Although men may beg to differ, I’d maintain that the question of reproductive freedom is of far more importance to women than erections are to men. An erection may come and go, but a child is here to stay. And a child has a far more powerful repercussion on her mother’s life than she does on her father’s life.
Both of my pregnancies were undertaken intentionally and with joy. I am not complaining, but it’s undeniable that having children has impacted my life much than it has affected my ex-husband (even when we were still together). I know this is not true for every couple, but it’s true for a lot of us women. Our gender still gives us a special extra role to play in bringing the next generation along.
And that’s a pretty important role! So why shouldn’t society help us to ensure that when we bring children into the world, it’s with our eyes wide open and every intention of taking our parenting seriously?
Making it more affordable for women to obtain birth control will increase the likelihood that more children will be born to mothers–and families–that are ready and able to support them. In this day and age, with 7 billion human beings crowding our Earth, that is an important goal in itself.
No one is advocating that we actually limit reproduction, as the Chinese have done, but at least let’s make it easy and affordable for women who want to postpone or avoid childbirth to do so.
The Obama Administration deserves our gratitude and applause for having the courage to turn the corner on this contentious issue. President Obama should hold his ground.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
12 Comments so far
Show AllGreat article Jennifer. I hope you're not asking the loonies to be sensible....
Dear Jennifer: Every word you've shared is the Goddess-honored truth; however, the campaigns against funding birth control, or denying funds to Planned Parenthood are attempts at what author Susan Faludi termed, "Backlash." The dominant (and dominating) fundamentalist religions, run by authoritarian patriarchs, want to push women back into a time period when they had NO rights over their own bodies. The misogyny could not be clearer.
As I shared on another thread, members of our own MIC (or was it State Department?) actually sought to curry favor with Taliban "leaders," by giving THEM Viagra to use on 14-year old "brides" sold into virtual sex slavery.
In the U.S. that would constitute acting as an accessory to a crime: the sexual molestation of an under-age child.
What is done unto women becomes a direct extension of what is done unto the Earth Mother. How many once pristine ecosystems are littered in waste, rendered dead zones? How many regions suffocated of life, or left with the residue of, take your pick: Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium, Land Mines, or the latest killer polymer.
Until MAN sees WOMAN as his partner and equal, all of this crap hiding behind religious doctrine will continue. As Riane Eisler so wisely related, when societies came to be dominated by male warriors, the female HALF of humanity was undervalued, undermined, and denied power, a voice, and representation.
The result is where we are now: a world with only the most malicious, sociopathic top dogs running things, Mother Nature run down (in many places irreparably), monetary systems unhinged from any viable measures of wealth, and as millions starve and go homeless... always the MONEY is there to support war, warriors, and the latest design in weaponry.
The paradigm is not only sick and twisted, its lack of balance is the key to what will cause it to implode. Everything about it IS anti-life, yet by sending armed guards to protect the female womb from the host's OWN volitional behaviors, these 21st century Crusaders pretend to act as Life's own advocates. Meanwhile they're the first ones to line up for war, a new M.E. Crusades, endless forms of ecocide, and the very politicians that would consign their own ethnic groups (and financial strata) to yet more misery!
We are taught to view reality through different prisms or subject areas. However, to those who dare to connect the big dots, the causative factors become clear. A vision correction is overdue, and thankfully, the Youth, for the most part, appear to get it... their renewal of communal ideas, those consistent with Partnership (as in fair & equitable) societies is on view for all the world to see. Eventually, their vision will prevail to become what IS next.
Brilliant! You really have superb insight. A minor point but I think an important one. Birth control pills are frequently prescribed for gynecological reasons other than birth control per se...endometriosis and the like. Here goes the baby out with the bath water again...I'm all for the employees faith paractices remaining uncompromised (disagree with them though I must) but they still have a choice to have the drugs prescribed or not. HOWEVER universal health care (sans insurance company interference and profit taking) would have solved this little problem.
I hope you're right about the Youth, Siouxrose, but having worked with teens and young adults most of my adult life, I am worried about this. The media is such a powerful force--it can be for good or for ill, and right now the dark side is ascendant in much of the media that has our young people enthralled. It's a constant struggle for me in my own home, with my teenaged boys, to keep them from being constantly, in every free moment, glued in to one violent game or another. And I only allow the most benign of these games in the house! Most families are much more permissive in this regard than I am. So...what will be the effect of all these hours and hours of childhood and youth being spent on participating in media-driven violence? We are already starting to see it....
Jbrowdy: Like you, I have two children; and like you, judging from your full name, I was also married to a man of Latin background. In addition, I did most of the raising of the children alone. Regardless of our efforts or example, each child carries an imprint of their own and moves along their own karmic trajectory. For example: One of my daughters is receptive to everything spiritual, and quite aware of the multiple tracks of devastation being pursued by today's mis-leaders. The other is seeking financial Nirvana through "The System."
I preface my comment in this way to suggest that obviously not all "Youth" get it. I am inspired by the young who are involved in all the Occupy movements, worldwide. And yet I fully agree with you about the ubiquitous forms of media indoctrination. In fact, I've often waxed lyrical in this forum about the fact that tomorrow's youngsters may not know (or understand) all the things that have gone missing in the way of Nature's pristine abundance, or the liberties that so many citizens could (for a time) take for granted.
I should not have painted with such a broad brush stroke. Besides, as an astrologer I recognize that in any generation pool, there can always be found a percentage of visionary radicals and a percentage of natural-born authoritarians. I view earth as a school house, and the Zodiac, as its cosmic plan ("As above, so below" style). Through the abrasions made inevitable by the interaction of the (human) parts, the facets (on a collective basis) grow the whole. Earth signs tend to be conservative and fire signs more given to free expression. (The chart, as a whole, tells the story. Sun-sign "analysis" alone only skims the surface.)
And because each Age enlivens one of the 12 Quintessential lesson plans built into the cosmic curricula, the one next up--Aquarius--happens to favor the Free Radical. Therefore Youth that naturally resonates with that calling will lead the pack out of the long, thick fog of deception that has characterized the ending phase of The Piscean Age, along with its dying paradigm.
No elite is powerful enough to stop the cosmic clock or shift the celestial tidal surges that give rise to these powerful Ages. To anyone who studies the subject, the links become obvious. (Alan Oken is most noted for his published works on this subject in the field of astrology.)
Marlborough: If the above compliment was addressed to me, thank you very much.
from the article:
~ And women’s contraception isn’t cheap! Whether it’s a diaphragm, an IUD, or hormone pills and implants, it’s expensive for women to opt out of reproduction. It’s not equivalent to a man picking up a condom over the counter at the drug store. ~
given that the world we know is criminal, at heart, and the pharmaceutical and insurance industries among the worst of the worst, I can't help but pause at this sentence, as she seems to contracept, I mean contradict, herself...
it has been my experience that women's contraception can be precisely equivalent to a man picking up a condom...
some of the women I have known have made a condom a requirement of intercourse...
some haven't...
According to Talking Points Memo this morning, the Susan B. Komen foundation caved to the bad publicity and announced it will restore funding to Planned Parenthood. The power of negative publicity.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/komen-reverses-on-planned-parenthood-pledges-to-continue-funding.php?ref=fpa
I think this is a temporary triumph, not a victory. The right wing assault on women's reproductive services will continue. My thought is that what they're really against is birth control of all kinds, that abortion gets the lion's share of their verbal abuse because that's the most hot button birth control method. They're not pro life, they're anti sex. They want to reverse the sexual revolution as a way to put uppity women back where they think they should be.
"No one is advocating that we actually limit reproduction, as the Chinese have done... "
Oh, really?
This legislation is not a matter I follow closely. Does anyone know what the situation is with regard to insurance coverage for surgical sterilization - tubal ligation and vasectomy?
As someone familiar with some historical trivia, examination of records of the Vatican Bank turned up evidence of investment in European companies that manufactured birth control pessaries.
Trylon
The Catholic Church has stood by her convictions and will not cave to secular morals. Politicians (Obama) have changed the wording of the First Amendment to say "freedom of worship" meaning what goes on inside the church,when, in actuality, the Constitution guarantees" freedom of religion", the right to practice OUTSIDE the church and proclaim your tenets without retribution. This was so important to the Founding Fathers that it was the First of many important additions to that document some of us hold so dear. We do not support abortion in any form,at any time, under any circumstances ....let the persecution begin, it will not matter to those who walk in .....
Peace
The word that has hate built in ABORTION. No one in his right mind wants to terminate a fetus. Some women give birth to very ill children and give the child all the love and support that they can muster,
I believe in CHOICE but I agree with the Right To Life citizens who want to preserve life at all costs if possible.
The enemy is the intolerant who distort the real story.
My heart goes out to those Mom's and Dad's and siblings who do not have a completely healthy sibling born due to some genetic aberration but treat them with care and love them.
Can women stop providing PIV (penis in vagina) to males and be done with problems of STDs, pregnancy, complications of pregnancy, risks of contraceptive use and adverse side effects? There's lots of ways for save 'outercourse" that maximizes female pleasure and does not expose us to risk, including life threatening risks. Maternal health mortality in U,S. is shockingly high.
Birth control pills decrease female libido. But, provide males 24/7 access to PIV. Why do women take birth control pills that destroys their libido and perhaps PERMANENTLY?
80% of women do not climax with PIV. Why is PIV the virtual definition for the female sexual experience?
The world does not need any more babies. Maybe it's time to question needing PIV.
22-43% of women report to their doctor each year a disinterest in sex. Hmmmm. Yawn. Bored with commercially-based (what real woman ever wanted to be slapped, hair pulled and cum on face as in porn?) push-button consumer style robotic sex?
I nominate women all read Lysistrata. Greek women refused sex for almost two years to end war. The Bolivia women refused sex and food, they occupied their public markets until Bechtel was thrown out of their country. Women should unite as a CLASS!
Time for women to question men and especially conservative men: look, you rape us, you kill our babies in your wars, you traffick our children and women for your demand for prostituted persons, so why should women still want to have PIV sex with you?