The attached recent New York Times (Feb. 24, 2012) article highlighted some of the women’s issues raised by Republicans in recent weeks. As an outsider (i.e. a Canadian), I find the debate hard to believe and almost farcical in its tone given that this is the Twenty-First Century.
Okay Republicans, let’s have a Congressional hearing on women’s health issues (i.e. contraception) and invite only male representatives from a few selected religious organizations. God knows, no woman or women’s organization could possibly have anything important to say about such matters.
The Times’ article alludes to the fact that such anachronistic thinking could very well lead to so-called moderate and independent women voting for Democrats in the next election. Wow, no kidding!!!! First, one can only hope that there are some independent thinking women out there who believe that issues such as contraception and abortion are important to them. Imagine speaking out against pre-natal screening or requiring women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound in this day and age.
And what’s up with all these attacks on organizations such as Planned Parenthood? It’s bad enough that the U.S. leads all industrialized countries in the number of unplanned pregnancies among young single women, especially among minorities. Oh yes, let’s not even talk about introducing or improving sex education in one’s schools, as if to say that teenagers aren’t going to think about the subject at some point. This would certainly be news to the huge American pornography industry.
If I were a woman in the United States right now, I’d have to think hard and long about voting for a party with such regressive and demeaning thinking. It’s one thing to have strong religious beliefs, but it’s totally different to have the state impose them on all its citizens. I firmly believe, as did former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau did, that the state should stay out of the bedrooms of the nation. But then again, although a Catholic, he was just one of those crazy socialists north of the American border!
FROLITICKS 