Blighted Choice
By Chelle Stockman
No reservations necessary! Wombs available in America. The unborn strangers have rights to life at the expense of a woman’s right to choose. Apparently the wombs of American women are the new courthouses for creationists.
Yes, the moral extremists are at it again. In the past they maintained that a married woman is not allowed to deny her husband his sexual cravings, not allowed to take contraceptives if that husband wants children and if the unmarried women have sex then they must suffer the consequences and bear the fruit of their shame. They have demonstrated consistently their beliefs that a woman does not have the right to choose; and have vehemently fought against a woman’s right to terminate pregnancy even in the first trimester citing a passage of Exodus that declares an eye for an eye or a life for a life mandate.
But in truth, women have, for the most part, found a way to get around terminating unwanted pregnancies. How? Contraception. The right to contraception is coming under fire and along with it, a woman’s rights. The two cannot be separated in this matter. Thinkchastity.com warns moral extremists about the evil of practicing contraception outside of abstinence and has made it their mission to disband Planned Parenthood and deprive women of their rights over their own sexual behaviors.
In 2004, lawmakers in Mississippi passed a bill which allows health care specialists, doctors, nurses, etc., to refuse dispensing medicines or services because of their moral or ethical beliefs. According to Associated Press (2-10-05) a group of anti-abortionists going by the name of Pharmacists for Life (PFL) called for pharmacists to refuse to distribute emergency contraceptives (EC). I’m surprised they didn’t threaten the pharmacists with the death penalty alternative if they didn’t comply with PFL’s requests.
Karen Brauer, right wing member of this pharmacist group, lied to patrons coming for the Morning-After-Pill and for monthly contraceptive packets at the K-Mart Pharmacy in Ohio. April 16, 2001, Bill O'Reilly of “The O’Reilly Factor” interviewed her and Brauer admitted to lying to the patron thus denying her a monthly refill for contraceptives.
That’s some morality they are bullying women with. Where was Brauer’s moral conscience when she made the choice to lie to the patron? Perhaps it is OK to lie if it lands you national attention and creates legislation in the favor of your political standards.
This double-speak must be exposed for what it really is—the disarming of women to have a choice. Look, in our society, gun owners have amendments protecting their right to ownership and self defense while women are close to having their procreative decisions decided for them by the courts in accordance to President Bush’s agenda. Posted on National Organization of Women’s (NOW) website is a list of what Bush accomplished in his first term. Here are a few of them:
- Dangerously limited access to emergency contraception (EC)
- Signed into law an unconstitutional federal abortion ban
- Expanded ineffective, biased abstinence-only programs
- Relentlessly pushed so-called “fetal rights” initiatives
George Bush was right about one thing. We “misunderestimated” him when he promised to “rid the world of evildoers.” And to think I thought he was kidding when he said, “A dictatorship would be a lot easier.”
President of Catholics for Christian Political Action Gary Potter said a long time ago, “After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil.” Years later his good intentions were echoed at a banquet sponsored by the U.S. Taxpayers Alliance. On August 8 1995, Operation Rescue founder and anti-abortionist Randall Terry expanded on Potter’s philosophy and said, “When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we’ll execute you.” He like many other over the top right wing zealots choose to ignore much of theprecepts of the Old Testament but cite Exodus 21:22-25 which awards judgment against someone who causes a premature birth that is unharmed and also severely penalizes someone who causes a miscarriage resulting in death with the judgment of capital punishment. Not only is abortion considered to be murder and ought to be punished as such; to the members of these organizations contraception is also murder. I wonder how many of these people eat pork or have ever advanced money and acted like a money lender exacting interest. It seems to me that for members of these organizations, beasts have more rights than do women wishing to have control over their procreative choices.
This world is growing crazier faster than we can fill our Viagra prescriptions. We sustain this lunacy as some hope to sustain an erection. Where are the voices of these right wing organizations when it comes to interfering with nature in regard to a man’s ability to perform? When it comes to artificial insemination or the use of fertility drugs I never hear them squawking. While the Bible says if we didn’t speak out the rocks would, I’m surprised my vagina hasn’t spit forth an issue or two. If it could speak it would say, “Get over that garden incident and leave what fruit comes from our wombs out of your politics. The tree of knowledge wasn’t supposed to make vengeful dummies out of you.” Jesus, I’d hate to see mankind’s intelligence before they ate of that tree.
