Emily Banks: The War on Women Part 1: Reproductive Rights

The article below was written by my dear friend Emily Banks , who just happens to be the wife of one of my oldest friends. When I first started spending time in San Diego, I found my friend John on Facebook and immediately looked him up and invited him to lunch. It had been 30 years since we'd seen each other and when he came to lunch he brought his lovely girlfriend with him. Em and I became fast friends, sharing everything from beach picnics to chocolate to Harry Potter and to my delight several months later my pal did the smart thing and married this completely brilliant woman. They have a beautiful baby named Xander and are owned by a fabulous dog named Tonks. Emily will be a regular contributor here on Pro-Choice America United and she has a razor sharp and fearless wit and is possessed of utterly irrepressible charm. The best part? She's actually about 20 years younger than me and she totally "gets it". She writes a wonderful blog called "Emily's Hollow", which you can find the link to in the Contributors section of this site. My son thinks that she's the funniest human being that he's ever met and I think that he's right. If you are ever lucky enough to meet her, beg her to bake something for you....grovel if you have to and get ready to love her as much as I do....

It seems like any time you read the news these days (or, rather, selective news sites: HuffPo, CNN, DailyKos…anything not run by NBC or Fox or ABC, in essence), there is a new story about the attack on women’s rights. The Pence Amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. A motion to eliminate Title X family planning (which, by the way, exists to help PREVENT unplanned pregnancies, not just terminate them; it also provides health screenings for low income women). Legislation to classify killing abortion providers as “manslaughter” instead of murder. To classify not only abortion, but also miscarriages without verifiable proof that there was no “human involvement,” as felonies punishable by the death penalty.

It’s outrageous, yes. It’s scary and infuriating and sickening and a whole bunch of other adjectives that cannot adequately describe what bills, laws, words, and attitudes like these are doing to the psyche of American women.

This isn’t about abortion. I know, right? It seems like it is. Abortion is one of the biggest buzz words going around political circles right now. Antiabortion. Abortion providers. Abortion proponents. The word is everywhere you turn.

It’s not even about being prolife or prochoice (as if the two are mutually exclusive). If it were, there’d be a lot more conversation about what prolife actually means (I’m prolife: I’m against a war based on lies, I’m for healthcare reform so that fewer people die of treatable diseases, I’m for not extending tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% so that social funding can keep people out of deadly poverty….I also happen to be for a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have a child.) There would be discussions about how a society that forces women to have children they cannot afford will help feed and house and clothe them.

This is about keeping women in their place. About telling them what to do. It’s about not trusting them to make tough decisions about their lives, their bodies, and their morals. It’s about letting the men stay in charge.

The abortions that WOULD be permitted? It depends on which white male is talking. “Forced rape” is a widely acceptable instance to permit the termination of a pregnancy; but then, of course, the woman would have to prove that she was forcibly raped. To a man. Another man telling her what to do against her wishes. Sometimes the woman’s own life may be saved by ending a pregnancy, but not always. I mean, after all, the woman has already lived her life! It’s her duty to provide life to another even if it kills her, right? Right…

I’ve heard and read various pundits referring to this … situation… as the “woman as cattle” movement. The idea being that those heading up these anti-women movements view women as nothing more than cattle to be bred and forgotten. But, really, it’s worse than that. Cattle raisers can get federal aide to help protect their livestock.

If any of these ideas turn into actual actions, then women will have less government support than cows.

And no matter what your stance on abortion is, for it, against, undecided, or circumstantial, the idea that women are treated with less respect than livestock is not OK. On any level.

Planned Parenthood Photograph courtesy of http://untitledtype.com/

Article By Emily Banks/ All rights reserved