by MzNicky
The War on Women proceeds apace, as the righteous coalition of craven politicians, rabid misogynists and gadfly godbags arrays its mighty armies to cover just about every possible front, from preconception to postmortem, in the battle against female reproductive freedom.
Let’s recap some recent skirmishes, shall we?
*Super-Christian pharmacists who feel all morally-dilemma-ish about filling prescriptions for Plan B (the “morning-after” pill), or even for regular oral contraceptives that have been around for, oh, about 40 years, are now allowed to clutch their crucifixes, sniff self-righteously, and send the slut/customer off to get her devil pills elsewhere. (Which moral dilemma said prescription-fillers would not have to face in the first place, if the current Bush-infested FDA had taken the advice of its own panel of advisers and made Plan B available over-the-counter.)
Permission to deny prevention of pregnancy in the first place, Sir? Granted.
*An actual cancer vaccine—that is, a vaccine that prevents cancer— is now being readied by the FDA for use this June. Given to pre-sexually active girls, the vaccine would prevent cervical cancer caused by the sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV). But hold on just a minute, there, future sluts of America! Quoth one Leslee J. Unruh, president of an actual organization that’s actually called the Abstinence Clearinghouse: “Premarital sex is dangerous, even deadly. Let’s not encourage it by vaccinating ten-year-olds so they think they’re safe.” Oh God, no, let’s not. Good grief, we can’t have our children vaccinated against cancer for fear it will turn them into prepubescent succubi running amok with the giddy knowledge that they’re safe from a malignant disease. Thus the Bush administration, of course!, opposes distribution of the vaccine, which, according to David Baltimore, Nobel laureate and president of the California Institute of Technology, “could save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.” Guess it’s a good thing mumps and measles don’t encourage sexual promiscuity!
Permission to expose young girls to a wholly-preventable form of cervical cancer rather than risk the possibility it will turn them into nymphomaniacs, Sir? Granted.
*One Mel Feit, head of something that’s actually called the National Men’s Rights Movement, appearing on CNN on March 15, laid out the basics of a lawsuit that’s actually being called the “Roe v. Wade for Men” case. Feit insists that it’s all about “supporting choice” and “empowering women.” Speaking on behalf of a young man who’s filed suit to avoid paying child support for the daughter he spawned but says he didn’t want, yet his girlfriend fiendishly went ahead and bore anyway, Feit whined about how men “have no legal voice in the birth or abortion of a child...he never chose to be a father...This [lawsuit] is an attempt to solidify choice for women by bringing men into it.”
Permission for men to choose whether an impregnated woman has an abortion or a baby, and then choose to refuse to support one’s choice monetarily if one so chooses, in the name of choice and empowerment for women, Sir? Granted.
*Possibly complicating the Men’s Rights Movement’s burning desire to ensure “choice”: About 15 states now stand eagerly in line, predrafted forced-childbirth bills in hand, shoving and jostling each other to see whose is bigger and thus will be selected for consideration by the newly neocon-packed US Supreme Court. The hope, of course, is to at long last succeed in toppling the evil Roe v. Wade decree that freed women to finally fulfill their life’s goal of killing babies. Our own Tennessee legislators, those busy-body little bees who apparently have nothing else to do, have drafted about 6,000 (give or take) bits of legislation designed to flay the hide off the reproductive-choice demon. Frantically scrambling aboard the forced-childbirth bandwagon, Tennessee lawmakers hope to go South Dakota one better by decreeing that pregnancy termination is not only a great big no-no for children and women who are impregnated while being raped during nocturnal visits from dear ol’ dad or Uncle Dick, or even by unwanted non-family members, but also for those whose very lives or health are threatened by pregnancy.
Permission to compel children to bear their own siblings, force women to bear the spawn of men who have violently fucked them up but good, and sentence to death women whose pregnancies go horribly awry, Sir? Granted.
More missives covering the various battles in the War on Women to come, as they develop, which they surely will.
Related TGW post: The War on Women: A Modest Proposal
Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy has more on 'a man's right to choose.'
Reproductive Rights Feminism Patriarchy War on Women Men's Rights Abortion Roe vs. Wade for Men SJR 127 Tennessee South Dakota
posted by egalia for MzNicky