Roe v. Wade

Every day is a Blog for Choice day here, but this post is a few days late.

When it comes to abortion, there are a lot of nutters who believe that a woman's only proper function is as a baby factory. Many, if not most, of these folks would deny it, but when you get down to their opposition of birth control and sex education, and their calls for government-enforced pregnancy, it becomes pretty clear that a woman's right to her own body -- and even her right to her own life -- is at best contingent upon absence of the presence of sperm within a stone's throw of her womb.

Then there are those folks who find abortion to be "icky" and just don't like to think about it.

The big buzz phrase now in this current period of ephemeral desire for "bi-partisan" solutions is "common ground." Find "common ground" on abortion.

Can there be common ground? Really?

The fundamentalists pushing for criminalization are not just against abortion, they're against birth control and sex education. To them, the problem isn't that teenagers are getting pregnant, it's that teenagers getting pregnant should be punished for getting pregnant. Heck, not just teenagers -- let's throw in adult women. Let's throw in married adult women. Let's throw in married adult women who've already borne familes.

They're against pharmacists even providing birth control. They're against Plan B. They're against the HPV vaccine.

What they don't talk about, but what is the obvious result of their ideological

How do you find "common ground" with such people?

Links to other posts I saw:

PunditMom writes:

As a young adult in the late '70s and early '80s, trying to juggle two or three jobs, a full college classload and an unstable husband (now ex-husband), I hoped and prayed that I would not find myself pregnant or that I would ever have to make a decision about what to do about an unwanted pregnancy.

But I felt safe knowing that, even with the precautions of birth control, that if one little sperm got through, the government would not be able to intrude in my personal decisions about my body, whatever I decided.

Jessica Valenti puts it plain on HuffPo:

Today--on the 34th anniversary of Roe v Wade--I have a request. Instead of writing about the legislation, the rhetoric, or the politics surrounding reproductive rights and justice, let's keep it simple. Let's just trust women.

Seems easy enough, I know. But given that over 30 years after Roe women are still fighting the same battles, maybe we need a remedial course.

A better run-down is over at Fetch me my axe.

from Talk to Action

This Monday, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins came out swinging.

USA Today this morning gave front-page treatment to a story on the possible consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court amending its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion. "Rules on abortion may depend on where you live," headlined the newspaper. NARAL's Kellie Copeland is quoted saying "[We] feel the fight is coming back to the states." ... What this points to is the impact that the pro-life movement has had on the nation--more states than not would stand on the side of life, showing how far out the courts are on this issue of abortion. Pro-abortionists are growing desperate attempting now not only to silence the voice of the unborn but those that advocate for them as well.

Ummm ... well, Tony, not quite. Apparently fearing the same firestorm of a backlash that now has quite a few of the heroes of the South Dakota legislature scrambling to defend themselves even against more moderate challengers within their own party, plenty of their co-advocates in statehouses around the country are smelling smoke on the wind ... and prudently silencing themselves.

from Talk to Action

Talk to Action's dogemperor has documented extensively, and Ethics Daily concurs, that the Religious Right has an increasingly dangerous tendency to confuse medical mortality and morbidity with divine punishment for what they believe to be sexual impurity -- a moral blindness evident in their response to the cervical cancer vaccine that, when administered to girls under age 16, promises to confer near total immunity in later life. But the cancer in question is cervical cancer, its precursor is Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), and HPV is contracted through having ... uh ... sex.

Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

We have news from South Dakota.

South Dakotans Launch Major Grassroots Effort to Repeal Over-reaching State Abortion Ban

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 24, 2006

SIOUX FALLS, SD -- Today the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, a new coalition of community leaders from across the state, announced the launch of a major grassroots mobilization to refer the state abortion ban to the November ballot. The referral will allow South Dakotans to vote to overturn the nation's most extreme abortion law which was signed by Governor Mike Rounds on March 6. With Governor Round's signature, this law clearly endangers the health of women in South Dakota and violates the right of women and families to make private, personal health care decisions.

::::more below the fold::::also posted at Our Word::::

from Talk to Action

Your wife, your mother, your sister, your daughter . . . or somebody else's criminal? A woman you love, or what Covenant News calls just another murderous mom?

Thoreau said, "The soul of man exists in the Contemplation of the nature of women behind bars." In this, as in so many other things, he appears to have been right.