Okay, I'm actually going to write about this. I have alluded to it before, but I'm actually just going to come out and rip the Republican party apart on this whole birth control / abortion / 'religious freedom' debate.
You wackjobs that have hijacked what would otherwise be a somewhat logical party in American politics, have fucked a lot of things up and are pushing our society backward. Why do I say this? Let's have a little look-see into Republican politics these days. I should point out that I am fully aware that great ideas come from Republicans too. I'm not in any way insinuating that there are not logical, forward thinking Republicans in the world. There are, I know many of them. However my friends, your party has been co-opted and dropped off the cliff of sanity.
At the moment, if you want any of the fiscal policies, tax breaks or whatever the party is offering via their candidates - things that they claim will boost jobs numbers and strengthen the economy, you have to buy the package. The package, is the super, duper, far right tea party, which comes inextricably with the right's bag of goods. This means, that while there is the campaign push for alternative policies to the ones currently in place economically, if you even think about going for that, you'll get hooked into a sharp right turn once the Republicans take office and all sorts of fun things like legislating god into government and the creation of road blocks that insert a bunch of old, white dudes into what goes on between a woman and her doctor, before an abortion, among other things.
But wait, isn't this the party of less government? Isn't this the party that wants the man out of their lives? Of course! How did I not put together that assuming all women are stupid and forcing them through an unnecessary and shaming medical procedure prior to undertaking something as intensely personal as the termination of a pregnancy, is logical? Of course, this means that if a lot of abortions are stopped due to the shame, or the unnecessary financial burden that paying for an expensive, last-minute ultrasound would bring, then yaaaay Republicans, right? I mean, lookit all those babies! Although statistically the majority of these babies would be born to lower income people. Lower income people, who can't afford to properly care for all of these children that the Tea Party contingent has saved. Lower income women who maybe already have a couple of children they are struggling to do right by. But that's the woman's problem TOO, as it turns out. She'll soon get no help at all.
And before you even say it, this whole 'well just don't have sex, then' argument is a bunch of shit and anyone who says it, must be delivering that message tongue-in-cheek. Even Republicans and Tea Partiers are fucking, often times waaaayy more kinkily than the rest of us.
But no bother.....we'll just go ahead and take away your birth control in the name of 'religious freedom', because some wacky right-winger in a fly-over red state pushed a bill through a republican controlled house and senate, because god told him to - despite the fact that what is up for discussion involves insurance that is paid for not by taxpayers, but by individuals themselves. So even though there is the medical fact that the medicine in birth control does more than just prevent babies, it should be made unavailable to vast numbers of women, because without insurance or planned parenthood, that, too, is prohibitively expensive. Don't think he'll undo coverage of Cialis, though. No way.
And before all you swinging dicks out there say that a woman "should find another partner to buy her birth control for her" (and yes, someone actually made that argument to me), condoms are not the only - or the best - way to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Taking away a woman's right to family planning is unethical and fucked up. Adding the insult of telling her to find a man to take care of her is just a misogynistic, asshole thing to do. Because now you take away pretty much every way a woman has to control her sexuality and her procreation. And here's something to note, old, out of touch dudes in government....the only reason this is even the quandary that it is, is that we as women are simply outnumbered in government representation. But your grip, it's slipping.
See men don't get this because they are not the ones that have to actually deal with it all. You know who is left holding the bag every time? The woman. She has to make the decisions, go to all of the appointments, carry the baby, go through the pains, rearrange her entire life and then, for at least the next eighteen years, be the primary caretaker of this child. By putting a woman through unnecessary procedures, prior to allowing her to exercise her right to an abortion - and I predict that without reliable and affordable birth control, the rate of unwanted pregnancies and therefor abortions will rise - the woman is left to deal with all of it, taking on the financial and emotional burden of a child she did not want or could not afford to want. And then, of course, add in the likelihood that she is not getting any help from the guy who knocked her up, because he doesn't have to carry the baby and he can run around acting like he doesn't know, it's not his, or he just doesn't want it. This, incidentally, is not a man-hating kind of post. Men are fantastic in many situations. On the subject of a woman's uterus as it pertains to legalese and the stripping of rights....not so much.
Yeah, you don't see a ton of men sticking around in these situations. No emotional, physical, or financial responsibility for men, unless they choose to take it - at least for the duration of the unwanted pregnancy. He can just say no and drop off, until the [unwanted] child is born and the woman puts up the money to drag the guy to court. Again, all on her. And you know why that is? Because men don't have to stick around. I guess technically neither do women, but you don't often see women abandoning their own kids.
No, instead, the woman will work 3 jobs trying to make ends meet. She can't go to school to get ahead in the job market, because she's got to feed these kids. And she's got to get them to school and when they get sick, she needs to find a way to pay for their medical care, since she can't get insurance at any of her 3 working class jobs; or the amount she has to pay in to get insurance, means she wouldn't be able to afford her rent, or get her 1991 Nissan Sentra fixed again, since she can't afford a new car. All of this could have been avoided if she could have gone to Planned Parenthood to get her annual check up, get screened for both cervical and breast cancer, and get some birth control, which would then pretty much clear up that future part of her financial burden, as she'd be able to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. This is obviously not every story, but this scenario in sum or in part is the story for a disproportionate number of women.
Taking away something as simple and important as birth control has a ripple effect that no one seems to want to think about, or that Republicans don't give a shit about (take your pick). If the Republican party in its current form continues with it's line of reasoning on this subject, this mother won't get any support with medical care for her children - since the state took away her ability to feasibly limit the size of her family, because it's apparently wrong for an elected government to care - in any form - for its constituents.
This may seem insanely illogical, but it seems to me that the cost of birth control is far, far less costly than entire households draining the system - be it welfare, prison, or otherwise. And to Rush Limbaugh's comment that the Democrats are "afraid of birth", um, you, sir, have a spotless record of not producing offspring. And while I'm at it, thank the universe for that gift - someone in Limbaugh's camp seems to be hitting the birth control pretty hard.
As for all of these hoops that women - who have been called stupid, irresponsible and slut - have to jump through to terminate a pregnancy, all I can say is:
Right wing nut-jobs, get the fuck away from my uterus and to use the old phrase, 'keep your laws off my body'. Our population is 51% women. We clearly need a representative goverment.
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