The New War Against Women

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Mary Griggs, Rant, Women's Rights

(c) by Mary Griggs

We are twelve years into the new millennium and the battle for women’s lives is still being fought across the nation. During the last election cycle a number of social conservatives won their races for political office. At the time, they claimed their focus would be on the economy. Almost universally, however, they’ve focused on trying to turn back the clock on advances of women’s rights.

Here are some examples of the recent legislation:

On February 16, 2012, there was a hearing by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding the Affordable Care Act, which concerned the availability for contraception through insurance. Not a single woman was called to testify and Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), refused to permit several women to be heard, even when asked to do so by other representatives on the committee. Of those permitted to testify, only two of the first nine people had any background in health services.

Anti-abortion activists in Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wisconsin and Mississippi have advanced “Personhood” acts/bills declaring that a fetus has the full legal rights of a person, beginning at fertilization. Such laws would make in-vitro fertilization, stem-cell research, the morning-after-pill and all abortions (medically necessary or not) illegal. It could also be interpreted to make standard birth control options such as the Nuva ring, the pill, IUDs, and birth control patches illegal. Democrat Vivian Watts in VA attempted to amend the bill in Virginia to specify that contraception would not be banned under the Personhood bill, but Republicans voted 64-34 against adding this amendment. Any abortion or even cases of miscarriage due to negligence could be charged as manslaughter or homicide.

Utah passed a bill, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton (R), into law in February of 2010 that allows women to be criminally charged if they cannot prove a miscarriage was accidental. Women could be legally held responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless behavior.” According to March of Dimes, as many as 40-50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage – most often before a woman misses a menstrual period or even knows she is pregnant. About 15% of recognized pregnancies will end in a miscarriage.

A similar bill was advanced in Georgia by Republican Bobby Franklin in 2010 and 2011, and is still under consideration in 2012. The bill would make miscarriage a crime unless the woman could prove that there was no human involvement in the miscarriage. All miscarriages would require a criminal investigation to determine culpability.

The Virginia legislature passed a bill on February 14, 2012, requiring all women seeking an abortion to undergo a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound. Women are not allowed to opt out of this invasive procedure. Texas and Iowa have similar laws. Opponents to these laws have called it state-sanctioned rape because the women are vaginally penetrated without consent or the ability to refuse. Doctors also protest the bill, on the grounds that performing medically-unnecessary, invasive procedures constitutes a breach of ethics.

In October of 2011, the House passed a bill called the “Protect Life Act,” sponsored by Republican Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania. Known by its opponents as the “Let Women Die Act,” this bill allows hospitals to refuse abortions to women, even for women with life-threatening complications in need of an emergency abortion.

Are you getting angry yet?

Our feminist foremothers fought so that women could make their own choices about healthcare and contraception. This is not a new concept. Contraception is legal, ordinary, and accepted. Close to 97% of American women have used it at some point in their lives. Contraception is hardly a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture is it forbidden. Furthermore, birth control is prescribed for many conditions other than preventing pregnancy such as fibroids, endometriosis and menorrhagia (heavy menstrual bleeding). Some forms of birth control can even lower a woman’s risk of uterine and ovarian cancers.

Pregnancy, even for seemingly healthy women, poses serious health risks — risks that women should take on their own terms and at a time that is right for them and their family. There are many disorders in which women are recommended not to conceive including heart malformations, clotting or bleeding diseases, and chronic medical conditions, like multiple sclerosis. Despite advances in health care, Amnesty International reported in 2010 that deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled during the past two decades.

The fight is not over. This is an election year. Raise your voice against the erosion of access to reproductive control. Make them hear us at the ballot box and, more importantly, in the halls of power. Reclaim your self respect and refuse to let anyone ignore our sex!

Against a Religious Right to Bully

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Anti-Bully, LGBT Equality, Mary Griggs, Rant

(c) by Mary Griggs

Enumerated laws against bullying are about thwarting crime. Policies which require that all students are protected from bullying and harassment and also specifies categories of students who must be included by name is the best way to protect ALL students. Research shows that students experience less bullying, they feel safer, and teachers are more likely to intervene to prevent incidents of bullying in a school with an enumerated policy. (The 2009 National School Climate Survey is available for download at http://www.GLSEN.org/research).

There are those who oppose these anti-bullying laws who claim that passage would make Christians targets for persecution. They claim that including sexual orientation and gender identity and expression is against the teaching of their church and they fear harassment for their beliefs.

Here are some of the more egregious examples (see Big Bullies: How the Religious Right is Trying to Make Schools Safe for Bullies and Dangerous for Gay Kids at http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/big-bullies-how-the-religious-right-trying-to-make-schools-safe-for-bullies-and-dangero for more):

Tom McClusky, Family Research Council’s Vice President of Government Affairs, claimed that President Obama’s efforts on preventing bullying will lead to “bullying by the federal government and by a homosexual agenda that seeks to make children hide their Christianity and their religion in the closet and to silence those who would speak out against what they don’t believe.”

Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family implied that groups like GLSEN want school sports teams to “ban athletes using their freedom of speech to voluntarily share the Gospel with those who disagree with their viewpoint.”

Brian Camenker, the head of the anti-gay group MassResistance, said “For the first time in our history, America is faced with a powerful movement that defines its alleged “rights” in terms of the deprivation of the fundamental rights of others. As a result, the homosexual movement is depriving other Americans of civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.”

After Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed an enumerated law that addressed bullying, the Illinois Family Institute claimed that the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ in anti-bullying programs will allow “homosexualists to use them as cultural battering rams” destroy First Amendment speech and religious protections” in order to “censor the expression of traditional moral beliefs and ultimately eradicate them.”

In their opposition to safe schools, these Christians seem to expect that their religious practices will be taken as civil law and that the prohibitions of their religion will be enforced on everybody–including non-Christians and Christians of denominations which respect the dignity of all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

“Religious freedom does not include a right to special exemptions from the laws that bind all citizens,” said professor Tobias Wolff at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “Neither does religious freedom include a right to avoid criticism for one’s beliefs. Adherents to religions that preach discrimination against LGBT people have a right to explore their beliefs. They do not have a right to turn those beliefs into law, and they do not have a right to pursue their beliefs free from the disapproval of their fellow citizens.”

Orthodox Jews are not victims of oppression when other people are allowed to legally use electric appliances on the Sabbath. Muslims are not victims of oppression when other people are allowed to legally purchase alcohol. Hindus are not victims of oppression when other people are legally allowed to eat beef. By the same token, Christians are not victims of oppression when there are laws against bullying students because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

President Barack Obama stated this quite clearly: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values…it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.”

It is entirely reasonable that all students be protected against bullying. Doing so will not lead to the persecution of anyone but bullies. The Louisiana Safe Schools Coalition is in the process of drafting an enumerated anti-bully bill and working for its passage by the Louisiana Legislature. Please join us in educating and lobbying legislators, soliciting other supportive partners, testifying at the committee hearing, and informing your local community about the need for this vital legislation. For more information, contact the Forum For Equality at 504.569.9156 or visit our website at http://www.forumforequality.org.