Tuesday, February 21, 2012

40. Santorum and Other (Very) Dirty Words

*** Let the reader beware: While I believe strongly in the courtesy of honest discourse and in making statements that remain open to the conversation, in writing this post I found it difficult to be remotely lenient in my outrage, or tolerant of the subject. Know in advance that the Closet's typical snarky jabs and lighthearted quips were left on the cutting room floor on this one. Because the writer of this blog is a woman. And she pays attention. Ergo, she is VERY pissed off. ***

It's more than rare for me to vote republican in any election. Believe it or not, though, it has happened. Small town races are a surprising haven for old-school members of the Grand Old Party who genuinely believe in the core tenets of personal liberty, low taxes, and limited government. These people do not believe that money equals speech. They have no national aspirations, no desire to impose their religious agendas, world views, or other private musings on their neighbors. They happily recognize the importance of a separation of church and state, because your business is none of theirs.

A glance at today's political playing field will tell you that these people are a dying breed. In fact, if the general air of this election is to be believed, the GOP clown car has become so crowded with absurdity that a candidate's only method of owning the spotlight is to out-crazy the veritably insane. In watching this atrocity unfold, I've gone from appalled to amused and back again with such frequency that the mere idea of watching another debate, political ad, or "you'll never guess what they're saying now" headline is enough to make me dizzy. Like most of you, I breathed a sigh of relief when Bachmann and Perry were left by the side of the trail, only to realize that Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich were still riding it. They each promised campaigns focused on the economy, restoring lost jobs, and protecting the middle class from impending extinction. Now I suppose it is possible that, along the way, they simply became disoriented and found themselves stumbling into the uteri of America's stickless second class by accident. It seems rather more likely, however, that these would-be moral dictators lifted their heads from the fray long enough to realize their party's economic track record was damned terrible on a favorable day, and that the only way to bend a voting ear was to change the rhetoric to something involving a bit more bullshit and a little less math. So it was with complete disregard for the sparse value of alliteration that they turned to waging a war on women.

First target, Planned Parenthood. (Because, c'mon... parenthood isn't something folks have any business planning for.) Perhaps sensing a dearth of enthusiasm, party leaders pressed hard on the anti-choice leanings of their conservative base in the hopes of starting something akin to a fire in the interest for their collective campaigns. Planned Parenthood, they said, is a revolving door for the sexually depraved seeking weekly abortive procedures. And they're using your tax dollars to do it. *Cue incensed torch lighting.*
Never mind the pesky fact that this organization is a vital source of women's healthcare. Or that abortive procedures make up less than 4% of their services. It is naturally the duty of any pro-life individual to protest this nilly-willy dispersal of life-saving cancer screenings, life-saving STD treatments, and pregnancy-preventing contraception (the most effective means of ensuring low abortion rates) in order to prove how pro-life they really are. Now, this argument is nothing new. But it is a disturbing reflection of republican intensity when their political motives place such insidious and negative pressure on private, pro-women organizations like the Susan G. Komen Foundation -- whose nonprofit efforts to defeat breast cancer were a renowned and hopeful beacon to millions -- that they deprive the very women they claim to serve of desperately-needed funding.



Second target, Virginians. In a move that leaves me wondering whether they might have mistaken the State's name for a premarital description of its inhabitants, conservatives passed a measure that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before abortive procedures could be considered. Since most unwanted pregnancies are terminated in the first few weeks, that ultrasound would have to be performed trans-vaginally... (To quote Greg Behrendt, "I'm gonna say that again because I feel you're not takin' the journey with me.") Trans. Vaginally. What these lawmakers are saying is not simply that women are incapable of making their own decisions where reproductive matters are concerned, but that they should, as a standard matter of public procedure, consent to having a sterile probe pointlessly shoved into the most intimate parts of their bodies in order for their medical choices to even be deemed worthy of standing. And if they don't consent? Well then, tough cookies. Maybe they don't understand that many women find these procedures so mentally and physically damaging that they must be sedated beforehand and heavily medicated afterward. Maybe they just don't care. Sadly, the latter seems most likely. Because the most degrading fact in all of this is that these embarrassing examples of the twenty-first century are standing between women and their doctors to say that they must endure an unnecessary, invasive, humiliating, and often-painful procedure -- not as a "moral imperative" -- but as a political ploy to generate votes from ill-informed extremists. I have difficulty even wrapping my mind around the level of disregard this shows for women's health, women's privacy, and women's ability to trust in the safety and security of their own bodies.

To the few in support of this mandate, to those who believe that life begins at conception and that failure to recognize this is more heinous than forcible penetration, to those who think women who become pregnant as a result of rape should "accept the gift that God has given them" (Rick Santorum) and graciously surrender their reproductive rights to their attackers by raising their unsolicited children, I have one thing to say....

This is Lina Medina. At the time this photo was taken, Lina was five years old and seven months pregnant. She is only one of hundreds of children under the age of 10 (see HERE for a full list of documented cases) who've been forced to carry pregnancies to term in the last century. This is not a recent phenomenon, and this is not an isolated incident. THIS is the result of an anti-choice mindset. THIS is what it looks like when women's health is undervalued, subverted, and otherwise ignored by those who've sworn to safeguard the well-being of those without a voice. THIS is suffering at its most unethical. Anyone who can honestly look at this child and say that legal abortion is more of an abomination than the nine months of pain, confusion, and body distortion that she was forced to experience DOES NOT derive their morals from any source worth noting.

Moving on.

For their third target, which seems inappropriately comical by comparison, the GOP turned to their current standby, healthcare reform. This time citing oppression of religious freedom when church-affiliated institutions like hospitals and universities were required to provide coverage for women's services. Michelle Bachmann seized on this opportunity to resurface, claiming that the GOP's recent obsession with regulating the gentler sex is not a sign that those fine fellows at the top are running on a rich, white slogan of inexcusable misogyny, it's merely a symptom of their outrage over Obamacare. I'll fight the urge to titter 'liar, liar, pants on fire' and instead applaud them for taking their frustrations out on women, as any secure man would naturally do. As for the core complaint, far be it for anyone to expect equality from a religious organization, even where insurance is concerned. But the hypocrisy of denying reproductive care to women while happily dispersing viagra and vasectomies can only be topped by stacking your discussion panel on women's health solely with abstinent men and barring any actual women from testifying.

Oh wait, they did that. (Yes, really.)

And all of this before the three-ring circus jumped the shark. For their fourth and most intellectually-defying play, the GOP unleashed Santorum (hell yes, you should Google it) on the world, armed and ready for the fight against America's greatest enemy... birth control.

*As an aside to the candidate in question...* Ahem. Hey, Rick? Can I call you 'Rick?' Look, man, I get that you're stupidly devoted to an archaic religion that bills sex as an awful, scary thing - be it premarital, homosexual, masturbatory, inter-species, or the consensual sort that doesn't result in procreation. (Did I get them all? 'Cause your faith seems to have a LOT to say about sex. Seriously, it seems downright obsessed with it.) But here's the thing, Rick: having a personal belief that my business is somehow any of your business doesn't actually make my business any of your business. As many as 1 in 6 women taking birth control medications are doing so to treat non-related issues. Many, like my sister, use oral contraceptives to combat polycystic ovarian syndrome. Still others use it to treat premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or to regulate erratic cycles. Some women take it because, hell, it keeps their skin clear. And NONE of these women should, or ever will, have to answer to YOU.

It is an irony of the most degrading sort that a party whose primary complaints against the current administration have cited efforts to "insert government into our private medical decisions" are now championing an all-out war against women by demanding that government insert itself into their private medical decisions.

I've no doubt that many will dismiss this post as the ramblings of an angry feminist. They won't be entirely wrong. I am angry, as you should be. And I am a feminist. As you should be.

Because what those people do not understand is that feminism is not a dirty word.

Feminism is not an ideology of rage, or a euphemism for jilted chicks with nothing better to do.

Feminism is not the demand that everyone who has a penis apologize immediately and at length to everyone who doesn't.

Feminism IS the recognition that women are people -- just like 100-cell zygotes and heartless corporations. Funny that they have the concern and protection of the republican party, where we do not.



To speak out against these, and other atrocious examples of the republican war on women, visit MoveOn.org or join the National Protest Against the War on Women on Facebook to add your name to the list of people demanding equality.


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