Anybody here seen my old friend Margaret?
Can you tell me where she's gone?
She freed a lot of people,
But it seems goodness dies young.
I just looked around and she's gone.
(Adapted from "Abraham, Martin, and John," by Richard Holler.)
We are six days away from the culmination of an election cycle way, way too long. In some ways it seems that President Obama has been running for re-election since his inauguration. One of the things which upsets me most about this election, and the last several for that matter, is that our country is divided almost 50-50, and there is very little discourse or communication between the halves. My heart aches when Republican friends ask me what I'm doing. I'm spending several hours a day volunteering with Organizing For America, a group currently working on Obama's re-election. I have fixed views on things, but I don't want to talk them over with my friends. I don't want to discuss them. My sister and I sat down last week, and she soon found out how excitable I can be when I speak of matters political. And personal, because I grew up in the era where "the personal is political."
But this is my blog. You are welcome to read, or not, and comment, or not.
In my opinion if Romney gets elected it will mean the end of the country I know and love. Women's rights will be pushed back fifty years. The no-abortion people will have won. I really don't want to see women getting abortions right and left, and I know, from study after study, that if they have good access to contraception, the abortion rate plummets. If they don't, the abortion rate increases. And there is NO difference whether abortion is legal or illegal,women will have them anyway. They'll just get illegal, life- and fertility-threatening ones.We'll see the sepsis and death of young women like we haven't in decades.
It will also be harder for women to get contraception. It will also be harder to raise a child on AFDC/Medicaid/WIC. It seems very illogical and punitive for the Republicans to say, "you have to bear a child conceived under any circumstances whatsoever, but don't expect us to pay for it. It's your responsibility. You're the one who got pregnant. And no, we won't improve your access to birth control because that's just the way we feel about it."
It seems like the Republicans want everyone to be on the abstinence only plan, even when they're married. Want to limit your childbearing? Fine, but it's all on you. No insurance coverage.Tough.
But of course we'll pay for Cialis or Viagra, because it's important for a man to get his sexual needs met, anytime, anyhow.
Margaret Sanger worked a hundred years ago to get birth control for women. She was such a passionate advocate for her causes, and worked for decades on them. She died in 1966, having finally championed the development of the first birth control pill, Enovid. She encouraged philanthropist Katharine McCormick to fund Dr. Gregory Pincus' research in contraception. She was a thoroughly complex individual whom I'm finally coming to know.
