Tag: birth-control

Should We Go Back to the Good Ole Days with Women’s Health?

On By southwerkIn Opinion

It is so obvious to me that women should have access to birth control that I find it hard to take the opponents seriously. I agree with Martha Plimpton that the opposition to it is based on the bizarre idea that women do not know how to manage their lives and therefore need to be regulated. Women’s freedom is just as important as men’s. When it comes to rights, all humans are important.

James Pilant

Martha Plimpton: Stop undermining women’s health with personhood amendments and ultrasound laws

But we don’t live in caves anymore. And it has long been known that where women have the ability to control their own reproductive lives, standards of living rise, children are healthier, education levels rise, and women’s contributions to society increase. This is true in developing countries around the world, and in countries across Europe where low rates of teen pregnancy and infant mortality put ours to shame. When you keep women from exercising their right to physical self-determination, the actual consequences reveal themselves. It’s long past time we started focusing on the solutions that actually keep women healthy, instead of using basic aspects of women’s health as a tool of cultural, moral, and political control.

Martha Plimpton: Stop undermining women’s health with personhood amendments and ultrasound laws

In addition, here is Susan Fluke and the testimony she would have offered to Congress had the Chairman of the Committee allowed it.

Sandra Fluke Speaks: The Republican War on Womens Health

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Contraception under Attack

On By southwerkIn Opinion
The Norman north west tower prior to demolitio...

Image via Wikipedia

Comment: Putting religious group’s campaign against contraception into context | McClatchy

I was following my daily reading ritual beginning with Beat the Press, the next six, and then finishing with Slate.  McClatchy (fifth) is always interesting often going where the regular news media do not.

Sometimes, you read an article that is particular useful to your thinking (and one that I wish I had written myself).

This article puts the recent drive by fundamentalist and Catholic denominations to limit reproductive freedom, more precisely, contraception. The essay discusses the history of previous attempts of religion to limit rights. I was aware of these but had never thought of viewing the recent events in context.

I want to give credit to Sarah Lipton-Lubet of American Civil Liberties Union for building my understanding of the issue.

Here’s a paragraph from the story (link at the bottom of the page) –

Remarkably, contraception has recently come under attack with new vigor. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to eliminate Title X, the federal program that makes contraception accessible to low-income people throughout the country, and to defund Planned Parenthood’s family planning work. Mississippi was contemplating a constitutional amendment that would outright ban some of the most common forms of birth control. And now, important new federal guidelines that will ensure insurance plans include coverage of contraception are being targeted.

Once again, I thank the author.

James Pilant

Commentary: Putting religious group’s campaign against contraception into context | McClatchy

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta