Apparently some in the Republican leadership think that women have tiny little insect brains (see, RNC leader Reince Priebus and caterpillar reference), but I think they are the ones who are thinking in tiny ways.
What's the big deal about blocking access to birth control, the GOP leadership might think. Polls well with the base doesn't affect everyone. Rick Santorum thinks birth control causes unnatural things to happen. Some of his colleagues think an all-out attack on women's rights in the reproductive realm is a narrow issue, one that only moves second wave feminists, promiscuous young women, and bleeding heart liberals. What they don't seem to realize is that women earn the family dollar these days, and women know that birth control is directly tied to wage-earning. I have had two babies, and each time I have, I have had to lessen my workload and wage earning for at least a quarter. Imagine if I had five babies: That is over a year of my life in which I'm earning less, with more mouths to feed.
I am not sure the Obama campaign understands fully that many women care more about their access to wages than their access to abortions, but Obama does understand the two issues are inextricably linked. And it's showing in his polling with all women.
In my last post, I discussed how women voters have soured to Republicans in recent months, almost certainly due to politicians' slate of attacks on women's health and reproductive rights. But I was surprised to find that women hadn't necessarily transferred their support to President Obama. That is, until now.
Gallup released a report earlier this week that shows the gender gap is widening between Mitt Romney (who I think we can assume will be the Republican nominee) and Barack Obama in key swing states. According to Gallup, if the election were held today, Obama would beat Romney 51 percent to 42 percent. Among women? Obama would receive 54 percent of the vote to Romney's 36 percent.
This isn't surprising. Nearly two-thirds of women report they have been watching the birth control debate "very or somewhat closely" and the attacks on women's health haven't been coming from the left. Though the birth control debate has quieted as of late, women are proving to be the swing group that will decide the 2012 presidential election. Just as "security moms" helped keep former President Bush in office in 2004, women are watching this election closely.
One Romney pollster, Neil Newhouse, believes the gender gap will narrow during the general election when debate will likely focus more narrowly on economic issues. But Newhouse's prediction that women will move toward Romney's camp because they care more about the economy than about reproductive rights shows just how out of touch the campaign is. The GOP is not only supporting legislation that harms women and their families, they refuse to even acknowledge the fact that these policies are directed at women. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told Bloomberg that the War on Women is as real as a "war on caterpillars."
The current debate around birth control was launched by the Obama Administration's proposal to require employers to offer insurance plans that cover birth control, with churches being exempt under a conscience clause. When many bristled at this, saying it would be in violation of the first amendment, the Obama Administration announced it would require insurance companies to cover the cost of birth control for those employees whose employers would not offer plans that did not offer coverage. Yes, this is a debate about women's reproductive health, and a small part of that is about sex, conceiving and abortion. But more specifically, this is a debate about women's access to health care and the huge impact health care has on a family's well being.
Reproductive rights aren't just women's issues; they're economic issues, everyday, normal issues. It's dramatic to imagine the woman who needs an abortion and the hardship she goes through: She is unable to take time off from her job, drive or fly herself to a clinic, stay in a hotel, and pay for her procedure.
But even if she does not support abortion rights, every single American woman knows in her heart than at some point in her life, she will need to earn money. When she has children, she will probably be responsible for a large part of her family's earnings, as two-thirds of women are. And as the song goes, if she doesn't have her health, she's got nothing.
A belief that women are more concerned about economic issues than health issues might be right, but you really cannot separate the two. A few weeks ago on the Diane Rehm Show, Phyllis Schlafly repeated over and over again that the current debate about birth control isn't about access -- all women have access. If Schlafly meant physical access she is probably correct. Birth control pills may be sitting behind the counter of nearly every pharmacy in America, but if a woman can't afford it, it might as well be illegal. Newhouse is right: Women are concerned about economic issues. But if we're going to debate economic issues in this country, let's be sure to include the ones that affect more than half of our population.
Kaitlyn Dowling (@kaitlyndowling) contributed to this piece.
Follow Morra Aarons-Mele on Twitter: www.twitter.com/morraam
Ruth Whippman: UK Abortion Law Needs an Urgent Re-Think Before We Turn Into America
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Several of the current crop believe states should be able to outlaw contraception for example and have gone on the record saying so.
It seems to me the anti-abortion/anti contraception group believes women wh can't obtain birth control and can't have abortions will decrease the number of sexual encounters. I do not believe this is true.
Forget the gays. The real people waging war on the Family are folks who are telling married women to stick an asprin between their knees if they need to delay or space births. Nothing a homosexual couple does will cause infidelity to hetero couples. But marital abstinence .. now THAT is a nuclear bomb aimed at the nuclear family.
But even extremely conservative women use birth control. They even get abortions.
Right wing women might not stand up as pro-choice or as pro-family planning, but they take advantage of those rights and need to stop being hypocrites. They also need to stop being naive about what a lack of access to family planning would mean for them personally -- and for their daughters.
Check to see what's covered on your plan already, and what the cost is -- and where your usage actually lies. Insurance carriers are not non-profit organizations, it's true, but the profit margin is kept small by law (their large profits are usually reaped from other sources.) Businesses are worried unduly about birth control coverage. It costs them little, and actually works in their favor.
It should be an all or nothing debate. Instead, the outcry is on covering something that uniquely affects women, something that women need if they are to have any economic power.
There is the problem w/the "slippery slope"--any step away from equality can start a greater slide.
Someone once said that some "food" boiled live, is passive until too late to even try to get out because it doesn't realize it's getting cooked. We can hope that the women in the GOP are not quite that "passive"/submissive.
Did your for-mothers just sit about the camp waiting for their husbands to bring home everything? Or were they active participants in the families prosperity? Creators of wealth?
Kayaks don't build or waterproof themselves. Neither do snowshoes. Hides don't come off the elk tanned and sewn. Good luck hunting up north with bare feet and no jacket. The animals will hear your teeth chattering a mile away.
There was a time when a woman could do something like knit a sweater or weave a net and the result was appreciated. A time when there were no clothing or outdoor outfitting stores and no way for a man to get things like clothing or nets from any other source than the skillful hands of the women in their lives.
These were the days of cottage industry. When the means of production were in the family living room. When you didn't have to leave the house to do meaningful, productive, work that enriched your family.
The industrial revolution changed that. It allowed a handful of women to weave more clothe in a day than the entire town used to weave in a year. Ditto for soap, candles, pottery, brewing, distilling, etc etc etc. And the machine made stuff is higher quality to boot.
This turned out trades and crafts into hobbies instead of sources of wealth. We must now revert to the older model of hunter/GATHERING which involves leaving the camp to acquire wealth.
Yes, they have birth control.
Look at modern primitives. They do not achieve 4 year birth spacings by using the rhythm method or abstinence. But the Hazda, the !Kung, they all have nicely spaced pregnancies without artificial aid.
Researchers have discovered that they do this in the same way a modern aerobics instructor does it. They work so hard and eat so little that they only menstruate a couple times a year and rarely ovulate.
You see you have to have a certain amount of body fat to ovulate. To little and no eggs. Hunter/gatherer women breastfeed for *years*. This takes any fat their body produces and expresses it promptly as milk, suppressing ovulation and allowing them to space pregnancies.
Our diets are to rich and our lifestyles to sedentary to use natural birth spacing. Luckily we can use artificial means to achieve the same ends.
Don't know if health care would have affected her choice though. Would more affordable child care be a better point? Or flex time? Does the health care plan include child care? Or mandiatory preg leave for men and women?
And where is the husband in all this? His wife sounds pretty stressed out. Isn;t he helping?
Trickle down never happened. Supply side economics made the rich into the uber-wealthy that increased the income disparity. And these uber-wealthy don;t invest their tax rebates to make American jobs since they can send businesses to China where profits are exaggerated by low or no labor and environmental standards. As a commentor so aptly put it, "How does that warm 1% feel running down our back feel now, America?"
To paraphrase the 1992 election and imoortal words to Bush 41....."It's about the economy, stupid."
Enough wedge issues GOP. The 51%, women, are equal and must be equal to men. The Founding Documents speak to no different view by government of We the People based on race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, religion or whatever other subcategory.
Its easy to spot a child desperate for adult attention. And so sad.
/shudder.
But you don't see me trying to pass laws to force such people to limit themselves to the number of children they can do right by. Especially Quiverfulls. I mean ... ick. They have "arrows", not "children". Utterly uninterested in the minds and hearts off their offspring. Only in what their offspring can do for them and their church.
But I understand that when freedom reigns it will be used by other people to do things that I profoundly disagree with. And I can't stop them without being the enemy of freedom.
They can't force birth either for the same reason.
"Too many women are forced to abort by poverty, by their menfolk, by their parents ... A choice is only possible if there are genuine alternatives.
Women are being sucked into a political game and manipulated.
And let's not forget that the contraceptive pill is a simple, highly-effective and *low-cost* treatment for numerous health conditions. As such, doctors should be the ones to decide if and when it is appropriate - not employers or health insurance companies.
That's why women are not being sucked in and manipulated at all. They are simply alert to their right to have access to a pharmaceutical product which sometimes - but not always - can be a contraceptive too.
Whether used as a contraceptive or medical treatment, it's availability has a direct and significant impact on women's health and well-being, and consequently their home and work lives, in the just the same way as other pharmaceutical products may affect other lives.
This can only leave women scratching their heads wondering why it is that a pharmceutical specifically for women - and delivering significant benefits - is singled out for attack, particularly as the impact, cost-wise, is a drop in the ocean.