By Zara Rapoport of The Morningside Post
My body is my ... temple? My church? My political/religious war-zone?
Is my body mine at all anymore? Has it ever been?
Recently, contraception has been placed back on the front page as policymakers squabble over whether it is part of women's comprehensive health, or if it is just enabling women to be wanton whores. Religious institutions do not want to have to cover birth control in their insurance plans for employees. This strongly resembles the "conscience clause" which allows doctors to deny reproductive health care, including birth control, to patients if it goes against their beliefs. This debate seems never-ending and is woefully outdated.
This is 2012.
It should not be a surprise that women, (and many, many, many men) want to have sex for non-procreative purposes, despite edicts passed down for centuries in numerous religious texts. How many of the men protesting women's reproductive freedom throughout history have been caught in scandals involving non-procreative sex with a woman other than their procreating wives? How happy were they that these women were able to afford birth control? Why is it so important to make sure that I can't have sex for pleasure without risking my career, my womb and my freedom? Why do you care so much about what I do with my body? I don't care what you do with yours. Just keep it away from mine.
This question is not going to be resolved today. It's apparently not even the big question on the table at the moment, though it certainly seems like an important underlying cause on the raging debates over women's uteruses the world over. We are being told that the real question is religious freedom.
Well I have something to say about that.
What about my religious freedom not to practice your religion? Religious freedom, while a group right when preventing discriminatory practices, is an individual right in terms of a person practicing their faith. This includes my right to not practice any given religion in this (less and less) secular country, where everyone is free to practice religion or not to.
Things begin to get very blurry when religious organizations become mainstream employers who are technically not allowed to discriminate against their employees. Today, the Catholic Church owns and operates 624 hospitals and 499 long-term health care facilities, including John's Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and the number one ranked hospital in 2009, St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix.
There are also numerous private schools, and 267 universities, including mainstream colleges such as Boston College, Georgetown University and Villanova. None of these institutions exclusively employs, accepts, or treats conservative Catholics. It is standard practice for non-Catholic students to attend Catholic universities, often without even realizing the underlying religious tenets the university upholds. Hospitals are even trickier, as patients are rarely able to choose which hospital to be treated at. Ambulances officially have to take you to the nearest hospital, and different hospitals specialize in different surgeries, attracting people from all faiths and non-faiths.
According to the Catholic Health Association, 1 in 6 Americans are treated at a Catholic medical facility. They were boasting because 29 Catholic hospitals were in Thompson and Reuters Top 100 Hospitals list in 2009 and they felt this meant Americans were being well cared for by Catholic hospitals. I'd like to qualify that statement by saying male Americans and all females who have no reproductive needs, no emergency obstetric life saving surgery needs, no post sexual assault treatment needs, no family planning needs, no medical conditions requiring the hormones available in birth control pills needs, no contraceptive needs or informational needs on how to have non-procreative out of wedlock sexual intercourse needs are indeed being well cared for.
Everyone else is being given limited care based on someone else's moral ideals and not scientific medical information. All I know is that I would be utterly terrified to be taken in an ambulance after a brutal sexual assault only to be told I would not be given complete care, including pregnancy prevention, because my doctor did not feel this fully safe and available medicine was good for his soul. When I am seeking medical care, I am much more concerned with my body than my doctor's soul.
It simply isn't up to my doctor to make medical decisions on the basis of anything other medical information.
Women who attend Catholic universities will also have to choose if they wish to attend a school that denies them a basic right to have agency over their own bodies. Students are notoriously low on funds and many forgo birth control when they cannot afford it. These schools will either become de facto mostly boys schools, or the women there will be at a distinct disadvantage to the many women attending schools providing affordable birth control. Birth control, after all, was a major catalyst to women entering the work force in droves, as it allowed them to delay childbirth, finish their educations, and gain valuable work experience. Sure, they could refrain from having sex, but then what would all the boys do with their co-pay free Viagra?
Members of the Catholic Church and other employers who do not want to provide birth control say that women who want such coverage can just look for work elsewhere. Last time I checked, the unemployment rate was over 8 percent. Choice is a relative word here. It also constitutes discrimination, as birth control is an FDA approved medication that is available and used regularly by millions of women. There are no other across the board coverage limitations on medicines, particularly those affecting a distinct group of people. Employers refusing to offer such coverage would, in effect, discriminate against women for having reproductive systems and wanting to use them. They would basically impose religious beliefs on non-believers.
Everyone is entitled to practice their own religion and refrain from taking birth control, but every employer, medical facility and university is prevented from discriminating against their employees, patients and students based on the very tenets that allow them to freely practice their religion. The precedent this type of legislation would set will be disastrous for women's rights and a huge set back for women's reproductive freedom. (It may even be riding the coattails of the "conscience clause" that paved the way for religion to trump reproductive freedom) It will basically say, once again, that our bodies are not our own. That despite the advances made in modern medicine and the social status of women, I am still just a baby-making machine that should know my place and cross my legs, at least until my domineering husband tells me to open them.
Once again, I hope the women of America will defend themselves. And I truly hope the enlightened men stand with them. Let them take away our reproductive health care. Don't work for them, don't patronize them, and don't think of them. Let the hospitals close down because they cannot find enough patients to treat or women to work there. Let the universities be brought up on discrimination charges when they become all boys' schools once again. Let their alumni fall by the wayside as the young men and women attending more enlightened universities excel and surpass the small minds bred at these schools. Let us show everyone once again how important and how many and how powerful we really are. Seriously ladies, we need to take back this country.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go have non-procreative, recreational, insurance provided birth control protected, sex-ed informed, condom using safe sex out of wedlock.
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1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV - Do you not know that your bodies are ...
1. HPV related cancers of the tongue and mouth
2. HIV
3. Hep C
4. Pregnancy
5. Abortion
6. PID
7. Cervical cancers
8. Emotional attachments
9. Shame and guilt feelings 9especailly after an abortion)
10. Possessive ex (see UVA lacrosse player George Huguely) that might take your life because, 'If I can't have you...no one will have you."
"Preposterous says the brilliant Columbia student. That only happens to others people." Huguely's victim probably said the same thing when she ignored the danger and caution warnings that come with sex.
Young ladies or mature lades, don't be a smart aleck and foolish about your body...be a wise woman about your body.
If it's good enough for the future FIRST LADY, then it's good enough for the rest of us! And Mrs Gipper shagged Frank Sinatra in the Lincoln bedroom, so says her biographer.
the sponsors of this bill are all men. Todd was kind enough to state that women won't be forced to view the ultrasound. well, isn't that nice. i'm glad they won't be propping up women's eyelids with toothpicks while sticking her face in the computer screen. i guess that would be too Clockwork Orange of them.
you'd think that these states would learn. take a look at what happened in Virginia. women freak out over these issues, as they should. yet here we go again, with GOP lawmakers seizing their opportunity to power grab over their female constituents. Todd thinks this is just common sense. well, if that's the case then i'm sure the woman and her doctor will figure things out on their own. there's no need to legislate this.
and if these bills are really no big deal, as many claim them to be, then why are they bothering in the first place? what's the agenda?
"It's really just to help women make a good and informed decision..."
i'm sorry, but what information are they providing? maybe it's for women who have multiple abortions so they can start a scrap book.
what this bill, and all of these types of bills for that matter, is doing is to shame and guilt women into carrying their baby to term. there is no other agenda. this isn't about providing information, it's about making an already difficult process that much more difficult.
Should he have taken the attitude; This is just a case of thinning the heard of another stupid person, a possible other female who would abort an innocent child for any reason she wanted to? Let me just stand her and enjoy watching the evolutionary Godless process go on?
Just as God (or Nature) intended, right?
Me, I think we should bring the population down gently by making contraception universally available. Unfortunately, there are people, quite a lot of people, who believe God prefers the harsher and more painful methods--suffering after all is good for the soul.
What kind of a monster have they dreamed up in place of the loving and gentle God Jesus taught about?
I wish this piece, or any piece on this subject, seriously considered Catholic doctrine about this issue instead of simply assuming that the doctrine is meant to "control women." (My wife thinks this argument is so foolish.) I'm no enemy of contraception but the anti-Catholic bigotry that so called progressive people are displaying is shameful.
If one is pro-choice, that means respecting everyone's choice, whether one agrees with it or not.
So, do we walk the walk or not?
I stand with you, and your choice, and thank you for your well reasoned thoughts.
We who appreciate of our First Amendment Rights, which includes Freedom From Religion, need to stand up against the current climate of religious tyranny.
The Declaration of Independence starts with "We the People", not "We the Religious Organizations".
Conscience, and the soul reside within each of us, the individual.
You go girl!
When the Religious begin legislating based upon their faith, and against fact, science and reason, then they are "establishing" a public manifestation of their religion, and imposing it on society.
When the Religious use language that demeans and belittles other faith groups, and would legislate "their truth" over the rest of society, then this "establishment" would be unconstitutional.
Bring your faith to the public square, use it as part of your discussion, along with reason and understanding the views of the rest of society. Just don't try to ram it down society's throat as being the "One and Only, and True Way".
Prayer in School is one example. If the religion demanding prayer be allowed, which Christian sect gets to pick? Would the "approved" prayer be Muslim? Hindi? Buddhist? Catholic?
Would the Majority in your town decide? What happens if YOU are not a part of the Majority. I would work to protect YOUR freedom, against the tyranny of the Majority, and would appreciate it if you did the same for me.
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WWWHHHAAATTT???
Goddamit, why didn't anybody tell me about this?
on the religion thread
in to the late hours
instead upon the bed
;-)