15 March 2012 | What America is This?

What country did I wake up in this morning?

It's 2012, and we're still talking about contraception as if we were back in the days when the Pill first made it to the market. We're talking about women who want access to contraception as part of their overall health care being called "sluts" and "prostitutes." We have the Catholic Church jumping on that bandwagon by wanting to deny contraception as impinging on its "religious freedom."

And worst of all, we're seeing just mind-numbing legislation stemming from reactionary state legislatures that want invasive procedures done to womens' bodies because of ideoogical fanaticism against abortion.

I could have sworn just a few years ago that it was Barack Obama who was being accused of wanting to alter, in the most radical fashion, American society. Instead, I see the supporters of the Tea Party electing people who are rushing to put restrictions on womens' bodies, women's health and labor unions. The right to negotiate your own future is being robbed from people, and in the case of women, there's the added indignity, no I take that back, obscenity that a woman must undergo a "transvaginal probe" if she is considering terminating a pregnancy. I'm just waiting for laws requiring virginity checks as well.

What America is this? I am beside myself trying to understand how it is that people are actually believing that putting a woman's body at the mercy of the government isn't A) intrusive big government; B) absolutely indefensible. I see that men have no problem with this legislation, if for no other reason than they think a woman will probably enjoy such a procedure. I mean, all women are sluts, right? They may resist being penetrated, but ultimately will just accept and even enjoy it. If you think that's vulgar, you have no idea how offended I am that legislation in the 21st century is concerned with controlling womens' bodies and that some people are covering up their desire for control under the lie of "religious freedom." This phrase is nothing more than making discrimination and intimidation sound acceptable.

Take this quote from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they're in or what religion they claim. They want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and bodies...it is hard to believe that even here at home, we have to stand up for women’s rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one of us, because America needs to set an example for the entire world."

Except American isn't setting an example for the world, it's regressing to restriction and segregation. This quote needs to be mailed to every female Republican member of Congress as a reminder that their party is spearheading the extremism in American politics and threatening over half of the nation's electorate with laws that are made to invade and deprive women. GOP women, you are no better than the vindictive male leaders of your party who despise our gender. We've gone way past whether contraception fits your religious worldview: we've entered the dangerous territory of exclusion and discrimination by other means.

Why am I singling out Republicans? Can you name me one Democrat who's introduced legislation aimed at controlling women with the heavy boot of government on our necks? Can you show me what liberal politician delights in the concept that someone's sister will have no problem with a "probe" inserted into her as a routine matter of course, even when that is against her will? Go ahead, I can wait.

It's been Republicans who have plunged headlong into ripping the social fabric, not some dark, nefarious scheme hatched by Barack Obama to remake society into his image. Law after law after law, these folks have been working hard to turn back the clock, whether it's labor unions or womens' rights. Even federal workers seem to be targetted for a special kind of hatred what with legislation that keeps their wages frozen under the lie of "deficit reduction." The GOP has managed to whip up frenzy among people in this country who are afraid of the direction the president is taking the country, diverting attention from the damaging and discriminatory laws they want to pass. And it begins with the control of womens' bodies.

What America is this?