I've been fairly quiet as to my long therapeutic (at least for me) posts on politics and my world views, but Mitt has just really gotten my goat. Well many on the GOP side of things have, but he might actually have a chance at winning the presidency and to have this extreme view on women's rights is just scary. When I was living in Oz I saw how horrible it was to live in a country where women are considered to be fairly equal, but less so than what I've experienced here in the US. Now many might disagree with that last statement, but that's purely based on my and my friends experiences, completely personal experience, yours might be different. Now some in the US government are suggesting that we as a country push women's rights even further back than what they are in Oz or any other first world country. Mitt has stated that he wants to ban all abortions (what about when the mother's life is in danger?) and would support an amendment that defines life as starting at conception, not implantation, but conception. So not only is he denying the mother's right to choose and right to life in some cases, but he would also be banning many forms of birth control. Rachel Maddow did a wonderful piece on this in her "virtual man-cave" explaining how a baby is made, and how many forms of the pill and other methods of birth control work.
Many political commentators against defining life at conception state that it's then a slippery slope where a miscarriage could then be stated as man slaughter, maybe a bit dramatic, but who in my generation would ever think the pill might be banned someday? However, according to Wikipedia... I know it's wikipedia but they got the figures from a school in London... only about 40 -70% of fertilised eggs will ever make it to implantation and of those about 25% will be lost within the first 6 weeks. So would those 40 - 70% which naturally wouldn't get to the implantation stage also be considered to be aborted? This doesn't even then look at miscarriages. From everything I've read and heard about miscarriages they are more common than we generally think and absolutely horrible to go through, I can't imagine then adding the pressure a law state that by having a miscarriage you have committed murder when all you wanted to do was to be a mother and have just lost this potential child. Not just lost this child, but according to the law murdered it. What sick people would want to do that to someone. I'm sure that Mitt or the other supporters wouldn't, at least I hope that they wouldn't, but I don't think that they are really thinking through their actions.
Besides the world is already becoming overpopulated, we do not need to increase the population by accidental births because we don't support women being able to use the pill, one of the safest and most effective forms of birth control. I know that many of the conservatives teach that one should wait until marriage to have sex, and fair enough if that is their believe, but what about after one is married? Are they really expecting that a married couple will only want to have sex to reproduce? I don't think they should be forcing their religious believes on others by saying that we should all wait for marriage, but what about after that? Is the women suppose to live in fear that every time she and her husband make love, there is the potential for a love child? I can't even fathom a marriage without sex, but without birth control how is the women ever going to be able to plan her career, or is it just a given to them that after she is married she is not suppose to work? Michelle Bachmann insinuated as much when she stated that women were loosing their homes because their husbands were loosing their jobs, but that's a whole other issue....
Okay I've probably ranted enough, but it's something that I think should be ranted more about. In undergrad I once had a feminist tell me that I needed to be more of a feminist because at any moment the government could vote on bills and pass them saying that I had to stay at home and be married, that work was only for men. I told her that I thought that was a load of baloney and that there was no way the women's movement could be taken back that far... I now think that maybe she was right. It won't happen in one vote, not even this one would do that, but it will and is happening over a series of votes. It's happening by letting people like Mitt and Michelle say these anti-women's rights and some times down right anti-women statements without crying out against them, or at least making them laughing stocks for wanting to go back to their rosy coloured view of history.
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