In the process of the current election endeavors being pursued by various individuals, so called, “social issues,” have often been in the forefront. Women’s reproductive health is one of these issues. I would like to point out a few ironic inconsistencies in our society that might make people look at things a bit differently, or at least say, “hmmmmmm.”


Now, the hard line view regarding the abortion debate is absolutely no abortion, no matter what the circumstances and the woman carrying the child in question has no say whatsoever about it. These hard liners are, of course, the same people who say no to contraception in all its forms, and the education regarding the same. Interestingly, these are also the people who rail against any sort of government subsidy for those in need.

And just so we’re clear, of those in need, in our country, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, about 51% are single parent households. About 17% of those single parent families are headed by teenage girls.

According to a study by the United States Government Accountability Office, 42% of families receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children are headed by teenage girls.

In light of these statistics – which, incidentally can be found online through Google or your favorite search engine - I have to ask what might have happened if someone had educated those teenage girls about self-worth and contraception? I also have to ask, what happens to them now? Do they stay on welfare? How do they educate themselves when there is barely enough money for food and shelter and no money for day care so they can get a job and go to school? How many of the children these children begat will go on to be single mothers and absentee fathers on the welfare rolls themselves? We won’t even go into the number of these children with children who are homeless. Nor will we touch on the pitfalls of fatherless households. My head already aches.

Ron Paul told Morley Safer yesterday, on Face The Nation, that while he certainly believes women should have access to birth control, he doesn’t believe those who are morally opposed to birth control should have to pay for it. We all heard what Rush Limbaugh thought, loud, stupid and in color. Rick Santorum (have you Googled his last name yet?), doesn’t believe in birth control at all. Nor does he believe in pre-natal testing because it’s a pro-abortion conspiracy. Mitt Romney – well, it’s only Monday, so I don’t know if he’s been briefed on what he believes this week. I’m sure Newt will be setting up birthing clinics in his moon colonies.

So – jokes aside, we have a bunch of right wing candidates – or in Limbaugh’s case just a big mouth – who are debating and, in the case of that lovely all male committee, trying to decide women’s reproductive issues as if we were a commodity. AS IF WOMEN WERE AN, “ISSUE.” I assure you, though treatment of women is an issue, WE are human beings.

Another women’s issue that has come under fire for, oh, God, I don’t know how long, is breastfeeding infants in public. Are we really still having this conversation? Tell me how it’s okay to have commercials like the one for Carl’s Jr. restaurant, showing a half-naked adolescent straddling furniture while tonguing a dripping burger, but somebody is bitching because Beyonce nursed her kid in a restaurant? Explain to me how objectifying women in everything from The Bachelor to Hustler Magazine is acceptable and yet a TSA agent managed to refuse passage to a nursing mother aboard an airplane because she had a breast pump in her bag.

I am autonomous in my world. I choose where I go, what I do, how I do it and with whom I do it. There are times I’ve had to be adamant, if not militant, about it. Most of the women I know are the same in their own worlds. But the fact is, in the bigger world, the real world, women are still, in many ways, treated like a piece of property and our rights are being very seriously trampled.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, pro-abortion. In my heart and soul, I believe that there is enough for everyone in this world and that only by love and inclusion will we all prosper. We are all connected. I believe that abortion as a form of convenience and birth control is wrong.

However, I believe just as strongly, that the decision of whether or not to carry a child to term has to be between a woman and the God, if any, of her understanding. If I am to be trusted, as a woman and a human being, if anyone is to be trusted as a human being, then we must, as a society, trust women. I believe it’s the first step toward fewer abortions and a healthier society.

Trying to legislate women’s bodies breeds only resentment and hatred. The fact that these right wing conservatives who wish to put a lock down on reproductive health and rights are the same ones who insist we can’t regulate guns sounds insane.

As with nearly everything else we have a choice about in our lives, and especially in an election year, this is about common sense. I hope and pray our country can exercise some when they go to the polls in November