When States Abuse Women

Nicholas Kristof - with whom I frequently disagree - has a timely and on point column in the New York Times that looks at the new anti-women agenda that is sweeping Republican controlled state legislatures such as Virginia's General Assembly. It's as if these white male dominated controlled legislatures want to take women's rights back to the 1950's and one can only wonder how strongly they yearn for a society like that depicted in the recent hit movie "The Help." Running parallel with the anti-woman agenda, of course, is an anti-gay agenda that similarly aims to keep some citizens in second class and subservient places in society. As I have noted before, it's mind boggling to me that the black pastor crowd that time and time again gets recruited to help support the GOP's reactionary social agenda cannot recognize that they are being used and that they and their congregations are actually hated by white Christianists. Here are highlights from Kristof's column:

HERE’S what a woman in Texas now faces if she seeks an abortion. Under a new law that took effect three weeks ago with the strong backing of Gov. Rick Perry, she first must typically endure an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then she listens to the audio thumping of the fetal heartbeat and watches the fetus on an ultrasound screen. . . . . Finally, she goes home and must wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion.

“It’s state-sanctioned abuse,” said Dr. Curtis Boyd, a Texas physician who provides abortions. “It borders on a definition of rape. Many states describe rape as putting any object into an orifice against a person’s will. Well, that’s what this is. A woman is coerced to do this, just as I’m coerced.”

That law is part of a war over women’s health being fought around the country — and in much of the country, women are losing. State by state, legislatures are creating new obstacles to abortions and are treating women in ways that are patronizing and humiliating.

The new Texas law is the most extreme to take effect so far, but similar laws have been passed in North Carolina and Oklahoma and are on hold pending legal battles. Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Mississippi are also considering Texas-style legislation bordering on state-sanctioned rape. And what else do you call it when states mandate invasive probes in women’s bodies?

“If you look up the term rape, that’s what it is: the penetration of the vagina without the woman’s consent,” said Linda Coleman, an Alabama state senator who is fighting the proposal in her state. “As a woman, I am livid and outraged.”

[O]ver all, the pattern has been retrograde: humiliating obstacles to abortions, cuts in family-planning programs, and limits on comprehensive sex education in schools.

If Texas legislators wanted to reduce abortions, the obvious approach would be to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The small proportion of women and girls who aren’t using contraceptives account for half of all abortions in America, according to Guttmacher. Yet Texas has some of the weakest sex-education programs in the nation, and last year it cut spending for family planning by 66 percent.

The best formulation on this topic was Bill Clinton’s, that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Achieving that isn’t easy, and there is no silver bullet to reduce unwanted pregnancies. But family planning and comprehensive sex education are a surer path than demeaning vulnerable women with state-sanctioned abuse and humiliation.

Would that more conservative could grasp the simple truth of Kristof's argument. But then again, these policies aren't aimed at truly stopping abortions, but instead aimed at punishing those the Christianists - or should I say modern day Pharisees - deem sinful and unworthy. If not stopped, the Christianists are going to drag this nation back into the Middle Ages.