Control of women is the real agenda, not the welfare of fetuses
The right of women to control their reproduction has increasingly been appropriated by men since their destruction of global matriarchy. If the so-called "pro-life" movement opposes abortion supposedly to save the lives of fetuse, why does it also oppose contraception which would actually lower the number of abortions? Because the fetuses' life was never the issue. The issue has always been (and continues to be) the control of women and their uteruses. Women burdened with more children than they can cope with are not likely to have the time or energy to transform current global phallocracy into a woman-friendly planet.
According to "Sexual Politics" by Kate Millett, overpopulation began when men discovered paternity. Women became valued primarily for their uteruses- just as they are today, providing cheap labor, both theirs and their childrens'. The media's adulation of the McCaughey septuplets is one example of valuing women as breeders. However, women who choose *not* to have children are viewed as "weird" and "unfeminine." Lesbians are especially despised by patriarchal governments and religions because they don't conform to men's role for women-a breeder submissive to a man.
The world's major organized religions are male-supremecist and fuel overpopulation. Many promote polygamy. To insure steady production of consumer-breeder units, spiritual bullying (a male god's punishment, hell etc.) is used to intimidate women into having more children than they can support. Using birth control or having an abortion is a "sin" according to "divine"scripture (written by men), whose governments and religions have the same agenda-the control of women and their uteruses.
In the 1910s and 20s, Uppity Woman Emma Goldman spoke out about the need for birth control and was arrested. A nurse-midwife, she witnessed the despair of slum -dwelling women powerless to prevent the births of children they couldn't support with their meager salaries. Goldman realized women had to gain control of their reproduction to gain control of their lives by freeing themselves from dependence and domination by men.
In 1917 Goldman said the "defenders of authority" dread a woman's right to choose. "Who would fight the wars? Who would create wealth? Who would make the policemen, the jailers, if woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children?" Goldman hoped birth control would be legalized to give women alternatives to abortion. It wasn't until decades later.
"A free race cannot be born of slave mothers," said nurse Margaret Sanger in 1920. "No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body." Sanger believed the diaphragm was an ideal form of contraception since it was safe, effective, and gave women control over the contraceptive procedure.However, the Comstock Law of 1870 (written by men) made it illegal for anyone to import and dispense birth control devices-even doctors.
Sanger's clinic supplied diaphragms to poor immigrant women and was shut down by the New York City police department. Sanger was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Diaphragms had to be smuggled in until 1936! Sanger said, "Man has not only refused responsibility (for birth control) but has individually and collectively sought to prevent woman from obtaining knowledge by which she could assume this responsibility for herself." Historically, abortion laws become more oppressive when nations (controlled by men) require the production of more soldiers, workers and consumers.
In 1996, a Pennsylvania woman was convicted of helping her stepson's 13 year old girlfriend get an abortion in another state without parental consent laws. She now faces seven years in prison. In California, the Mandatory Parental Consent ballot initiative was presented on Aug 29, 1998 to amend the state constitution by requiring women under 18 to get written parental permission or court authorization to get an abortion.
Becky Bell, a teenager, died from a botched abortion rather than tell her parents she was pregnant - courtesy of pro-"life" parental consent laws. Last year, a bill was proposed to make discussing abortion on the internet punishable by 5 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. In Utah, a 1992 law (later revised) would have made women who get abortions eligible for execution by a firing squad !
However, the right to "life" expires after nine months. The pro-"lifers" were silent when congress slashed housing and food stamps, endangering the lives of welfare mothers' ex-fetuses. One in four American ex-fetuses (children) now lives in poverty. Thanks to the pro-"life" movement, 1.3 million women around the world die in childbirth and from reproductive health problems where abortions are banned and family planning is restricted according to Population Action International.
Pro-"life" hypocrites in congress spend $275 billion a year on weapons so 216 month-old ex-fetuses (soldiers) can murder foreign ex-fetuses. Congress selectively ignores their "right to life", sending them off to die every few years at the drop of a yellow ribbon or a whiff of oil money. War also "stops a beating heart."
If pro-"life" men and their unconscious women followers weren't hypocrites they would lobby to divert a few hundred billion from the military's death machine to fund safe, affordable birth control and end abortion-but that's not what they want. If women controlled their own bodies, men would then lose control of the uterus and the endless production of soldiers, workers, and consumers would be interrupted and all the male-controlled warrior societies and religions would collapse.
Young women must not take their reproductive rights for granted. Rent the video "Rain Without Thunder" to see the results of complacency. To learn to use herbs and to use Menstrual Extraction to safely control your own fertility without having to ask permission of some male authority figure, read "A Woman's Book of Choices" by Carolyn Downer and Rebecca Chalker.