The thing of it is, I wrote about the theocrats' attacks on reproductive freedom and particularly the pious frauds against Planned Parenthood last year--if anything, the pious frauds sitting in Congress did us one better at being theocratically-inclined recently, by holding a panel on women's health care that included not one woman, nor one doctor, but a panel of religious clerics. Because nobody knows the trouble wombs have seen like a bunch of men taking cues from the B-I-B-L-E instead of Grey's Anatomy, let alone Our Bodies, Ourselves.
If anything, these hyper-religious schmucks have been too much with us, late and soon. They were behind the Komen for the Cure debacle, with the fundamentally pro-life Karen Handel's decision to privilege the conscience of pro-lifer donors over the needs of low-income women who relied on Planned Parenthood for early-detection screenings for breast health. They've been behind the disgustingly intimate and invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound bills, as well as the arbitrary and unscientific heartbeat and fetal pain bills. Time and again, religious leanings have tried or even trumped facts and reason where women's health has been concerned.
This naturally alarms me to no end. There's an axiom that goes, "My fist's rights end where your nose begins". Well, why should anyone suppose that they have rights for their fist or face or any other interest that intersects my uterus?
I say: "No" to all of that. "No" to your concern--"No" to your god that dictates your concern. "No" on behalf of any other woman or female-bodied person who needs someone to say "No" for them. No woman is obliged to believe in ensoulment at conception. No woman should be bullied and made to feel ashamed for her fertility. No woman should be called a "slut" because she is a human female-bodied person who engages in intercourse. My stand against theocracy is to state the "No" for any woman who ever needs it said. NO. Our bodies belong to us. We are our bodies plus the will that says "yes or no"--and so many of us say "No". The government has no dominion--and a theocratic one still less. "No--we will choose when to have our children". "No--we will decide how they are taught." "No--those lessons need not have religion guiding them."
Religion--any religion, has no right over my life or my body that I did not give it. For that reason, I want it to be separate from my government. For all time.
3 comments:
"I'd be writing about the fake War on Religion vs. the very real War on Women that has been raging across the political spectrum lately; my only problem has been--where to begin?"
That's the question with all of these fake wars, isn't it? The usual way to deal with them is to debunk each charge, case by case, until all but the most dimwitted figure it out.
Unfortunately, there are always so many folks who don't get the memo. PT Barnum was right, IOW. Plus, it's usually much easier to make stuff up than it is to debunk it. It's like an arms race where one side can make nukes as fast as it wants, and the other just can't ever seem to find enough plutonium.
True that--the religious warriors don't rely on truth for their claims--so long as they can make up various claims however removed from reality, they can open up different fronts in their "Holy War"--all fictional, but all legitimate to them. Debunking them is like a constant battle. The very best we can do is always be correct, empathetic, open, compassionate. Which I suspect our side is long on, anyway.
Another great post! I've always asserted that tradition should not be a cudgel, and that anything injurious to human potential (sexism, racism, homophobia, religious bigotry) just be eschewed.
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