The other day I ran my car through the local dealership to
get the oil changed and a wash and wax. Apparently the guy in charge of moving
the car from point A to point B changed my radio station, so that when I got
back in the car it was on a Spanish station.
I reached over and began to roll the dial when I discovered it was on AM
radio.
AM radio is a vast land of all kind of strange elements.
Am radio has Vietnamese radio, Indian radio (the kind from
Bombay not Navajo; although in some places the Navajo might well have their own
stations.) there is all sports radio, cooking radio and even children’s radio. As
I tuned my radio across the AM dial, I cam across a speaker who was making a
very interesting claim. It went
something like this:
“We have defeated the abortion movement in America by making
it harder and harder for women on a local level to find access to those
services, which would kill the innocent fetus. We have done it step-by-step
rather than in large chucks. It many cases it has gone unnoticed.” True enough,
you can see their strategy played out across America. Here in Texas they have done it with a quirky
new law that closes abortion centers that are not equipped as an ambulatory
surgery center. Most clinical procedures done in oral surgery, dermatological
surgery and others are not done to this restrictive a standard. So why abortions? To limit women’s access to this service, pure
and simple. And as the speaker cheered, “It is working.”
Now here is the truly
scary part. He went on to add, “And now
we turn that same strategy onto the elimination of contraceptives in America.”
The bold is my emphasis, but I am sure the speaker on the
scratchy AM station would be proud that his words are highlighted.
So let’s think about this for a moment. As contraception has
become more and more readily available for women in the United States, the number of abortions has actually gone
down. (Again my emphasis) See the correlation? So if these people were really trying to wipe
out abortions, they would be trying to enlist the aid of contraception in their
fight, not diminish its availability.
So the real truth is out now. Ava Maria and Hobby Lobby, aren’t really
after the protection of unborn fetuses.
Neither are the laws past by Rick Perry and the Christian Right and the Catholic Church.
They are after power over women.
If you tell me you are against abortion (except for those in
cases of incest and rape where the mother’s like is at risk) then I can accept
your position, so long as you also make contraceptives available to the public.
When you say, ‘No to contraceptives’, then what you really are saying is that
we want to control the women in our society by not allowing them choices in
their family planning.
This is a very male-dominated, religious-driven chauvinistic
worldview. It reeks of, “we don’t want people to have sex, unless they are
going to make children.” I am sorry…this
will never happen. Not now. Not
tomorrow. Not in the year 2525. (Who remembers that song?)
But the battlefield has been laid out before you. The ultra right religious fanatics want a
woman totally under submission of a man and her body under the submission of
their rules and regulations. Try studying Sharia Law and not find a very
interesting parallel. We are scared to death of the Islamic control filtering
into the USA, but it is coming from our own churches and temples.
So the next step in their battle is to turn away from
national campaigns to stop contraceptives, and move into local and statewide
attempts to limit women’s access to birth control.
Yes you can hear all kinds of very interesting things on AM
radio. That day, I heard the future of the fight for women’s rights.
As a footnote to all of this, the other night I had a meal
with a friend who is a devout something or other. I don’t care to mention his
religion for it will only give them free publicity, but needless to say, he is
a radical about this idea. He is so
frothing at the mouth that when the discussion came up that the restrictions
placed on abortion clinics would actually endanger women’s health he actually
said, “Who cares about the women? We are saving babies.”
I asked him what if a woman is raped or there is a case of
incest…he waved me off. “Doesn’t matter.
God’s will.” That’s what the Arabs say
when they behead a westerner. “God’s will.”
What if the woman’s life is in danger or there is a horrible
deformity with the fetus that could cause still birth? Again…God’s will.
So when people tell me that ISIS is a threat to our freedoms
and liberties and the American way of life, I also remember we have a sect of
religious freaks here in America that are doing the same thing. Instead of
swords, machine guns and bombs, they are using the state courts and
legislatures to craft their cunning little exploits.
So what comes after contraception? White, male landowners
are the only ones who get to vote? Or an
end to public education? I guess I’ll
have to keep my radio tuned to the AM dial. At least there, they are upfront
with their strategy.
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