Surprise! The war on abortion rights is actually a referendum on women’s “place” in society KATIE MCDONOUGH Anti-abortion activists march past the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013, as they observe the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite) The availability of safe, legal abortion and affordable, reliable birth control is really good for women. Being able to decide if and when to have a child (or more children) improves women’s educational outcomes, our career prospects, our health, the health of our relationships, the well-being of our children, our lifetime earnings, our sex lives. Women benefit tremendously from reproductive freedom, and so does society. Here’s how Katha Pollitt put it in her book “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights”: Society benefits when women can commit to education and work and dreams without having at the back of their mind that maybe it’s all provisional, because at any moment an accidental pregnancy could derail them for life. When you talk about how essential birth control and abortion rights have been to women’s progress, another thing becomes clear: The current assault on access is actually a referendum on women’s progress. This isn’t exactly breaking news, either. Plenty of people who oppose reproductive freedom are pretty clear about why they feel this way. Here’s what one protester outside a Planned Parenthood in Boston, Massachusetts told Cosmopolitan’s Jill Filipovic about his view of a woman’s true purpose: “The fullness of being a woman is being a mother.” Here’s what another had to say: “Girls that want to have their careers, their education, they want to have this and that, the latest fashions, or go to this, or get a car, and they also want to have children? That’s a pretty hard thing to do. Usually it’s the children come first — that’s how society has changed. Children have become a throwaway.” And while we’re at it, here’s what the Freedom Law Center, a group the filed a court brief in support of Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act, argued about birth control’s impact on society: “[T]he widespread use of contraceptives has indeed harmed women physically, emotionally, morally, and spiritually — and has, in many respects, reduced her to the ‘mere instrument for the satisfaction of [man’s] own desires.’ Consequently, the promotion of contraceptive services — the very goal of the challenged mandate — harms not only women, but it harms society in general by ‘open[ing] wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.’” And while we’re still at it, here’s what Rick Santorum, a guy who still thinks he is a viable candidate for president, thinks about birth control: “It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” As Filipovic noted in her report on the Boston clinic protesters, everyone seems to agree that abortion and birth control ushered in massive social and political changes. The disagreement comes when you ask whether those changes are good or bad. “Both pro-choice feminists and pro-life conservatives point to the birth control pill and, later, legal abortion, as ushering in enormous social shifts — which one group says led to increased equality, the other to the destruction of the traditional family,” Filipovic writes.
"The imbalance of far more women than men at colleges has been a factor in the various sex scandals that have made news in the last couple of years. So, what's the solution? One solution might be to impose the duty on admissions officers to arbitrarily admit only half women and half men." — Phyllis Schlafly
then the whole college would be about nothing other than football and basketball players. The scandal would be men getting women to write their papers for them
Turkish Man Sentenced to Life for Electrocuting Wife over Birth of Second Daughter AP by Mary Chastain24 Jan 201558 A court in Turkey sentenced a man to life in prison for killing his wife after she gave birth to a second daughter instead of a son. He electrocuted her in her sleep. In January 2014, 29-year-old Veysi Turan attached cables to the feet of Mübarek Turan, 33, when she was in bed. He called the police, but they failed to talk him out of the murder. He electrocuted her while he was on the phone. Al-Arabiya reports: “I killed someone,” the man told the police operator, according to the transcript. “Who did you kill?” asked the officer on the other end. “I am killing my wife right now,” said the man. “Did you kill her or are you killing her?” the officer asked. “Well, she isn’t dead yet. But I am killing her if the murder is halal (permissible in Islam),” the man replied. The officer then asked if the suspect had a problem with his wife. “I am telling you that I killed my wife but you are asking what the problem was,” the man replied. “I closed her mouth as she is in the throes of death,” he then said. At which point the police operator snapped into action: “OK, wait. I am sending a unit.” Turan apparently premeditated the murder, as the prosecution showed the court he bought “special gloves and electrical equipment.” Men killed 253 women in Turkey in 2014. On August 14, four women were killed in three different regions. An 81-year-old man killed his 55-year-old wife after she refused him sex for the second time. Another man killed his wife while both were under the influence of alcohol. A 79-year-old man killed his two sisters after the three argued over property ownership. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) received criticism for lack of protection of women. It is also the party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently stressed that Turks are to marry Turks, women are not equal to men, and birth control use is treason against the country. Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Aylin Nazliaka proposed a bill for more shelters and criticized the AK Party on the Floor: Look at the policies that you impose on the female body, and even on what women wear, what women eat, what color of lipstick they use, whether pregnant women can walk on the streets or not, whether the laughter of women stains their chastity and whether women and men should engage in folk dancing together or not, these have all become matters of discussion at this point. Even getting mixed-sex education has become a matter of debate. And you are responsible. You know how three of us are killed each day and you know there is a 40 percent increase in violence against women. Those who dictate to women how to act are the ones who encourage those murderers.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan 27 (Reuters) - A Florida woman who says she fired a warning shot at her abusive husband was released from a Jacksonville jail on Tuesday under a plea deal that capped her sentence to the three years she had already served. Marissa Alexander, 34, was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 but her conviction was later overturned. She faced another trial on charges that could have put her behind bars for 60 years before she agreed to a plea deal in November. Her case helped to inspire a new state law permitting warning shots in some circumstances. ------------------------------ The lesson of such cases and the many others like them is that the mere presence of a black person is a credible threat in the eyes of the law. And that same racism informs who doesn’t present a credible threat. That same racism defines what kind of person can’t reasonably fear for their lives. In the case of Marissa Alexander, a black mother in Florida, a man with a documented history of physical violence, a man who told Alexander that he was going to kill her, did not present a credible threat. Alexander’s husband, Rico Gray, broke down the door of the bathroom where she was hiding during a domestic violence incident. He grabbed her by the throat, and choked her as he held her against the floor. Alexander then tried to escape through the garage, but found herself trapped when the door wouldn’t open. She returned to the house having retrieved her handgun from her car and fired at a wall near where Gray stood. No one was harmed. But when Alexander tried to invoke Florida’s “stand your ground” law in her defense, she was denied. Twice. According to State Attorney Angela Corey, Alexander was “not in fear” but “angry“ when she fired the warning shot. She now faces up to 60 years in prison.