The Politics of Pink

Image via WikipediaWomen make up half the population of the United States (or close to it).  They have become a major presence in the workplace, and gaining ground in the boardrooms and the halls of government.

Yes, as the cigarette ads used to say, women have come a long way.  Society is better off for that.

So how come they don't seem to be in charge when it comes to their own bodies?  In a word, politics.

• The Susan G. Komen organization briefly pulled its funding from Planned Parenthood, which handles breast cancer screenings as well as family planning, because of their alleged misgivings over PP's better-known mission concerning abortion.  Breast cancer survivors and others who have supported Komen's work in the past responded by pulling their funding, and in some cases moving them to PP, causing Komen to give up.  Thanks to Komen's act of stupidity, breast cancer has been needlessly politicized.
• The Obama administration got into it with the Catholic Church over requiring faith-based health care providers to allow coverage for women employees seeking contraceptives.  Since Obama needs Catholic votes to ensure another term for himself, that requirement was taken out and put on the backs of insurance companies.
• It may be nearly 40 years since Roe v. Wade, but a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy has become an endangered species.  With religious and political zealots placing ridiculous restrictions on those women while picketing at the few remaining clinics that still perform legal abortions, it's no wonder they get scared into having a child they don't want or can't afford--and the rest of us pick up the tab.  
• If you're a conservative Republican running for President Obama's job, it's a given that you're anti-choice.  If you happen to be Rick Santorum, who believes contraception should be outlawed, and whose major financial contributor makes a bad joke on TV about women who practice birth control by putting aspirin in the place between their thighs . . . well, that's something else altogether.
• Republican congressman Darrell Issa recently chaired a Capitol Hill hearing on contraception that lacked one thing:  testimony from a woman.

Women fought for the right to vote nearly 100 years ago.  They kept the country running while the men fought the Second World War.  They fought for equal rights while breaking down barriers in areas previously closed to them.

Now women must fight again, this time to protect their bodies against government interference, party politics and religious intolerance.  They may have come a long way, but they still have a long way to go.