Despite claims to the contrary, there are strong opinions that the conservative movement in the United States is waging a war on women. If asked straight on, every one of my conservative friends will say that such an idea is ridiculous, that said war is as made up of a bogeyman as Glenn Beck’s liberal conspiracy theories. Numerous women on the political right will defend their ideology, saying their positions are very positive for women.
Here is freshmen Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) on the issue:
The Republican agenda is indeed pro-woman. It is pro-woman because it is pro-small business, pro-entrepreneur, pro-family and pro-economic growth.
Others will cite the growing number of powerful women in the conservative movement – Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Dr. Condoleezza Rice. You can even go back a few years and point to Elizabeth Dole, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Peggy Noonan to add more weight to the argument. Many of these would say there is no war against women; but it is the war on abortion that the progressive community frames in an incendiary way to win female votes.
It may be that abortion is the true target of conservative warfare, but women are getting caught in the crossfire, and the conservative movement seems to have no problem with them being collateral damage in a battle they see as the greater cause.
Defunding Planned Parenthood
Republicans are attacking federal funding for Planned Parenthood because of their providing abortions, but what of the other services (PDF link) Planned Parenthood provides? 35% of their services do involve birth control – preventative birth control for poor and disenfranchised women. 34% of their services include STD testing and treatment, again for those who might not be able to afford treatment at a completely privatized facility. Prenatal and infertility care make up around 11% of their services, and cancer screenings make up 17% of their operations. In fact, Planned Parenthood annually conducts roughly one million screenings for cervical cancer and about 830,000 screening for breast cancer. In all of this, abortions constitute three percent of their services.
Planned Parenthood’s customers can afford these screenings and tests because of federal funding. Take this resource away, and that is one million more women a year who can’t afford cervical cancer screenings. That’s 830,000 more women a year who may not catch breast cancer early enough. That’s more teens and destitute women without access to contraceptive care or who won’t be able to afford prenatal care if they are trying to preserve the life of their unborn child – and remember: more women go to Planned Parenthood for prenatal care than for abortions. How many more stillbirths and miscarriages are acceptable in the face of stopping the abortions provided by this facility? Is it worth stopping one way a baby will die only to exacerbate others?
Many financially struggling women will find their health and the health of their children to be “collateral damage” in the war on abortion.
Redefining Rape
HR 358, also known as the Protect Life Act (and alternately skewered as the Let Women Die Act) set one frightening precedent by proposing to mandate that emergency rooms allow an expectant mother to die rather than performing life-saving treatment that would harm the unborn fetus – even if the fetus would die anyway. That, in and of itself, is enough to show how marginalized a woman’s life is in the face of the great war on abortion, but the bill went further, effectively redefining rape so that physical force must be involved, effectively excluding date rape, statutory rape, drug-induced rape, and the rape of mentally incompetent women from any longer being defined as the hideous acts they are. The bill took similar steps in cases of incest against minors.
Without intending to, Republicans put forth a bill that said some forms of rape are not as serious as others, that some forms of incest are more acceptable than others. In trying to narrow the circumstances under which a woman could receive a federally funded abortion, they made a bill that seemed to brush aside the growing problem of violence against women.
Criminal Miscarriages
In Georgia, State Representative Bobby Franklin (R) introduced legislation that would effectively treat every miscarriage as a potential murder. Imagine that for a moment. You or a loved one discover you have lost an unborn child. You are in the throes of grief, and the state is requiring an investigation into the events surrounding your child’s death – even if you’ve been conscientious parents-to-be, even if you have a clean record, even if you’ve been making all of your doctor’s appointments. Even, then, you are suspected of being a criminal. While it may not yet be a crime to intentionally terminate your pregnancy, watch out if it is an accident.
Indiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, among others, seem to be following suit in practice if not in writing. Again, the intentions may be pure, but the collateral damage is significant.
Cuts, Cuts, and More Cuts
Women and their children are also victims of austerity measures pushed by conservatives, measures that leave the very wealthy unaffected and, of course, make sure we are still spending more on weapons than much of the rest of the industrialized world combined.
- The GOP sought to cut 10% from WIC, which provides financial assistance to low-income pregnant and nursing women and their infant children.
- They cut funding to Title X, which helps low-income families with family planning.
- Medicare and Medicaid are in the cross-hairs right now, both programs that provice more services to women and children than to men.
- Republicans fought to exclude maternity care from the Affordable Care Act, again making it more difficult for low-income mothers to seek care and to get cancer screenings. These were also the same people who defended insurance companies that treated pregnancy as a preexisting condition and that would reject covering infants born with complications or medical conditions.
I’m not even going to go into how many times the Republican’s “pro-economic growth” policies have made sure women are paid less than men in the workplace. Even Sen. McCain stonewalled when a girl brought it up at one of his campaign rallies. Indirectly related, though Michele Bachmann has become famous for her multiple foster children, her political career will likely do damage to foster programs in the long run, as she has demonstrated that she is willing to fall in line with the GOP practice of expecting the most sacrifice from those in the most need.
An Attitude of Callousness
For all the moral grandstanding about protecting life, I can’t look at these actions and see anything other than callousness. They will do everything they can, up to and including endangering the health and safety of millions of women, to ensure a child is born, but they seem to stop caring as soon as the infant exits the birth canal. “We will demand your child be born,” they say, “but we don’t want to sacrifice a penny to help make your child has any quality of life.” No, there may not be an active war against women, but the amount of callousness and carelessness directed toward women by our modern conservative movement leads to the same results. There’s no war on women just like there is no war on Libya.
I think the pervasive atmosphere is summed up well by a recent op-ed by Dan Rottenberg in Philadelphia’s Broad Street Review regarding the sexual assault in Egypt of reporter Lara Logan:
I can’t help thinking that women also need to take sensible precautions before they’re victimized…Earth to liberated women: When you display legs, thighs or cleavage, some liberated men will see it as a sign that you feel good about yourself and your sexuality. But most men will see it as a sign that you want to get laid.
Yes, because gang rape is always something to treat flippantly. You look pretty, it’s perfectly okay for a group of men to force themselves on you. After all, they can’t possibly resist their programming.
Why does this fit? Look at the measures taken to prevent abortions. Time and again, legislation is introduced that serves to marginalize women or treat them as having fewer rights than their male counterparts. Mr. Rottenberg speaks from that same well of female depreciation, condescension, and condemnation. Because you are a woman, you should expect to be mistreated, and you are wrong when you complain about it or seek better rights.
Or, put even more succinctly than Mr. Rottenberg, Kansas state Rep. Pete DeGraaf (R) when asked if women should always be prepared to be sexually assaulted:
I have spare tire on my car.
If these are the people who claim to be pro-woman, who call themselves friends of the females in this country – then who needs a war on women? The friendly fire is doing damage enough.
