The Culture Wars Resume

Just when everybody thought this election would be about the economy it has become a resumption of the Culture Wars.

Democrats have seized upon the issue of birth control as an “Attack on Women” and it may be of greater concern to women than to men, but men too are effected by any attempt to restrict birth control. Whether in the married state or absent matrimony, men are very much concerned about impregnating a woman, whether she is a wife, or a girl friend. In the married state additional unwanted children place just as much of an economic burden on the husband as on the wife and if single, what man wants to be responsible for an offspring which was neither intended nor desired.

To be sure a female is more immediately effected, since it is her body that carries the fetus, but to pretend that only women are effected is to blind oneself to reality.

But what has suddenly brought this to the fore. The media has made it appear that the ruling by the Obama Administration requiring all insurance policies to cover birth control is strictly about insurance coverage, and Republicans want it to appear as though it were a battle over freedom of religion. But it is neither! 


The issue was brought to the fore when Komen decided to defund Planned Parenthood. But that simply brought it above the radar. As I pointed out in my post "Contraception, Abortion and Komen," it was as early as last year that the “House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget and in New Jersey, Planned Parenthood was completely defunded to the tune of  $7.4 million. More recently on March 5, 2012, Newsweek reported that Texas was defunding Planned Parenthood. (The New York Times reported the same thing two days later.)

In none of these cases was there even a pretense that religion was an issue. And besides since when can religion override public policy. Would Rick Santorum or even Mitt Romney take issue with the Supreme Court when it ruled as long ago as 1878 in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. (8 Otto.) 145 that members of the Mormon religion could not claim exemption on religious grounds from the prohibition against polygamy, holding that “the Free Exercise Clause … protect(s) religious beliefs, not religious practices that run counter to neutrally enforced … laws.”

Would anyone argue that a physician, who is a Christian Scientist, can withhold medical care because it is against his religion, and for obvious reasons the argument that a pharmacist can refuse to dispense birth control pills on religious grounds has also been soundly rejected.

But the fundamentalists in the Republican Party (and I prefer to call them Fundamentalists rather then Evangelicals, because there are many Evangelicals who do not have Fundamentalist beliefs—Jimmy Carter it should be remembered is a born again Christian) want to impose their believes on the rest of us, and work toward a Christian theocracy.

They are now so dominant in the Republican Party that the Party in the Senate voted almost unanimously (Olympia Snow dissented) for the Blunt amendment, which according to the Washington Post “would have allowed not only religious groups but any employer with moral objections to opt out of the coverage requirement. And it would have allowed such employers to do so in the case of not only contraception but any health service required by the 2010 health-care law.”

Romney when asked about his position and worried about his general election chances first offered:

“I'm not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, I'm not going there.”

But when attacked by Santorum quickly fell in line with a spokesperson explaining:

“Regarding the Blunt bill, the way the question was asked was confusing. Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith...”

And when Rush Limbaugh attacked a Georgetown University student who supported a requirement for health insurance to cover birth control, calling her a “slut” who “wants to be paid to have sex… (and that) she was “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk”; and (that) she was “having sex so frequently that she can’t afford all the birth-control pills that she needs.” Romney was so outraged that he said: 

“It's not the language I would have used." 

The Republican House speaker through a spokesperson expressed his outrage with 

“The use of those words was inappropriate.” 

George Will, the outspoken Republican intellectual, commented:

“Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff…and it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

But just possibly the Republican dilemma can be summarized by a letter that appeared in my local Newspaper, the Fort Lee Suburbanite:

An issue has been created where none existed. This takes the spotlight off of the economy, price of gas and unemployment. Birth control has never been illegal or unavailable. That is why this is a "non-issue." The powers that be are trying to blur the lines between abortion (infanticide) and birth control.

Because this is a contentious topic, women are being fed like sheep by the "wise" wolves. They do this under the guise of "women's rights." Birth control is a private matter. If your religion forbids it… it is between you, your conscience and God ... not you and the President of the United States or Congress. We follow our consciences everyday to do good and evil.

Why is that "cafeteria Catholics" do not make an issue of the other teachings of the Church? Yet birth control sends them into frenzy. We break the Commandments everyday. When the clerk at the supermarket charges you for red cabbage (at 29¢ a pound) instead of radicchio (at $4.99 a pound) do you tell her she made a mistake? No? That is stealing. Are you honest when filing your taxes? No? Mute point! We are all sinners. Look deeply and you will find this to be true, whether you gossip and ruin someone's reputation or tell a lie - look at those who govern. Too bad the Pinocchio factor doesn't work or small noses would be quite scarce in Washington D.C.

Let us all stop this chest thumping and get on with the issues that are important to the future of the United States.

To which I responded with the following Letter to the Editor:

Facts can be inconvenient! 

                     
Once again, as so many times in the past, I find myself writing in response to a Letter to the Editor, that treats facts as just an inconvenience. Get Back to Important Issues, which appeared in your March 2 edition, does that in spades. 

                     
The writer asserts, “Birth control has never been illegal or unavailable.” If that were true the Supreme Court would not have had to strike down a Connecticut law, in Griswold v. Connecticut, that did exactly that. As to availability, that has been, and continues to be a problem for disadvantaged women to this day. That is why Planned Parenthood is so important. Planned Parenthood spends a $1 billion a year providing services to poor and middle class women throughout the US, many of whom are married, but cannot afford the expense of additional children, or have other gynecological needs. 

                  
But what we are witnessing is a concerted war on contraception through defunding. Last year, the House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget. Fortunately the Democratic Senate refused to go along. New Jersey under the leadership of our Governor, Chris Christie, defunded Planned Parenthood completely to the tune of  $7.4 million. Our President, conscious of the crucial need to provide gynecological services to all women, has made such services available by providing that they be covered in all health insurance policies. 

                     
It is definitely not a non-issue. 

                        

But the letter writer goes further and describes abortion as infanticide. If it were infanticide it would be murder and it would make one third of all women in the US, who have had at least one abortion in their lives, into murderers. That was never the law even before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which empowered women to have control over their own bodies. 

                        

What is at stake is the right of people in general, and women in particular, to be free of the dictates of their government, and not to have the religious views of others imposed upon them. This is the essence of liberty, and the separation of church and state. It is the essence of our Bill of Rights. 

                        

It is definitely not a non-issue.

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Contraception, Abortion and Komen – Discussion

On February 9, 2012 I posted my commentary "Contraception, Abortion and Komen" and on February 13, 2012 I posted my commentary "Contraception, Abortion and Komen (Continued)." I urge readers to re-read these commentaries before reading the discussion, which follows.

Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia, enthused:

I read your original blog after receiving today's comments on it. Bravo to you for exposing this covert religious effort to demean and endanger women by eviscerating hard-won rights.

Irving Lesnick Esq. of Boca Raton, Florida brought us this insight:

On the subject of when human life begins, there is a statement in the Bible on the subject:  Genesis Chap 2, Verse 7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This seems to say that a fetus becomes a human when it starts breathing, which is when it is born alive.

I never understood why this verse is never referred to in the "when does life begin argument."

To which I responded:

Thanks so much for your input. 

It is startling to find that not only does the Bible not support the theory that life begins at conception, but it actually supports the view that life begins when the fetus begins to breath on its own, i.e., when the umbilical cord is cut.

It appears that the fundamentalists not only ignore science, but even the Bible, that they claim to revere.

Finally Professor Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY made this contribution:

"I think that even during the time when abortion was always illegal, and even birth control was a violation of law; it was when the fetus is capable of existing outside the womb, i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut." If I recall correctly, there was also a distinction made when the fetus "quickened," that is, could be felt to move. Killing of a quickened fetus had more substantial penalties than pre-quickened abortions. Now, of course, a fetus can live as a baby outside the womb by the third trimester. Roe v. Wade allows states to prohibit abortion in the third trimester and although viability is not the sole basis for the trimester system Roe creates, it has a logic to it. If the fetus can live, one shouldn't have the right at that point to choose an extraction process that kills it. What will be interesting is when science, as is inevitable, can grow a fetus outside a woman, a true "test-tube" baby. At that point, it will be interesting to see if extraction is permitted, but abortion forbidden (i.e., the woman has a right to remove the fetus, but not to terminate it), or if the debate shifts from a woman's right to control her body to the right to choose whether to bring a life into the world. If it becomes the latter, it will also be interesting to see what rights, if any, fathers may acquire -- of course as it stands now in the body-control regime, there are none.

To which I responded:

Thanks for your comment. You raise some interesting questions. I don't think I agree with some of your moral conclusions. I don't agree with the Sup. Ct. holding that viability controls. Even then I wouldn't want to criminalize it. As for a test tube baby, I would assume if it became possible, it would be made illegal. As for the father, that opens up a whole new debate, but I don't believe that under any circumstances, anyone but the person who is carrying the fetus should be allowed to determine how her body is to be used. The fundamental right has to be the women's right to control her own body and all that resides within it.

Additional comments received on or before February 20, 2011 will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. 

Contraception, Abortion and Komen (Continued)

I posted my commentary entitled "Contraception, Abortion, and Komen" on February 9, 2012.

In response thereto one of my subscribers who does not want to be identified commented:

Excellent letter. I think that women have just gotten tired of trying to talk to men with closed minds; the men do not want to hear what really happens at Planned Parenthood. I volunteered for a year after retiring as a nurse, and gave it up because I could no longer stomach the youngsters coming in with STD's; many of them had more than one, and they were so out of touch. Pregnancies were few, and requests for abortion even less frequent. But women who work with women know the facts and I think that is one of the reasons that there was such an outcry. Women could not believe and could not accept that a women’s organization did not know what Planned Parenthood is all about---which is women’s health care. Komen made a big mistake---turning their back on women who need help. I am not sure that they will be quickly forgiven. Omit my name please---I like talking with you, a breath of sanity in a world of viciousness. 

Allow me to add:

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Since then the controversy has escalated, and now swirls around the Health Insurance Reform, under which, among many other provisions, all insurance policies must include coverage for pre-existing conditions, primary care, and birth control, at no additional cost. Opponents of birth control now have escalated this into a religious issue because the Department of Health & Human Services has refused to exempt religious institutions from its provisions. Let me make clear that no institution is required under this law to provide contraceptive services. This is only about insurance. If you choose to sell or provide insurance to your employees all must comply with the law.

Nevertheless, the administration has now exempted religious institutions from having to pay or insure women for birth control. This will be done only by insurance companies, but will, in fact have no cost in the long run, because like all preventive health care, it reduces the cost of health care in the long run.

But the hysteria on the part of Republican Presidential candidates has, if anything, escalated. According to Planned Parenthood:

Mitt Romney told his supporters "This same administration said that in churches… that they have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills…  

 This is flat out untrue. 

Here's the truth. Nearly every sexually active woman — including 98 percent of Catholics — will rely on birth control at some point. It's basic preventive care — not just as a contraceptive, but for women who use the birth control pill to manage ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and other conditions. The health care reform law requires employers to provide coverage for preventive care with no co-pays. While churches, mosques, and other religious institutions do no have to abide by this requirement, the Obama administration has decided that religiously affiliated hospitals and universities with large numbers of employees of different faiths can't impose their ideology on those employees. It's simple: your boss can't decide whether you have access to birth control with no co-pays.

The Republican agenda becomes more and more radical, and more and more oppressive. The liberties, not only of women, but of all are at stake. Romney, the ultimate opportunist, is willing to sell his soul in his lust for power and prestige, to add to his billions of dollars.

Finally, I have been trying to understand where the fundamentalists get their concept that life begins at conception. In this connection I entered into a discussion on this with a friend a while ago. 

Without going into what prompted my discourse I think my response may be of interest:

What I think you are suggesting is that the point of the Right's position on abortion is to require women to be continuously pregnant, i.e. to be plentiful, and there is support for this in the Bible. Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

           

But what I hear them saying, does not suggest that to me. I rather hear an anti-sex message. More than anything I hear abstain from sex outside of marriage, and this too has support in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:1-40 and to have sex only to procreate.

           

But while I think this underlies their views, they rely on the idea of "when life begins," for which I can find no support in the Bible. Furthermore, the idea that "life" must be protected is silly, since life exists in the form of a mosquito, and surely they do not mean that mosquitoes, or for that matter bacteria, which too is life, must be protected. What they must mean, though they never seem to say it, is that human life must be protected. They then postulate that human life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg. But that is completely arbitrary. The egg looks no different after fertilization than before. If they argue that this ultimately leads to human life, than it can equally be argued, that the sperm itself, or the egg itself, leads to human life, and there is no doubt that the sperm is alive, even before it enters the egg. 

           

What really drives this, outside the hard-core fundamentalists, is that traditionally, abortion was frowned upon, and the physician who performed them illegally was looked down upon as the lowest of the low. But this always coexisted with the dangerous back-alley abortion, or self induced abortion, and the abortion sought by those with the means to go to a jurisdictions where it was legal. 

Just as we have learned, that many prejudices of the past don't make sense, whether it was that left handed is unacceptable, to that being gay is not normal, or that contraception is immoral, so it is simply moving with the reality that abortion is simply a late term contraception.

           

The question is not when does life begin, but rather when does human life begin. While abortion was frowned upon in past generations, it was never considered the killing of a person. It was never murder. The introduction of the idea that a human life begins at fertilization of the egg, inevitably leads to claims of murder, but it has no basis either in the past, or in logic.

           

The fertilized egg is no more a human that a tadpole is a frog, or a fertilized hen egg is a chicken, and I think few, if any, would claim that to be so.

When does human life begin? I think that even during the time when abortion was always illegal, and even birth control was a violation of law; it was when the fetus is capable of existing outside the womb, i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut.

           

Any other approach has no basis in religion, in the Bible or in precedent. 

Contraception, Abortion and Komen

I think most of my readers are by now well aware of the storm that was raised by the decision of Susan G. Komen to defund Planned Parenthood. What they may not be aware of, is that this is a very small part of what can only be dubbed as the war on women. What used to be the Republican Party’s determination to end the right of women to have control over their own bodies, has now descended into an attempt to turn abortion into a capital crime, for logically, if human life indeed begins at conception, which was never the concept before, then the taking of that life is a capital crime, and it turns the millions of women who have always turned to abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy into “murderers."

           

But what has now happened is that they are no longer content to stop at trying to end abortion under any and all circumstances, including rape and incest, and even under conditions where the life of the mother is endangered. They are now determined to take away from both men and women the right to contraception. The Komen incident is but the tip of the iceberg.

           

This prompted me to write a Letter to the Editor of my local newspaper and to the Star Ledger. My local newspaper will print it. The Star Ledger will not. I did not write to the New York Times because I have given up on their ever printing one of my letters again. 

The letter I wrote follows:

The Arab Spring has arrived in the US. We have now discovered that we, the people of the US have people power, no less potent than that wielded by the people in Arab lands.

           

When Congress was about to restrict our freedom on the Internet, we followed the lead of Facebook and Google and others and protested. The legislation was withdrawn almost immediately.

           

When we discovered that insider trading was rampant among our Congressmen and Senators, we rose up and Congress is about to pass legislation that may put a stop to it.

           

Most recently we discovered that Komen, under pressure from right wing sources opposed not only to abortion, but to all forms of birth control, had defunded Planned Parenthood to the tune of $680,000, we rose up and Komen reversed course and refunded Planned Parenthood.

           

But we appear to have missed out. For this defunding has been going on for a long time and it appears to have gone under the radar. Planned Parenthood spends a $1 billion a year providing services to poor and middle class women throughout the US. $487 million, or 46 percent of its revenue, came from government health service grants and reimbursements. But defunding throughout the US is under way.

           

New Jersey, under the leadership of our Governor, Chris Christie, defunded Planned Parenthood completely to the tune of  $7.4 million, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding. These services included life saving cancer screenings, birth control, prevention, and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), breast health services and pap tests, and was not used for abortion services. In 2009, this funding helped support services for over 136,000 patients including over 70,000 breast exams and 65,000 pap tests, but there was no outcry.

           

Other states have taken similar action and have defunded Planned Parenthood to the tune of $80 million, far, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding, but there was no outcry

           

Last year, the House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget - including about $75 million that would have gone to Planned Parenthood's preventative care and treatment programs for low-income women, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding, but there was no outcry.

Deciding that this plan wasn't disastrous enough, the House also passed an amendment to eliminate all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, an estimated total of $363 million, far more than the $680,000 that might have been lost through Komen defunding. Much of this goes to care for the Medicaid patients who make up almost half of Planned Parenthood's clientele. Fortunately, the bills died in the Senate, where Democrats are in control. The amount that Komen would have cut from Planned Parenthood's women's healthcare was significant-- but the amount that House Republicans were prepared to cut was 500 times larger, but there was no outcry.

           

Now that we know that we have people power, isn’t it time for us to be heard.

           

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.