Last night on Facebook, I went into a slight (well, maybe not so slight) rant about what I consider to be a concerted and organized effort to use women’s access to family planning as a weapon in a political war. To me, it’s obvious that this manufactured crisis was designed to attack the President of the United States. Republicans smelled blood in the water and, like a school of sharks, they pounced in huge numbers to join the feeding frenzy.

My beloved sister (and I can’t overemphasize the world beloved), a confirmed conservative and a staunch opponent of Barack Obama, chastised me gently for (her words) over reacting and for mistaking a defense of religious freedom for an attack on women’s reproductive health rights. Now my sister is amazing. She is the most loving person I know and she is brilliant! My response to her was a little over-the-top (just like me!) but I wanted to follow up here because I see this as one of the most serious issues we’ve faced as a country in a long time.

If you haven’t been following the situation, here’s a brief recap. A couple of weeks ago, the Obama administration issued a ruling that Catholic employers (with the exception of actual churches) would have to offer contraceptive services in any health insurance plan they provided for their employees. One of the basic tenets of the Catholic church of course, is that contraception is a sin. An immediate furor arose with people saying that Obama was trampling the religious rights of Catholics. Obama immediately addressed the critics by amending the order, allowing Catholic employers to decline to PAY for contraceptive services and instead, requiring the insurance companies to provide and pay for access to contraception. The Catholic church was generally split over the compromise, but it was basically seen as an honest attempt to honor religious freedom while also protecting access to contraception for women. To be fair, not everyone agreed however.

The Republican opposition immediately jumped at the opportunity to make a political statement attacking the President. They sensed a chink in his armor and they stuck the point of their lance into that chink and started to pry away fiercely! And they brought the HOUSE with them!

Rick Santorum was one of the first to strike a blow for “god” by condemning Obama and by stating his belief that individual states should be able to totally ban contraception if they chose to do so. According to Santorum, “It’s [contraception] not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative.”The money man in Santorum’s super-pac, Foster Friess piled on by suggesting it was a non-issue and that contraception was actually inexpensive anyway…and then added, “back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Apparently Friess wasn’t aware that it’s possible for a woman to get pregnant in sexual positions that don’t require knee separation, but he’s probably a missionary type of guy anyway.

Yesterday, Representative Darrel Issa, (the richest man in congress and the ONLY convicted felon currently serving in the House of Representatives) held a hearing on the issue. The panel that was intended to discuss the issue of religious freedom in the area of contraception, was composed of five MEN. When the democrats in the house tried to add a WOMAN to the panel, Issa refused to allow Sandra Fluke to testify on women students at Georgetown University and the importance of the contraception issue to them.

“Where are the women?” the minority Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked early in the hearing. She criticized the Republican committee chairman, Rep. Darrel Issa, for wanting to “roll back the fundamental rights of women to a time when the government thought what happens in the bedroom is their business.” “We will not be forced back to that primitive era,” she said.

Then there is the Blunt Amendment. United States Senator Roy Blunt (R) MO, has introduced an amendment to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare of course) that would allow employers to make decisions related to heath care options based purely on “conscience”. In other words, if an employer didn’t believe in using medicine, but relied solely on the power of prayer, then that employer could arbitrarily and without discussion or documentation, exclude his employees from prescription medication coverage. The employer actually, under Blunt’s amendment, wouldn’t even have to PROVE their religious convictions, they would simply decide and bang…that would be it. (Do you miss “the Decider”?)

Then there’s the growing trend to take away women’s access to abortions, even in the case of rape or incest or when the health (or life) of the mother is threatened. Oklahoma’s Republican legislature yesterday, passed the “personhood law”. That law would effectively ban abortions in every circumstance, even to save the life of the mother. It is a license to kill women. I will acknowledge here that the subject of abortion is a deeply held and strongly debated issue in our country. It is also an issue that remains in the background until an election approaches, and then it’s trotted out as a divisive issue designed to split Americans into two groups. Also, the debate is NOT between pro-life and pro-abortion as it’s often defined. It’s about allowing pregnant women to decide for themselves which side of the argument they’re on, which facts they believe, what their own morals are saying to them, and to make the final choice WITHOUT government interference. Personhood laws have been introduced all over the country in an attempt to legally make a fertilized egg a PERSON under the law which would of course, make any abortion, a murder. Ethical interpretations are all over the map on this issue and as long as there is legitimate disagreement on when life begins, my personal opinion is that the pregnant woman’s opinion is more important than mine or the government’s .

Did I mention the Republicans are also refusing to vote to renew the Violence Against Women Act? Sen. Charles Grassley is objecting to the act because any group that receives grants, safe homes for battered women, cannot discriminate in hiring, and illegal immigrants can seek help from these groups without being reported for deportation. Without this law, police are hamstrung in domestic violence situations.

Then, there’s the attack against women’s reproductive rights being considered by the State of Virginia. These paragons of sexual morality are trying to pass a law that would require a woman considering abortion to first undergo an invasive ultrasound procedure and to view the resulting video. The particular ultrasound procedure required is one in which a large probe is physically inserted into the woman’s vagina. Does that sound like a place you want your government? And of course, major props to Va. State Senator Janet Howell (D-Fairfax). On the Monday before the controversial bill was presented for a vote, Sen. Howell attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication. Surprisingly, the men in the Virginia legislature voted DOWN that measure. (Notice the emphasis on the word DOWN). I was shocked!!

Finally, there is of course, the Republican attack on Planned Parenthood. I wrote a blog on this a week ago, but this organization has done more to REDUCE abortions, especially among low-income and indigent women than any other group in the country. 97% of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are NOT for abortions. There is no question, that if Planned Parenthood were defunded, the number of abortions would go UP. Is that what Republicans or is it simply about MEN wanting to control WOMEN. It’s also about sex and we know that anything that applies to women below the waist is a HUGE issue for Republicans. They want full control over that particular area for some weirdly freakish reason.

This developing hysteria seems obviously (to me at least) to be an attempt to make Obama look bad and to strike a few fundamentalist blows against “Obamacare”. To my dear sister, I know I won’t change your mind on most of this and I’ll admit fully that I am biased. I also must admit that, yes, I’m a liberal. But I’m proud of my “liberalness” and I’m proud to stand up for a group of people that I believe are under attack…WOMEN. Women like you, my dear sister 🙂 I love you.