Rockin' the White for Women's Rights

Today, April 2, people across the country are wearing white in support of women's rights and against the latest backlash against women, this time lead by conservative Republicans.  A Facebook page has been created, and although the number of participants is small, I'm doing my bit.  Why?  It's a small gesture, but big things have usually started small.  I do it, in large part, to honor my fore mothers who struggled to gain basic rights for women that we now take for granted.  Like voting.  Like safe and legal abortions.  Like not being property.

I do it because I feel as if we are experiencing a national nightmare with regards to women's freedoms and our right to exist as free persons in a free nation.  Women are the majority population in this country and on this earth.  It is only by staying informed and engaged that we will retain any kind of political power and self-determination.

It's a no-brainer.

Joni Mitchell writes
"Truth goes up in vapors
The steeples lean
Winds of change patriarchs
Snug in your bible belt dreams
God goes up the chimney
Like childhood Santa Claus
The good slaves love the good book
A rebel loves a cause"

Fight on.

Free, Safe and Legal

Oh, big surprise, a 2008 study saying women's mental health was adversely affected by having an abortion, turns out to be a badly flawed study.

Women's Health Policy reports the story here.

In the article, Julia Steinberg from UCSF, who provided another analysis of the data in the study, "said the problems with the original are sufficient to justify a retraction (Reuters, 3/7). "This is not a scholarly difference of opinion; their facts were flatly wrong," she said in a statement, adding, "This was an abuse of the scientific process to reach conclusion that are not supported by the data" (LiveScience/Huffington Post, 3/5)."

I find this all very interesting in light of the recent legislation to place more restrictions on women who want access to legal abortions in this country. And in light of the on-going warfare against access to legal abortion that has been targeting doctors and patients ever since the Supreme Court declared the procedure legal in the U.S.

Enough already.  My hope is that women turn out in record numbers in November and vote pro-choice, pro-women.  Send the neanderthals back to their caves.

International Women's Day

Sent to me by my sister.  We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore.  How about you?

This image has been circulating around Facebook; If politicians doubt the strength, numbers and determination of women in this country, they need to watch the movie Iron Jawed Angels about the struggle for women's right to vote in this country.

And lastly, I leave you with a column by Donna Smith, who says, in part, "Providing healthcare for all as a matter of human right – under a Medicare for all model -- would be an astonishing advancement for the women in this nation. All women. All men. Imagine the freedom that could come from knowing should you become sick or be injured you would not search or fight for care or be given care you might not need or be denied care that could be life-saving. This does not have to forever stay in our imaginations. It is not imaginary in much of the rest of the world. The impact on gender inequality in America would be so enormous."

Exactly.