War on Women Part 2

                                                                             
This is continuing with the overwhelming reality of this War on Women that is taking place in the country at this time. Some members of the GOP are pushing for Planned Parenthood (Planned Parenthood Federation of America) to not receive any federal funding under the notion that those finances will be “secretly” funding abortion, except that it won’t because it is ILLEGAL for federal money to do so. What they are deciding not to fund is all of the wonderful services that they provide to women especially from low to no incomes. PPFA provides reproductive health and maternal and child health services. From birth control, education, disease screening, cancer screening to counseling, they provide what women have fought and DIED for decades ago. They were soldiers for a cause. Some facts- Planned Parenthood is the nation's leading sexual and reproductive health care advocate and provider. In 2008, they reported that contraception constituted 35% of total services, STI/STD testing and treatment constituted 34%, cancer testing and screening constituted 17%; and other women's health procedures, including pregnancy, prenatal, midlife, and infertility were 10%. Only 2% to 3% of visits involve abortions.     

As racist as I believe this country is and admits, it’s even more sexist. Black men could vote before women and a black man held the position of President of the United States before a woman. If a female senator had done a photo "spread" in a magazine modeling to earn money for law school as Scott Brown had done, I hardly think she would have won the seat let alone not recieved any ridicule. It took an abnormal amount of time for equal pay for women to be instituted, but hardly completely equal to this day. Fact- in 2005 women in Minnesota state government made 97 cents to the dollar, ranking Minnesota as one of the most equal for female state workers in the country. Harassment suits are now taken seriously, sexual or others, as well as wrongful termination if women went on maternity leave. There is still a battle for woman in the military. There are two paradoxes here, one being the GOP incessantly stresses the right to privacy…clearly what a woman does with her body under the supervision of her doctor is a private and LEGAL matter. Two, the GOP and the Tea Party stands on the platform of deregulation, while lusting to regulate the relationship between a woman and her doctor. No surprise, look how they ache to be involved with same sex relationships…(pun intended, research the higher percentage of Republican sex scandals, homosexual or otherwise) maybe we all need a refresher course on modern feminism and a copy of Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique…Bra burning anyone?