It is 2012. Or is it? With discussions led by white men in suits on seemingly a daily basis, using terms like “forcible” rape and “legitimate” rape, it seems women in America are in real danger of finding ourselves back in the ’50s.
Candidates like Mike Pence are figuring out that the majority gender should be left alone while he’s on the campaign trail, staying relentlessly on message that it’s all about jobs and the economy and he doesn’t any longer worry his pretty little head about “social issues.”
Do not for one moment believe it. His entire Washington D.C. political career has been about defunding Planned Parenthood and eliminating us as a provider of quality reproductive health care. He does that because he is anti-choice.
It begs the question. If Pence is successful at taking down Planned Parenthood, what happens to the millions of low-income women who turn to us for life-saving cancer screenings and birth control so that their children are planned? Does he really not get that Indiana already ranks 49th in access to family planning services and has one of the highest rates of Medicaid-covered births in the country? Does he really not get that the cycle of poverty is fed by failed family planning, with households unable to meet their basic needs and more children living in poverty in Indiana by the day? Does he not get that reducing access to birth control means more unintended pregnancies? Does he not get that Planned Parenthood does more than any other organization to reduce the incidence of abortion by reducing the incidence of unplanned pregnancies?
Does he not get that a vote for Mike Pence is a vote for more abortions?
No, he does not. Mike Pence totally does not get it.
Wake up while it is still 2012. If women don’t pay wake up now, we will find ourselves waking up a year and two years from now stunned by the toxic darkening of our days, led by white men in suits who wish to play doctor and who wish to insert themselves into our bedrooms. Men who wear robes will again find it appropriate to ask an alleged rape victim what she was wearing or how many drinks she had, and men who are activist prosecutors making the lives of women who miscarry a travesty of justice when they arrest them for running a red light because personhood becomes the law of the land. If you aren’t paying attention to the number of states where personhood is proposed and that Romney’s choice of running mate believes that a fertilized egg should have all the rights and protections of a living human being, you must begin paying attention. The Pence-Ellspersmann ticket supports personhood. The Romney/Ryan tickets supports personhood.
This is about OUR lives and futures. Our daughters’ lives and futures. Our granddaughters’ lives and futures.
Every one of us has something to offer to make November 6 turn out okay for us here in Indiana. Figure out right here, right now, what that is in your case and get about making it happen, 24/7, with a sense of urgency. Behave as though your life depends on it. It just might.
