The War on Women Has Got to Stop

It started with the hives. At first I thought it was the cats. They'd climb all over me and within minutes, the itching would begin. But then I started getting them at work, I just figured it was cat hair on my clothes or something, not realizing that they almost always coincided with anytime I was reading the news. Then this week on my drive into work, I was listening to the news as usual and a politician of a right-leaning nature said something profoundly dumb and my neck started to itch. In a matter of minutes, my neck was covered in hives. I realized that no, this wasn't the cats.

I've been getting physically ill from the news.

If it isn't the madness in Wisconsin, it's that Qaddafi is bombing his own people from the air. Oh, and then I stumble upon this gem:

Indiana Bill Would Force Doctors To Tell Women That Having An Abortion May Lead To Breast Cancer (source).

No, it's cool. I'll wait for you to clean up your spit-take. It took me a minute when I read that, too. Here's the quick rundown (emphasis mine):

House Bill 1210, introduced by Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner (R), would... require physicians to inform a pregnant woman seeking an abortion that the fetus could feel pain and require patients to view an ultrasound. A patient could get out of doing so only if she stated her refusal in writing. But one of the most controversial portions of the bill is the part that would require doctors to inform women about the risks of abortion, including "the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion and the natural protective effect of a completed pregnancy in avoiding breast cancer."

The American Cancer Society (ACS) and other major health organizations, however, have rejected this theory. In February 2003, the U.S. National Cancer Institute brought together "more than 100 of the world's leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk." They found that neither induced nor spontaneous abortions lead to an increase in breast cancer risk. In fact, the risk is actually increased for a short period after a woman carries a pregnancy to full term (i.e., gives birth to a child).

. . .

I may have mentioned on here that it feels like the government is out to get women. I have been hesitant to start delving into politics on this blog, but folks... I'm getting hives I've been getting so stressed out about this. Infertility has made me feel powerless in some ways, but the stuff I'm hearing about on the news lately has made me feel powerless in much bigger, scarier ways.

After reading this latest article and learning that this new piece of legislation was introduced by a Republican (SHOCKER), I need to get on my political soapbox.

Ladies, and the gents who support the ladies in their lives: there is a Republican-led war on women happening right now. I've been trying to dance around this as much as possible both here and on FB and Twitter, but I just can't anymore. Where are the Dems proposing this kind of legislation? Oh right- they're too busy focusing on trying to get the Federal budget passed and maybe create some jobs for everyone.

I get it. I get that people were frustrated around midterm elections in 2010, so everyone voted in all these little whippersnapper Tea Party Republicans, like a breath of fresh air in a stale room. And now it's like the joke is on America, and more specifically, American women. With wave after wave of anti-choice, anti-woman legislation, I feel like everyone is finally starting to see this new Republican party's true colors... and they are ugly, ugly colors.

Reader Sonja sent me an article that sums it all up rather nicely with some rather convincing arguments. As terrifying as the implications in the article are, it's nice to know that I'm not losing my effing mind, that this isn't all just in my head: Female Sexuality Still Terrifying to Conservative Lawmakers (source).

. . .

I need to bring this back 'round to why on earth this all should matter to you, why it should matter to the infertility community. Like I said in my last post about anti-woman legislation, we must start fighting back as a unified community of women or we are going to get trampled by the cultural norming of misogyny in America. So why should this matter to us infertile folk?

Think about it like this: is this the kind of America in which you want to raise your kids for whom you've so desperately longed? The kind of America that wants to treat women with recurrent miscarriages as criminals worthy of death row?

Or how about the kind of America that blames an 11-year-old girl for her own gangrape by 18 men? Yeah, spit-take on that one, too. I actually gagged when I read about that this morning. Do you see why I might start breaking out in hives reading this garbage?

This is not my America. This will not be my neice's America. And this will not be my children's America. I have had enough. The War on Women has got to stop.

And if it persists, then we must fight back. We need to educate ourselves and stop putting our heads in the sand or turning off the news when it gets too much to bear. Believe me, I know how easy it is to think about nothing other than, "When am I ever going to have children? Will I ever be able to have children?" but we've got to think about the world we hope to shape for our children one day.

Besides educating ourselves, we need to come out in huge numbers. There is nothing more powerful than an educated mass of people. We need men to stand with us. We need to be writing about this on our blogs, posting articles and resources on Facebook and Twitter, and talking about this with the women and men in our lives. We have to become a chorus of so many people shouting so loudly from so many places there's no possible way they can ignore us.

. . .

I'll be honest. I don't really have all the answers on what we can do. But I'll keep writing and talking about this. I hope I don't lose some of you along the way because of political differences because the case I'm trying to make is that regardless of where you stand politically, this kind of legislation can and will impact our access to infertility care. I fear it's a short leap from preserving fetal rights to denying infertility treatment coverage. It becomes not just a discourse on having children, but who deserves to have children at all.

Please tell me this isn't all just in my head and that I'm not getting hives because I'm crazy. Please tell me that there are others of you out there who have felt like I do and have had enough of it all. And if you think I'm wrong, tell me why- give me sources, facts, figures.

Because seriously? They don't make enough Benedryl for these stress hives I've been getting.