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The So Called Republican War on Women! |
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August 18, 2014 We’ve been hearing a lot lately about what is being called the Republican “war on women”. We’re women, and our political views lean towards the conservative side, so the news that the people we’ve voted for are waging war on us has naturally given us cause for concern. However, we do like to think for ourselves instead of believing everything we hear, so we decided to take a personal look at the facts. Here’s what we found: It seems that the major way that Republicans are accused of being oppressors of women has to do with their stance on abortion. Surprisingly enough, the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Hobby Lobby’s unwillingness to provide post-conception abortion-inducing drugs was actually based on a law passed by a Democrat Congress and signed by Democrat President Bill Clinton. That law was designed to protect the religious freedom of employers. As it happens, the drugs in question are available at no cost to anyone who requests them from Planned Parenthood, so you’d think the issue wouldn’t cause such an uproar. It’s the principle of the thing, of course. In some minds, women have the right to do as they please with their own bodies, but employers have no right to refuse to kill children. It’s an insensitive way of putting it, we know. But that seems to be the popular mind-set these days. Personally, we believe that a woman does have the right to do as she wishes with her own body. However, we also believe that, once a woman is pregnant, she is carrying another body inside her own, a body that would choose to live if able to speak for itself. We are reminded of Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant, who stood up for the people of Whoville when they were about to lose their lives because no one believed they were actually people. “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” he said.
Of course, pregnancy can be difficult and happen at the most inconvenient of times. But everyone ought to accept the responsibilities for his or her actions, and conception of life is sometimes a natural and beautiful consequence of sexual activity. Women who are unwilling or unable to raise their babies always have the option of offering them up for adoption to women who long to be mothers but are unable to bear children. So are the Republicans really waging a war on women, or are they simply standing up for individuals who cannot speak for themselves? We believe it’s the latter. It’s something they’ve been doing for a while now – at least since 1878, when a Republican Senator from California introduced a resolution to give women the right to vote. In conclusion, we believe it’s time to stop the warmongering and hatred of anyone who presents an opposing point of view. If we, whether Republican or Democrat, can manage to treat each other with respect, being willing to disagree without condemning a person with a contrary viewpoint, then perhaps we can learn to work together to try and resolve the important issues: not by compromising on the principles we stand for, but by helping come up with solutions that work for everyone. If we can do that, then we might just change the world. To close with another quote from Dr. Seuss,
Jean, Mary Jean, Lois, and Anna Leigh
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