In South Carolina, women don't fare very well. Whether it is health care, employment, violence, education, reproductive rights... you know what I mean. And in spite of all the anti-abortion verbiage about protecting women, pregnant women, babies and children remain vulnerable.
On Thursday, September 1, Charleston County Democratic Women will hold its first meeting after the summer hiatus. The featured speaker will be Jane Perdue of the Center for Women, founded in 1990, and which mission is "Dedicated to empowering and enriching women in their private and public lives."
The end goal is to increase the presence of women professionally and in elected office. But to get there, so many things have to change. Our daughters need to be healthy, well-fed and well educated. They need to live in homes and walk through neighborhoods that are safe. As they grow older, they need to have the same opportunities for higher education, employment and economic growth as men, and all those criteria need to cut across race as well.
In South Carolina, preterm birth rate is 4th highest in the nation; while the infant mortality rate has declined, there is a dramatic racial divide. With the state's continued refusal to expand Medicaid, women and children continue to experience the harmful results. Last year, attacks on Planned Parenthood threatened to shut down a valuable source of women's health care. Control of our reproductive health means control of emotional and economic well-being. South Carolina ranks #1 in violence against women. We are still debating whether or not to allow our schools to provide medically accurate sex education to students.
What all the above means is that here in South Carolina, girls and women are faced with constant hurdles to living a good life.
The Center for Women addresses each of these issues with education and advocacy.
The year of our first woman president should be the year we move the girls and women of South Carolina into the 21st century.
Please go to the Charleston County Democratic Women Facebook page and say you will attend this important meeting on Thursday, September 1, at the Holiday Inn. Men are welcome, because what improves the lives of women improves all our lives. Registration is at 6, the buffet dinner is $20.00. And please take the opportunity to become a member.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Showing posts with label Infant mortality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infant mortality. Show all posts
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Thursday, April 17, 2014
The Real Perverts
Some twenty years ago, I was with my family in New York City. It was Christmas season, and we annually celebrated my daughter's December 2 birthday by going to the city for a play, dinner, and of course to see the holiday sights. She was somewhere around five years old.
We were approaching the line to see the famous window displays at Lord & Taylor. As we approached I saw there was a commotion; some yelling on the sidewalk at what looked to be a street vendor. As I got closer my mouth fell open in horror. It was a woman standing by a table with a huge poster depicting a woman in full hideous, heart-wrenching bondage. As I attempted to get my small child away from this scene I did yell something to the effect that she should be ashamed of herself, which of course, was the kind of attention she was seeking.
The purpose of this display was to point out to the public the abuses of pornography. I would have been fine with that intent and her first amendment right to such a protest. But it was abhorrent that she chose to do this where children were passing. To my mind, she was as much a part of the pornographic culture as what she claimed she was protesting, but in a more deceitful and emotionally disturbed way.
This is what I see happening with all the nation's focus on abortion. It has nothing at all to do with protecting life. There is in fact an inverse relationship of concern about life before birth to life after birth. Those who most loudly support abortion bans are the least likely to want to care for the pregnant woman herself, much less the newly born infant. Proof of this is the lack of support for health and nutrition programs, and our pathetic infant mortality rate, the shame of civilized nations.
If it is not about protecting life, what is the anti-abortion movement about? For one thing, it is control. It is forcing women who have unprotected sex to lose control over their bodies and their lives. And the anti-contraception movement is about forcing women to not have protected sex, further losing control of their lives.
And the reason for the vehemence of the supporters of this cruel and ignorant cause has more to do with voyeurism and exhibitionism than just about anything else. Imagine spending as much time obsessing about sex and a woman's body as our legislators have done. It would be a diagnosable condition if the false moral imperatives were not celebrated as "Christian values." The combination of the positive and negative attention that this crusade engenders is no less than thrilling to these self-appointed arbiters of a woman's morality. And the ironic cherry atop this disgusting sundae (if you will...) is the legitimacy that it gives to the prurience of the crusader.
So, much as the woman who masqueraded her fascination for pornography as a protest, our anti-abortion protesters focus their lives, and their political campaigns, around matters of a woman's body. Creepy? You bet. And isn't it time we saw these really dysfunctional people for what they are?
We were approaching the line to see the famous window displays at Lord & Taylor. As we approached I saw there was a commotion; some yelling on the sidewalk at what looked to be a street vendor. As I got closer my mouth fell open in horror. It was a woman standing by a table with a huge poster depicting a woman in full hideous, heart-wrenching bondage. As I attempted to get my small child away from this scene I did yell something to the effect that she should be ashamed of herself, which of course, was the kind of attention she was seeking.
The purpose of this display was to point out to the public the abuses of pornography. I would have been fine with that intent and her first amendment right to such a protest. But it was abhorrent that she chose to do this where children were passing. To my mind, she was as much a part of the pornographic culture as what she claimed she was protesting, but in a more deceitful and emotionally disturbed way.
This is what I see happening with all the nation's focus on abortion. It has nothing at all to do with protecting life. There is in fact an inverse relationship of concern about life before birth to life after birth. Those who most loudly support abortion bans are the least likely to want to care for the pregnant woman herself, much less the newly born infant. Proof of this is the lack of support for health and nutrition programs, and our pathetic infant mortality rate, the shame of civilized nations.
If it is not about protecting life, what is the anti-abortion movement about? For one thing, it is control. It is forcing women who have unprotected sex to lose control over their bodies and their lives. And the anti-contraception movement is about forcing women to not have protected sex, further losing control of their lives.
And the reason for the vehemence of the supporters of this cruel and ignorant cause has more to do with voyeurism and exhibitionism than just about anything else. Imagine spending as much time obsessing about sex and a woman's body as our legislators have done. It would be a diagnosable condition if the false moral imperatives were not celebrated as "Christian values." The combination of the positive and negative attention that this crusade engenders is no less than thrilling to these self-appointed arbiters of a woman's morality. And the ironic cherry atop this disgusting sundae (if you will...) is the legitimacy that it gives to the prurience of the crusader.
So, much as the woman who masqueraded her fascination for pornography as a protest, our anti-abortion protesters focus their lives, and their political campaigns, around matters of a woman's body. Creepy? You bet. And isn't it time we saw these really dysfunctional people for what they are?
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Nikki's Conscience
Our governor here in South Carolina is no friend of the Affordable Care Act. She has been paid good money to make absolutely sure that her good friends in the insurance industry do not have to follow federal law.
Last year, she took a million of our hard-earned tax dollars from the federal government and instructed her exploratory committee to find out how to reject the Medicaid expansion. That's right, the part that would insure lots of poor and currently uninsured South Carolinians, with nearly 100% government funding. And here we thought Nikki was able to spot a bargain.
Now her legislative buddies are working to pretty much make the whole Affordable Care Act illegal in this parallel universe of South Carolina. Nullification acts abound this second term of the Obama administration, and it's not hard to cut and paste: federal health care regulations, gun laws, National Defense Authorization Act. There is absolutely nothing our federal government can attempt to do to protect us that Nikki and her gang aren't trying to strike down.
In a very lovely letter on quite tasteful and expensive stationery, at taxpayer expense, Nikki wrote back in response to a petition I signed regarding a woman's right to contraceptive choice. In the tone of a very patient first grade teacher, she explained how there are times when we have to "distinguish between our ability to make decisions about our own health and our ability to make someone else pay for the effects of those decisions."
I don't know. You might want to read that one over again because my head's still spinning from it.
Nikki -- and I know you don't mind me calling you Nikki because your letter indicates that we are on a first-name basis -- there are whole bunches of reasons why this is pure bullshit. You may never have had to worry about life and liberty, but there are many of us -- in fact, many who live right here in the state you govern -- who have to worry about those rights. The right to vote, the right to housing, the right to be able to care for ourselves and our families come to mind.
While your legislators are trying to make sure every pregnancy comes to term, neither you nor they are concerned about what happens to the woman, her child, or her family after birth. You know, and I know, that this "matter of faith" is an excuse. When it comes to infant mortality, you are right up there making sure nothing is done about it.
The employers whose rights you defend so shamelessly take our tax dollars, and their conscience really doesn't dictate whether those tax dollars come from saints or sinners, or whether our children have to go to failing schools because more taxes for public schools is where you draw your line.
When our government makes laws, it is not up to me, or you, or your friends in church and business to decide which ones you will follow. Just as a church or business cannot refuse to serve someone because they are black, or gay, or Hispanic, they cannot pick and choose what services they provide to women.
Shame that a woman in public office, who has been fortunate in her life, has no conscience at all when it comes to assuring that all women have the same rights to life and liberty that she has truly enjoyed.
One final note about your letter. Perhaps if you did your job in truly good conscience, you would not need to close with "God bless," which sounds a little too much like wishful thinking.
Last year, she took a million of our hard-earned tax dollars from the federal government and instructed her exploratory committee to find out how to reject the Medicaid expansion. That's right, the part that would insure lots of poor and currently uninsured South Carolinians, with nearly 100% government funding. And here we thought Nikki was able to spot a bargain.
Now her legislative buddies are working to pretty much make the whole Affordable Care Act illegal in this parallel universe of South Carolina. Nullification acts abound this second term of the Obama administration, and it's not hard to cut and paste: federal health care regulations, gun laws, National Defense Authorization Act. There is absolutely nothing our federal government can attempt to do to protect us that Nikki and her gang aren't trying to strike down.
In a very lovely letter on quite tasteful and expensive stationery, at taxpayer expense, Nikki wrote back in response to a petition I signed regarding a woman's right to contraceptive choice. In the tone of a very patient first grade teacher, she explained how there are times when we have to "distinguish between our ability to make decisions about our own health and our ability to make someone else pay for the effects of those decisions."
I don't know. You might want to read that one over again because my head's still spinning from it.
Nikki -- and I know you don't mind me calling you Nikki because your letter indicates that we are on a first-name basis -- there are whole bunches of reasons why this is pure bullshit. You may never have had to worry about life and liberty, but there are many of us -- in fact, many who live right here in the state you govern -- who have to worry about those rights. The right to vote, the right to housing, the right to be able to care for ourselves and our families come to mind.
While your legislators are trying to make sure every pregnancy comes to term, neither you nor they are concerned about what happens to the woman, her child, or her family after birth. You know, and I know, that this "matter of faith" is an excuse. When it comes to infant mortality, you are right up there making sure nothing is done about it.
The employers whose rights you defend so shamelessly take our tax dollars, and their conscience really doesn't dictate whether those tax dollars come from saints or sinners, or whether our children have to go to failing schools because more taxes for public schools is where you draw your line.
When our government makes laws, it is not up to me, or you, or your friends in church and business to decide which ones you will follow. Just as a church or business cannot refuse to serve someone because they are black, or gay, or Hispanic, they cannot pick and choose what services they provide to women.
Shame that a woman in public office, who has been fortunate in her life, has no conscience at all when it comes to assuring that all women have the same rights to life and liberty that she has truly enjoyed.
One final note about your letter. Perhaps if you did your job in truly good conscience, you would not need to close with "God bless," which sounds a little too much like wishful thinking.
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