Another reason why I MUST vote for Obama

I have been absolutely baffled for some time why any woman, especially one who is educated and smart and knows exactly who she is, one who has full control of her own power, would possibly vote for a Republican.

A pair of wanna-be Senators in two states I've actually been residents of have embarrassed not only the Republican party leaders -- at least briefly -- by their comments about women, but have also shown themselves to be ignorant and very misogynistic.

This general disdain for women and their ability (or right?) to make health choices FOR THEMSELVES is rooted firmly in the language in the official Republican Party platform, 

The official platform does NOT provide exceptions to abortion for anything, including rape, incest, or life of the mother. Read it.

Furthermore, the platform says it wants to teach abstinence in school. ONLY abstinence. "Therefore, we support doubling abstinence education funding. We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling, and related services for contraception and abortion. "

Uh huh. You try that with teenagers who are bombarded today with sex, sex, sex in today's music and fashions and role models. You try that when the kids have relatives and friends who have affairs and one-night-stands right in their own homes as a matter of course.

It's a nice theory. But it doesn't work. It didn't work when I was a teenager back in the 1960s either.  Ask the teachers and social workers and counselors and specialists in our schools who work daily with at-risk teens. (I'm not even sure if sex education is part of today's curriculum!)

The Republicans also want to defund Planned Parenthood, even though the organization which provides valuable medical testing and contraceptive services to underserved and poor women does not use any federal funds to provide abortion. 

...Yeah. Let's go back to the good ol' coat hanger abortion days, and limit access to birth control so that women will stay home and stay pregnant whether they want to or not...

And while they're on the 'put the little woman back in her place' kick, the Repubs put the Violence Against Women Act into limbo this year, an act which since 1994 has provided  " investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted "(Wikipedia) They don't want to extend any sort of protection to  gays, lesbians, American Indians, or illegal immigrants who are victims of domestic violence.

Missouri Senatorial candidate Todd Akin nearly offed himself back in August with his comments about 'legitimate rape,' prompting Republicans leaders to distance themselves from him immediately. Akin refused to step down, though, and the Repub moneymen have slowly crept back into his camp. He continues to belittle his rival Claire McCaskill, recently likening her to a dog, and calling her 'unladylike.'

And now Indiana Senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock is claiming that a pregnancy resulting from rape is 'a gift from God' and that it is 'meant to be.' And what the bloody hell would HE know about it?

Seriously. You must bring a child of rape to term and you must look at your rapist's face in that child every single day because God meant it to be? What about the child's right to be loved? Pro-birth is NOT pro-life.

How can a person actually diminish, -- negate -- so callously and calculatedly the horribly invasive, violent rape of any woman?

And do you really want someone who can say that in all sincerity to represent your vote, your city and county and state?

The Republicans have this last season in Congress, especially, repeatedly and publicly tried to erode women's rights to control their own healthcare choices and to refuse equal pay for equal work and to deny gays, lesbians, American Indians or illegal immigrants the right to seek recourse for domestic violence. They will continue to drive this agenda.

And I just do not understand how this country's women, no matter their political leanings, can throw their sisters under the GOP bus by supporting and voting for ANY Tea Party or Republican candidate, from the Presidential candidate on down.

If you do, please don't call me your sister. I will continue to defend your right to make your own healthcare and reproductive choices despite your vote because I believe so strongly in that right.

But I know you would not do the same for me because of your Republican/Tea Party vote. You will destroy any trust I had in you, any semblance of sisterhood, by your actions.

Whose life is more valuable?

I seldom wax political on these pages, although if you browse a bit through past posts you'll find a few. There are others who relish the flapping of the red cape at the bull far more than I.

But the recent murder of George Tiller as he was ushering during a church service got to me. He was cold-bloodedly murdered because he performed late-term abortions in his Kansas clinic. Despite other attempts to shut the clinic down and intimidate both the doctor and his staff, Tiller kept it open to help the desperate women from around the world who seek the procedure.

Reasons for late-term abortions are usually because of some horrible genetic problem in the fetus, and they are rare. More than 90 percent of the abortions performed in the US are first trimester. The decision to have an abortion after that is not easy, nor is it simple to find a facility.

There are many well-known columnists who have opined about the killing, including Ellen Goodman, Deborah King on the Huffington Post, even Time Magazine. As always in abortion-related violence and acts of terrorism against providers and even clients, the pro-life folks are claiming shock at the act, saying that there are other ways to bring providers to justice. But one must wonder if there isn't also some jumping up and down with glee.

I'm not expressing anything new here. Simply put, I am completely baffled by how such an act of violence and murder can be justified by anyone, most especially by groups who claim that ending a pregnancy for any reason, including to save the life of the mother, is wrong. Period.

I do not understand how to justify putting an unborn fetus first in the life of a family -- a mother, certainly, a father, perhaps other children, an extended family -- over the health of either the mother or the fetus, over economic hardship caused to all as a result of a gravely impaired fetus, over certain extensive medical expenses, and over the grief and pain and suffering of all, including what would be a drastically handicapped infant.

Do the other lives then count for nothing? Once born, are we then disposable? Are our lives useful only to the extent that we become incubators for fetuses, no matter how handicapped or how grave a prognosis there might be for it if carried to term? What of the existing lives of the mother, the other children? Are they inconsequential when measured against the life of one yet unborn?

If life is sacred, how does one equivocate the existence of a fetus with the life of a person? Which is the more valuable? And who makes that call?

Pro-choice does not mean proabortion. I have actively been prochoice for years, marching in picket lines, testifying before a state legislature, even lobbying on Capital Hill. Long ago in Missouri, I represented the prochoice viewpoints of various Christian denominations to legislators, voters, and the public. Does that mean I favor abortion? No. Nor did anyone with whom I worked or met during that time.

Tiller provided a compassionate, legal service to desperate women and their families, one which he knew was risky at the least. That he would be gunned down during his own time of worship is -- indeed, MUST be -- intolerable to anyone who believes in love, who believes in a compassionate, caring God, and who values all life.