Ask my father the best way to get women involved in women's rights and here's what he says:
Do you want to empower female control over the government? Get rid of Roe v. Wade and watch women galvanize ... My God.
Abortion.
The emotional issue always is reproductive rights. The word is supposed to pit neighbors against neighbors and sisters against sisters. But, how many people do you know who fall neatly into anti-abortion, pro-abortion categories?
According to a Jan. 22, 2002, Gallup Poll report by Lydia Saad, the political debate has come to hang on two terms: 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice.' But, Saad found that for most U.S. citizens the debate is more complex (http://www.gallup.com/).
So let's simplify.
Women are human beings. Human beings make choices in their lives every day.
Kay Newby has made the choice to attend the March for Women's Lives Sunday in Washington, D.C. From the Cincinnati area, Newby is unwilling to have decisions made for her.
I want to have a choice - this is really important to me. I had a friend die from an abortion
when they were still illegal. I do not choose for anyone else. It should be between a woman her doctor and her God. It should be taken out of the political arena.
Newby is marching with her sister, Sue Foley, a retired professor from Franklin University in Columbus. She said women are capable of controlling their own bodies, not the government.
I think it's very important to demonstrate for reproductive freedom. We don't need a paternalistic system that can tell women what they can and cannot do. It's a way of controlling women and women's lives and that's unacceptable.
Reproductive freedom is being limited federally, and at the state level, according to a report by Michael J. New, at the Harvard-MIT Data Center. The study, called Analyzing the effects of State Legislation on the Incidence of Abortion during the 1990s was released Jan. 21, 2004. For example, In 1992 no states had banned or restricted ... 'partial-birth abortion.' By 2000
12 states had bans or restrictions .
How could we let this happen? Women are the majority in population numbers, according to the Census 2000 (http://www.census.gov/) and yet, we're still being repressed.
Are we willing to sacrifice our freedoms? Young woman don't realize how precocious their rights are right now
Newby said. They don't have the memories
so they have to listen to us - the older women who have the wisdom.
Luckily, I grew up surrounded by strong women, and - equally as important - men who respected women.
My parents emphasized the power of an education, because with a degree in hand, I have more independence, more power, more choices.
My father wonders if he's a male chauvinist. He constantly second-guesses himself in our house.
We're waving the flag
taking down the Taliban
but
in the U.S. we're getting more repressive towards women
he said. It's like women's liberation has peaked and it's going in the other direction.
My mother wears the pants in our family. She knows how to be strong and independent and guides us toward the best decisions. She has been to abortion clinics and crossed those picket lines, but for her one of the greatest advances in her lifetime was the ability to have both a family and a career.
Imagine that - women being able to have both a career and a family
and I was on the cusp of that when I was in college. Women recognized how free they were. Back then
