Women's Rights Riddle

Here’s a riddle for you.  Conservatives believe that there is just too much federal government.  They want as little as possible, and they would instead desire a transfer of many federal powers back to the states.  However, most conservatives are pro-life, and therefore they want to overturn Roe v. Wade and make it illegal for women to have abortions.  Isn’t this the ultimate invasion of personal rights—way too much government interfering on a very personal issue?  How exactly does that work?  No, no, no, there’s just too much government….but…when it comes to women, the government should be in charge of your body?  That just makes no sense.

Honestly, I have very mixed feelings on the topic of abortion.  Ending a life, even after the first spark of it in a mother’s womb, seems wrong to me.  But on the same token, I can’t see any instance where the government should have any right to decide what is best for a woman.  In other words, morally I think that many abortions are wrong, but legally they should never be.  And if you want to argue with my logic, well, there are plenty of things that are morally wrong in this country, yet people do them anyway.  I personally think it’s morally wrong to not hold the door open for someone, but stand outside any convenience store for, oh, maybe two or three minutes, and you’ll see it happen a handful of times.  It’s morally wrong to gossip.  It’s morally wrong to bully.  Yet, sadly, those things still happen.  In reality, if we had moral police, I’d guesstimate that 95% of the population would serve jail time or at least pay fines.  I’m sure I would be for one thing or five or fifty.

But for a politician to say what a woman can and cannot do with her body is wrong as well, and I don’t see any reason that it can be justified—especially from a conservative standpoint.  You can’t say that there is just too much government and then say that women should be denied the right to choose.  You can’t have elected government officials—most of which are old white men—tossing around words like “legitimate rape” and that "pregnancy from rape is a gift from God" and promising to defund Planned Parenthood.  That just makes no sense to me.  It shouldn’t make sense to a lot of people.  Especially women.

I see a lot of women out there who are pro-Romney in this election.  Can you explain to me how you can vote for a guy who would much rather have abortion be illegal and who wants to make you pay for things like birth control, mammograms, etc.?  What, do you think women's health medicines and preventive screenings being free is unfair to men?  According to 2012 statistics at cancer.org (found here: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-031941.pdf), 29% of all cancers in men are prostate cancer, while 29% of all female cancers are breast cancer, 6% are uterine cancer, and a 3% are ovarian cancer.  So that’s 29% of male-specific cancers, and 38% chance of female-specific cancers.  Looking at the estimated death rate, prostate cancer is responsible for 9% of all men diagnosed with cancer.  Breast cancer is responsible for 14% of women's deaths, ovarian cancer for 6%, and uterine cancer for 3%.  So of all the different types of cancers, 9% of men with cancer will die from male-specific cancer, while 23% of women will die from female-specific cancer.  Again, that’s 29% of male-specific cancers affecting men vs. 38% of female-specific cancers affecting women and 9% of men vs. 23% of women dying from it.  It seems to make sense to me that we NEED to have government programs in place to help women with these issues.  Wouldn’t you agree?

There are plenty of things that don’t make sense on either side of the American political spectrum, but this is one I struggle with more than many others.  Sure, Liberals may be, uh, liberal with our country’s money, but President Clinton sure wasn’t, erasing a deficit created by Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr.   Obama HAS increased the deficit, but he had to in order to keep us from falling into a Second Great Depression--one that came about as the result of a Conservative Republican's failed policies.  But Obama also created a universal, affordable healthcare law that will ensure that women get the treatments they need.  Romney wants to repeal that, defund Planned Parenthood, and who knows, maybe he’ll even take on Roe v. Wade.

If you are a woman, and you are planning to vote for Mitt Romney, I really want to know why.  If you are a father, or a husband, or a son, or a brother, and your daughter, wife, mother or sister has ever been the victim of a sexual crime, or even if she has just had some medical issues and has had to previously jump through hoops to get them resolved (including paying tons of money for preventative procedures), I want to know how you can justify voting for Mitt Romney.  Because I sure can’t.