Grindelwald Valley and Eiger
Yes, that is the Alp featured in "The Eiger Sanction".
I know. It looks so peaceful from here.
Republicans pretend that restricting abortion and contraception is just a way to pretty up life in the United States, but there are ramifications from killing and maiming women to putting religion in charge of our lives. The Founding Fathers didn't want any of that to happen.
Picture shared using Flickr's native code (found at site)and allowed via Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Rollover for Flickr name of photographer.
What do the so-called "Right to Life" people have to say about the fact that restricting abortion and safe, affordable contraception through prohibitions or costs kills women? How can they justify denying women what they need to take care of the family they have by forcing them to bear children repeatedly until they can no longer be the best benefit to them and, indeed, may no longer be alive. These women are often times wives, mothers, care givers, and workers. In fact, according to "POVERTY AND HIV/AIDS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA" families most at risk through poverty are often headed by women. And that is true in the United States as well.
But:
See excerpted abstract from Obstetrics and Gynecology republished by the US Government's NIH: "Unsafe Abortion: Unnecessary Maternal Mortality":
Every year, worldwide, about 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion, and nearly half of these procedures, 20 million, are unsafe. Some 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion annually, making it one of the leading causes of maternal mortality (13%). Of the women who survive unsafe abortion, 5 million will suffer long-term health complications. Unsafe abortion is thus a pressing issue. Both of the primary methods for preventing unsafe abortion—less restrictive abortion laws and greater contraceptive use—face social, religious, and political obstacles, particularly in developing nations, where most unsafe abortions (97%) occur. Even where these obstacles are overcome, women and health care providers need to be educated about contraception and the availability of legal and safe abortion, and women need better access to safe abortion and post-abortion services. Otherwise, desperate women, facing the financial burdens and social stigma of unintended pregnancy and believing they have no other option, will continue to risk their lives by undergoing unsafe abortions.The report also says that in developed countries only 3% of abortions are unsafe, but with the GOP forcing states to make abortion more expensive (through reimbursed ultrasounds) or less available that number will rise. Plus our nation informs others how to treat their women, directly and indirectly.
For example:
During the Bush administration, US money for women's health sources was denied to groups who offered abortion and then even for those who offered hormonal contraception, and groups that offered and recommended the use of condoms for birth and HIV control faced steeper challenges for getting US government dollars as compared to US groups in Africa who pushed the failed practices of "Abstinence Only" policies putting the lives of African women at risk over and over again.
Do your friends endanger the lives of women? Explain to them that birth control, condoms for HIV/AIDS and other venereal disease prevention, as well as abortion is essential to healthy families in regions like Africa, South America and other third world nations where women are under the boot of the Catholic Church and other hyper religious groups either as it controls the minds of their government officials (as in South America) or because they are the largest medical benefactors (like in Africa).
Instead of helping the women of the third world, are we going to allow more women in the US face death because they cannot afford or not allowed to have effective birth control and/or safe abortion?
Think about it.
I know men care about this too. It affects their quality of life. When a woman is facing the decision of whether or not she and her partner can afford to raise another child in this world, they have to face any difficulties that are have been thrown in their way. It is nearly criminal the obstacles that Republicans in state governments will put in front of a pregnant woman, up to doubling the price of an abortion because they thought they could capture the Evangelical vote by doing so.
And Mrs. Santorum pretending these state regulations don't matter because her husband won't do anything about contraception and abortion is a slap in the face. Yeah, Honey, that's exactly what we are saying. He won't do anything. He'll let the states and the Church run right over women until they are seeking unsafe abortions in back alleys, or trying to do it themselves.
Welcome to the Third World, America. Even the sputtering economy of the Reagan years, and the wars the George W. Bush administration started and didn't end, did not bring so many women to the edge where they could lose their lives so easily. The new crop of Republican leaders may do so.
