Held to answer

“Trust Women Week” ended a couple of days ago, and had a friend not e-mailed me about it, I would have never known it was happening.

Sadly, I don’t trust women. Neither do I trust Planned Parenthood, People for the American Way, MoveOn.org and the other usual groups who are supposed to be fighting for abortion rights. They all endorsed “Trust Women Week.”

“Trust Women” is the kind of weak slogan that keeps handing victories to anti-abortionists who think females should be forced to breed. (It’s disgraceful that people who want to enslave female bodies have been allowed to claim the label “pro-life.” Virtually all of the media go along with it.)

By week’s end, according to MoveOn.org, only 114,833 had joined this nationwide, virtual march to “Trust Women.” No indication of how many also bought a silver ribbon to commemorate their dedication to the cause. Just what we need: another ubiquitous, colored ribbon.

All these years after Roe v. Wade we are still fighting the same battle over who should control the female body. Just this week, Time Magazine revisited the question: Could birth control become illegal? If the civil rights movement had the same track record as abortion rights, we would probably still have race-based slavery in this country.

Why did that form of slavery in America finally end? Probably because half the victims were men, and men will fight in ways that women won’t or can’t.

You cannot demand or legislate that a female give birth unless you have control over her body. Taking ownership of another’s body is nothing short of slavery.

“If you’re poor and ignorant, with a child, you’re a slave. Meaning that you’re never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn’t deal with.” That was Dr. Jocelyn Elders, then-Surgeon General of the U.S. speaking in 1994.

Abortion rights supporters never made good use of Elders. President Bill Clinton even fired her after she suggested it would be safer for teenagers to masturbate than have sex.

As a black woman, Elders had special insight into how sex enslaves women. In an interview with the New York Times, she recalled how black ministers preached from the pulpit about birth control pills, calling them “black genocide.” Black girls were pressured not to use birth control.

“Black men … didn’t want them to have any choice about their reproductive health. And if you can’t control your reproduction, you can’t control your life,” Elders said.

Abortion/birth control opponents of all races have been just as successful as those black preachers in capturing the hearts and minds of naïve young women. The result: Single mothers – black, brown and white – stuck in poverty, trying to raise children.

Birth rates have risen considerably for unmarried women in their 20s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of 2009, 41 percent of all births in the U.S. were to unmarried women.

It isn’t just poverty that makes it tough for single females to raise children. It’s the lack of a male presence. A man adds more than just an income; he adds authority. Where does this authority come from? It isn’t just physical strength. It comes from men’s historic and presumed superiority over females – a superiority vested in men having ownership of their bodies in a way that females don’t have. Males can do something to females that females cannot do to males.

When I was a reporter in Southern California, I spent several years covering crime and social issues. I can recall interviewing only a few fathers of victims in gang-related killings. Usually there was just a mother, and often she was helpless. Her kids loved her, but she didn’t run the household. It was almost as if she reported to her kids, especially if they were sons.

The “pro-life” mantra has succeeded in ways that anti-abortionists did not anticipate. Babies are now routinely borne out of wedlock. Despite overwhelming evidence that this is a good way to end up poor, young women have declined to use contraceptives or abortion to control their lives.

In her interview 17 years ago with the New York Times, then-Surgeon General Elders looked ahead to what she hoped to accomplish: “To do something about unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. … I don’t think I’ll solve it. But I do think I’ll reduce the numbers by making family planning available for all women throughout the country. I’m going to try to make sure that all people are educated about their options and their choices.”

It didn’t happen. President Clinton cowered in the face of Elders’ honest talk about sex.

Shortly before Clinton left office, Nina Burleigh, a former White House correspondent for Time, said in an interview with the Washington Post, “I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”

Granted, she sizzled up a quote to annoy sanctimonious journalists, but what a tradeoff: We get the priests off our backs, but we have to stay on our knees to men who sacrifice women like Elders.

And Burleigh calls herself a feminist.

Trust women? Not all of them.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

The NRA vs. Planned Parenthood

Boehner’s Lust for Life