The abortion debate is about controlling women

The conservative movement is neither pro-life nor anti-abortion. It’s about controlling women.

If it were pro-life, it wouldn’t so lustily support various forms of state murder such as capital punishment and wars of aggression.

If it were anti-abortion, it wouldn’t so strongly oppose contraception (which is Planned Parenthood’s main service) because fewer unwanted pregnancies means fewer abortions.

But contraception permits women to have sex for pleasure, which goes against the religious fundamentalists’ beliefs - be they Christian, Muslim or otherwise - that the primary role of women on this Earth is to be baby factories and then caregivers to those objects (whose quality of life becomes irrelevant after birth).

 

Single parenthood causes child abuse, claims GOP Taliban

It seems the Republican strategy for 2012 is to see how low a percentage of the women's vote they can get. The latest in their anti-female crusade comes from Wisconsin. Two (male of course) state legislators have introduced a bill mandating that schools brainwash children into blaming "non-marital parenthood" for child abuse. The bill would also describe fathers as the primary prevention against such domestic violence.

One of the co-authors of the bill, obviously an admirer of the Taliban's social views, has also come out against divorce for any reason, including spousal abuse. His advice to battered women: try hard to find reasons to love the man that's brutalizing you.

The role of women in Rwandan politics

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world besides fake debates over fake patriotism.

The Rwanda Project of the Hunt Alternatives Fund has some interesting literature on its work in that country. The project particularly focuses on enabling females to more fully participate in society. It notes that since the 1994 genocide, Rwandan women have made remarkable contributions to rebuild their society. They also made unprecedented political gains, achieving near parity in the legislature's lower chamber.

It notes that female parliamentarians in the country have drafted the only substantive bill to emerge from the legislative rather than the executive branch, a far-reaching law to combat gender-based violence; spearheaded efforts to eliminate discrimination and enhance human rights protections; and fostered cross-party and male-female collaboration through the Forum of Rwandan Women Parliamentarians and by involving men in efforts to craft legislation.

The website includes reports on women's involvement in defending the rights of children, promoting anti-domestic violence legislation and supporting female participation in local politics.