Kansas Republican Responses to Plea for Women's Rights

A friend of mine recently sent an email to several of our “representatives,” both at the state level and at the federal level, urging them to respect and honor women’s right to choose to be pregnant.

State Senator Steve Fitzgerald stated in an email reply: “Killing children is wrong. Advocating that mothers should be allowed...and even encouraged...to kill their children is beyond wrong - it is evil.”

To which my friend replied:

Who encourages women to kill their children? Are men like you encouraging men to kill their toddlers--a phenomenon that is a direct result of more young women deciding to give birth when they are not ready?

Your religious views should not determine your actions toward women. Allowing your religious views to determine your actions as a representative of the people means you are advocating for a few, not everyone. This nation is a democracy, not an oligarchy.

Roe vs. Wade ensured that women should have access to legal, safe abortions. Surely you agree that it is better to terminate a pregnancy than it is to murder a living, breathing child! Don't you? Child abuse and neglect is NOT an better alternative to allowing women control of our own bodies.

Considering the fact that natural abortions occur quite often, are we women who have had them murderers? Are you going to start arresting those of us who have miscarriages because you assume we're baby killers?

Your duty as an elected individual is represent everyone, not a select few. Your duty also includes thinking through the entire ramifications of making a law, as well. Do you desire to fill prisons with women who have had abortions--natural or otherwise?

Ask yourself: why do you fear allowing women to make their own choices? 

Senator Jerry Moran sent my friend an email stating: “Science demonstrates that life begins at conception, and I support legislation that protects the rights of unborn children.”

His remarks make me wonder whether he has ever studied science, since his sperm are just as alive as any zygote that results from conception, but I don’t see him advocating for laws against male masturbation.

Representative Lynn Jenkins, who has yet to enter the 21^st century, wrote my friend a letter using her congressional funds on postage—apparently in an earnest effort to keep the post office afloat, states in her reply that we should be pleased to learn (I am not) that she supports an act, HR 1179, “The Respect for the Rights of Conscience Act of 2011,” which has yet to see the House floor, that allows a health provider to ignore medical science and provide services based on “the provider’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.” 

So much for the Hippocratic Oath. This bill, if ever made law, would mean a physician who is a practicing Jain would not have to administer life-saving antibiotics because s/he feels that all life is sacred, including microbial life. Or allow a physician who is a Jehovah’s Witness not to have to provide a life-saving blood transfusion. Even if a physician orders these treatments, a Jain nurse or Jehovah’s Witness phlebotomist would be allowed—by law—not to follow the physician’s orders.

The goal for all these “representatives” is, of course, to limit women’s freedoms, and they are seeking any method of doing so, even at the cost of writing laws that will create more problems.

It is not a secret that all these politicians are Kansans who classify themselves as Republicans, but who are actually fundamentalists as extreme as the Taliban. In fact, they do not do much to hide the fact that they are fundamentalists on a rampage to take America and women’s rights back 50 years. 

Why do they feel justified in limiting women’s rights by not supporting Roe vs. Wade and ensuring that all women have access to medical abortions, instead of having to have backstreet abortions—which kills hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women and sterilized or even crippled hundreds of thousands of others prior to Roe vs. Wade?

This article, “A Plutocracy Ruled by Self-Centered Jerks?” relates information discovered by two university studies regarding why congressional representatives follow the dictates of wealthy citizens, such as the Wichita’s own Koch brothers, instead of seeing to the needs and concerns of their less wealthy constituents: http://billmoyers.com/2013/08/27/a-plutocracy-ruled-by-self-centered-jerks/ .

We can safely assume that these “representatives” do not truly represent most Kansans’ views on abortion rights, since poll after poll has demonstrated that more than 60% of the people favor allowing a woman to make this important decision—to be a mother or not to be a mother—on her own…even in the last trimester of pregnancy!

The simple fact remains: not allowing women to exercise our rights to make our own decisions about our own bodies strips us of the fundamental rights promised to us in both the U.S. Constitution and in the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ which states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.” And by “everyone” they mean: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” 

The rights of the Born should be held sacrosanct. The unborn have yet to prove their viability, after all, since as much as 10% of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion.

I demand my rights and the right of all women to choose what happens to and in their own bodies! 

Do you?