Part II: The War on Women

In a 1914 article entitled ‘Suppression‘, Margaret Sanger wrote about her belief in women’s rights: ‘My fight,’ she opined ‘is for the personal liberty of the women who work. A woman’s body belongs to herself alone. It is her body. It does not belong to the Church. It does not belong to the United States of America or to any other Government of the face of the earth.’ This first part of Ms. Sanger’s edict is powerful from the standpoint that a woman is defined as a complete unit in the face of the law and in the face of society; and it sets up the second thrust of the statement. She continues to say: ‘The first step toward getting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for any woman is her decision whether or not she shall become a mother.’ But it is the last part of this quote that speaks to the heart and soul of this essay: ‘Enforced motherhood’ she asserts ‘is the most complete denial of a woman’s right to life and liberty.’ When scoured of its overall relationship to Planned Parenthood, Sanger opines that the individual woman should be primary in deciding whether or not she should be a mother.

Following this last statement, one could see why umbrage from the masses of women who have experienced the joys of childbirth and motherhood. In fact, taking Sanger’s comments into context, she is, pretty much, a hateful racist who takes these aspects on privacy, women’s self determination and rights a tad too far. She is too radical and too progressive indeed that conservative Americans – many who are represented by the Republican Party – have a bone to pick with her. When one thinks about it, it seems as though the infamy of Roe v. Wade emanates from the very aspects this woman stipulates. But more on this landmark ruling by 9 unelected associates of the Supreme Court later.
There is, in the meantime, a bit of a quandary: One fundamental premise amongst the conservatives is that men should be able to determine themselves without the interference of the government. Instead, there is a belief in smaller government and free markets. The market, most conservatives argue, should determine as much as possible and the role of government should be limited to referee status. Over the years, however, the federal government has grown to the chagrin of those who do not care much for the interference [and regulations] of the Environmental Protection Authority [EPA], the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF] and those pesky Transportation Safety Authority [TSA] agents. And those who made the decision to legalize abortion in Roe v Wade were also at the federal government level. By legalizing abortion and thus, having to enforce federal law, the federal government came between free men and their morals. The U.S. is basically at perpetual war since this is a Judeo-Christian nation [with rights endowed by the Creator] that specifically separates church [or religion] and state. Reductitivistically [if there is such a word], there is a thin line between man, God, the state, and the rights of women.

The above paragraph and parts of this one are meant to set the stage for what is, ostensibly, a very convoluted discourse. Going back to the rights of women, if you ask a conservative whether government should play a role in the life of a family, they’ll probably vehemently veto government involvement in favor of self help, meritocracy and the power of pulling up one’s bootstraps on their own. But just like there are sheer contradictions when it comes to receiving disaster relief from the federal government, some of the leading conservative women actually have more in common with Ms. Sanger than they think. Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin were, supposedly, revealed. But all obfuscation and contradictions aside, it might be safe to say that today’s American conservatives are probably those who do not want the government to help poor people [read minorities like Blacks and Latinos]. They will, mostly, be white and while a great many are wealthy and educated, the other end of the spectrum is overwhelmingly poorly educated and uninformed. What makes the conservatives strong has more to do with the fact that their numbers are falling, their issues [trumpeted by their own media] and neighborhoods [through redistricting] are becoming more homogenized. The Republicans are a cohesive bunch because they usually take information from the party leadership and make it their own. Once the leadership identifies an enemy, the people will follow. For example, once the party leadership decided that Obama was the enemy and developed the false narrative that he was a closet socialist, this meme was crowed at every conservative mountain top and valley. You cannot convince any of these people that Obama is not an enemy of America. His progressive agenda is going to take this country away from the original aim of the founders and with Obama comes a troupe of abortionists and progressive men and women who are after the woman’s reproductive organs!

What is central to this very wide ranging editorial is the debate on women between the progressives and conservatives. It simply comes down to what a woman should be and what a woman should not be. Should women make decisions that are least destructive to themselves? What is a woman allowed to do in a society such as the one we live in today? Is the conservative agenda the best one for the world or should America present itself a tea sipping liberal? More importantly, there is a fascination with women as objects of desire, wonder and splendor. Although there have been issues with women of other complexions and races, the majority of American women are white and thus, before we can even touch other women, we need to focus on the essence of the caucasian woman in North America. This tier of the female species has various dimensions in regard to her reproductive health; and one of these is a mixture of paternalistic and racially motivated.

Because of who they are and what they represent, men have, since time immemorial, protected women. Women needed to be cosseted and protected because just as it has been proven that prehistoric and historic men went to war over women, the same is true today. Dr Alex Bentley from Durham University argued that analysis pointed to [women] being regarded as somehow special [because] women are needed for a group to succeed and survive.

In regard to the racial aspects, we bring this up especially in regard to the white woman. These were always punished for consorting with undesirables. Just like happens today, certain laws were made to ‘protect’ the woman from herself. For example, according to the Archives of Maryland [13:546 – 49], the State, in 1692, enacted a law which punished white women who had children by slaves. To prevent many others from following suite, these ‘unfortunate’ women were themselves sold as servants for seven years and their mulatto children were bound to serve their master until the age of twenty one if they were married to a slave, and till thirty one if they were not married.

If we can extrapolate these two arguments – on women being punished for their ‘bad’ choices and also how precious they are for the survival of the species – we can understand why men need to control the women. And there is an even more sinister argument: one based on profitability and business. Delicately stated, there is a correlation between reproductive health aspects of abortion and birth control, the adoption of unwanted babies, the right to life, and of course, the control of a woman’s body. For starters, it costs an infertile couple or a barren woman between US$ 5000 to more than US$ 30,000 to adopt a baby in the U.S. There is a whole industry built around surrogate mothers, unwanted pregnancies and fertility. This industry is managed by the private market and one can either ‘procure’ a child on the black market or find one through the myriad of adoption agencies available to fulfill the market needs. If you cannot find what you are looking for, a child – blue eyed and blonde – can be sought in either Russia or one of the Nordic or Scandinavian countries. If you are into something more exotic, there are supply chains stretching all the way between Cambodia, China, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

We, thus, at this juncture, pose a few questions: Why would anyone support abortion and yet there is a hugely profitable market for unwanted babies? Would this market be dented if abortion was legalized all around the world? Is there a chance that huge amounts of money go to fund anti abortion campaigns because abortions affect the business of adoption? Lastly, what is the going rate of a black unwanted baby versus an unwanted white one? These questions will be delved into in Part III. Some people have been able to postulate on why the conservatives hate abortion and humorous as this might seem, there’s a nano element of associative truth to all this.

Dennis Matanda,
Editor – [email protected]