On a recent podcast, I was asked if I identified first as an atheist, secularist or as a woman. My response was that I identify in this order: human, woman, secularist and then atheist. Essentially, I put my biology before my beliefs, which are a function of the era in which I live. Still, since being asked that question, I have been thinking about how intensely intertwined being female and being a secularist are for me.
The United States of America is moving ever closer to becoming a dominionist theocracy and leaving the ideals of democracy in the stardust. Our government has been infiltrated with religious-based thinking and ideals. A few foundational areas that require immediate attention for the re-secularization of the U.S. are the military and reproductive health care. Clearing out these areas of religious ideology is a prerequisite to secularizing womens’ bodies. We must return a woman's sovereignty over her own physical being to her. There is no other way to move forward; each of us must be able to make decisions (based on full and accurate information) about our own bodies.
Military
At present, sexual assaults against female soldiers are continuing at an all-time high; all the while these women are unable to obtain legal abortions. The 2012 Army report “Discipline of the Force: The High-Risk Populations” has some exceedingly disturbing statistics about how women fare in our government's Army: “Although females compose only 14% of the Force, they compose 95% of all victims of violent sex crimes." Of the 1,313 (a 97% increase from 2006) reported violent sex crimes, 1,247 of the sex crimes were against female soldiers. And of these violent sex crimes 515, or more than one per day, were rape. Mind you, this is just the Army and just reported rapes; I am confident the actual number is much higher. Nearly 3200 sexual assaults were reported military-wide and they estimate that the actual number was closer to 20,000. Based on this ratio, the number of rapes of female soldiers (just Army) per day can be estimated at 8.8.
Imagine being in the military and being denied access to a legal medical procedure that you need only as a result of being raped. Is this restriction based on a religious principle? Here is a quote from Rick Santorum: “And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life and accept what God has given to you.”
When religious zealots are elected to State and Federal legislature, women's health, including access to contraception and abortion, somehow become the purview of the government; not the woman and her doctor. The restrictions being passed now are the result of theocracy infiltrating our secular government.
Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
~Robert Heinlein
Reproductive Health
For U.S. woman, 2012 has been a dismal year politically with government representatives attempting to legislate women's health concerns at every opportunity. How? By silencing women, referring to women as livestock, comparing women to caterpillars, introducing over 900 bills to restrict access to legal reproductive healthcare, and, most recently, by finding female anatomical terms obscene!
Infamously on February 16, 2012, the Congressional Oversight Committee held a hearing regarding birth control — without ONE women being called to testify.
On March 29, 2012 the Georgia legislature passed the “Women As Livestock" bill (HB 954); it was signed into law by Governor Deal on May 1, 2012 and took effect that same day. This bill criminalizes abortions after 20 weeks, with no allowances made for rape or incest. During a floor discussions while in session, Terry England (R-Auburn) compared women to cows, pigs, and chickens. Skeptical that someone would say this on the record? Here is the video.
While trying explain that the “War on Woman” is fiction, the Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus made an analogy about the “War on Caterpillars” being equally real. He must not watch the news, be on the Internet, or have any type of connection to the daily happenings surrounding him. The Guttmacher Institute has this to say about Laws Affecting Reproductive Health and Rights: Trends in the First Quarter of 2012:
- 76 abortion restrictions have been approved by at last one legislative chamber; 9 have been enacted.
- Legislators have introduced 944 provisions related to reproductive health and rights; 472 would restrict abortion.
- This legislation includes ultrasound requirements (state sponsored rape), medication abortion limitations, gestational limits, and refusal to provide contraception coverage.
Can you say vagina? Not in the Michigan legislature — not even when you are discussing women's health! Lisa Brown was banned from the House floor by Republican leaders merely for uttering this word in their presence. The GOP-led house worked feverishly to explain away their banishment of two female representatives. According to them, the word “vagina” is vulgar, even when talking about women's health care.
If this is not war, what is? Do we have to wait until abortions are illegal to wake up and see that there is a war over the control of female bodies?
Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They all want to control women. They want to control how we dress. They want to control how we act. They even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our own bodies. Yes, it is hard to believe but even here at home we have to stand up for women’s rights and we have to reject efforts to marginalize any one of us, because America has to set an example for the entire world.
~Hillary Clinton
Smell the Theocracy
In each example we've presented, the root assumption is nonscientific, religious-based judgment. In each example, women's choices about their own bodies are being limited by the government. In each example, a religious viewpoint is using OUR government to attempt to control, subjugate and diminish women in society.
Much if not all of the legislation fueling this War on Women is based on religious belief. In what should be a secular nation, laws based on religious doctrine and ecumenical chauvinism drive the USA ever closer to theocracy. The right of every woman to be sovereign over her own body is essential for the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to which every woman has a right.
Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?
~Sandra Day O'Connor
Kim Rippere, President
Secular Woman
