Women Step Up On Issues To Save Democracy
At Issue
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As women consider their voting choses for the November midterm elections, they are confronted by myriad social, political and healthcare decisions that might produce intended or unintended consequences impacting their lives for decades. The overall importance of these voting choices, their very nature, seems unevenly extreme due to the radical behavior of the Republican right. That conduct has motivated millions of women throughout the country to publicly advocate for women's rights. Women's activism has narrowly focused action around a handful of the most pressing concerns regarding privacy freedoms and healthcare arguments.
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Right to Choose
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No single issue has galvanized progressive and moderate women more than the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. At its heart, the controversy surrounding Roe was always a political position related to privacy freedoms. For women, the slogan, "My body, my choice," signifies the intensely held belief systems women hold dear regarding their reproductive healthcare and lifestyle necessities and expressions. Many women, both Democrats and Republicans, find it deeply offensive that the government, run mostly by white men, feels compelled to intrude into their private lives for the sake of political gain masquerading as a moral cause. When you couple this with the half-century precedent that enshrined freedoms in Roe, women feel as though their privacy is under attack. See more about the assault on women's rights...
Marriage Equality
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The most obvious aspect of marriage equality is that women are assured that their legal rights match those afforded their partners, regardless of gender. For women participating in any substantial and important relationship matters concerning income and assets has to be addressed.
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On the same-sex marriage front, these particular civil unions have represented an unspoken legal arrangement of "separate but equal," which is much akin to oppressive racial tropes echoed throughout the Civil Rights' movement. The struggle for women's equality has mostly been characterized by the conservative right's desire to consistently categorize people, for a wide variety of reasons, finding it beneficial for their purposes to endorse a de facto, caste system, that by its structure, implements barriers denying basic elements of equality.
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Many people believe that the judicial fate of Roe is a precursor to the immediate future as regards same-sex marriage.
Reproductive Healthcare
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According to the CDC, a woman's reproductive care is critical because it is "a delicate and complex system in the body." A woman's care should be guaranteed to prevent infection and injury, and protect against the possibility of long-term health issues. The very notion that the government should be involved in a woman's healthcare decision-making process is ludicrous, except in a manner to pass laws enshrining necessary legislation preserving those decisions.
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In the broader context, a woman's good sexual and reproductive health is essential for a women's general health and well-being. Central issues of a woman's health include menstruation, fertility, cervical screening, contraception, pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy, menopause and abortion. Denying any phase of reproductive care means endangering the fundamentals of a minimum level of care any woman should be entitled to expect from a modern, progressive healthcare system.
Privacy Rights and More
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To be sure, any legislative or judicial action that infringes on the rights of an individual concerning privacy and equality are discriminatory. Many of the Supreme Court's most difficult decisions regarding these two liberties have often parsed the two concepts in a separate judicial manner, meaning the court has viewed them as independent from one another. Without question, The Synergy of Equality and Privacy in Women's Rights (Schneider, 2002) should never be separated, that is, they should be taken in balanced context, accommodating the importance of both. Legal scholars argue that prejudicial court actions that imperil rights of equality become the "basis for the invasion of privacy." These same scholars assert that the state's negation of intimate behaviors becomes the foundation to "repudiate" equality.
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Significantly, from a progressive framework, human rights bound to equality and privacy, must be viewed from the perspective that the "rights fit the people," and not the other way around.