Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs (JAC) is a national network committed to a strong US-Israel relationship and a social agenda that includes reproductive rights and separation of religion and state. JAC provides financial support for US Senate and House candidates who uphold this agenda; JAC maintains a dialogue with those it helps elect. Visit us at www.jacpac.org and our blog at https://www.jacpac.org/index.php/jac-blog for more information.
Last night I had a nightmare and awoke to a realization. The time has come for us to band together to chase the monsters from our nation’s bedrooms for once and for all.
The image of five religious male officials testifying on women’s health perfectly frames the assault on women’s health. It is men dictating to women and deciding what’s best. It is a particular religious view of conception imposing itself on women’s health. And it needs to stop.
How long will it take for women to be free to control their own bodies? How long will it take before government backs out of bedrooms? How long will it take before women rise up and fight the assaults on their freedoms? History and 2011′s increase in reproductive restrictions do not present reassuring answers to these questions.
Will there be Choice after 2012? That is a choice we have to make in the coming months.
During the Iranian Hostage Crisis a ticker ran with the days the hostages had been held, in NY there is a ticker with the national debt soaring upward, and on the Guttmacher Institute web pages there is a list of the ever-growing anti-abortion legislation that is being considered.
The old saw that all politics is local is gaining traction as state legislators pass law after law violating women’s constitutional rights to privacy and reproductive choice.
Yesterday I boarded a 6:00 am train from Newark to DC to attend the Pro-choice Advocacy Day. I eagerly looked around for placards, buttons, t-shirts, or groups of women and men who were on a mission. Instead I saw briefcases and business suits.
As the politics of 2011 unfold, the Republican Party elected to focus on building jobs and growing the economy has, like stage magician waving their wand to distract the audience, instead focused on attacking women’s rights. Clearly, this is not a new agenda for socially conservative advocates but why this intensity? Why now when our economic recovery is fragile and unemployment is still very high? Then it struck me–18,000,000 cracks.
Just what is so moral about the new morality-based legislation?
While we watch democracy in action in the Middle East, in America, there is an outright war on women.
