Wake Up, America!

Women’s rights are under assault. We are facing the very real possibility of losing a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

The Fundamentalist movement that is currently in power has been zealous in their obsessive hatred of women’s reproductive rights, and we continue to be under attack. The most recent loss? An anti-abortion provision tucked right into the $388 billion just passed spending bill.

(Negotiators add abortion clause to spending bill)

We have let their diseased hatred of women’s reproductive rights infect our political system. We have voices, and need to speak out just as vehemently against anti-abortion nominees as the Pro Life groups do for them! We the people still have the power to threaten, cajole, encourage, and most importantly contact, and contact often, all of our Congressmen and let them hear *our* thoughts as well. We can make it too politically costly for our Congressmen and women to jump each time President Bush asks them to.

To do this we must be as devoted, dedicated, and determined to protect the rights of women in America as our opponents have been to strip us of them. And make no mistake about it, if ever there was a time to become politically active, it is now.

It is time to stop being Pro Choice and start being Pro Abortion. I am tired of avoiding conflict by not going toe to toe with rabid zealots just to avoid an argument; of being polite and conceding that ‘they’ have a right to have their opinion. They do not believe I have that right. Because this is considered such an emotionally ‘sensitive’ issue, we have danced delicately around it while they have bludgeoned us all.

I am here to speak a truth that no one dares utter. These Christian Fundamentalists care little for life – unless *you* are one of them. Think of all those individuals who have become heroes in their eyes for bombing abortion clinics or killing pro-abortion doctors. Hypocrites!

Mark my words: Fundamentalists know making abortion illegal will not stop desperate women in desperate circumstances from seeking them. But they will prevent them from finding a medically safe place to get them. They KNOW women will turn to back alley butchers, coat hangers, and other unsafe self-induced practices, and that up to fifty percent of women who undergo unsafe abortions have complications. Fifty percent!

It is estimated by the World Health Organization that 80,000 women die each year due to complications from unsafe abortions… These Christian Fundamentalists know these numbers as well, and DO NOT CARE.

They believe four zygotes are more important than a woman’s life. How are we not outraged?! How is this possible that our politicians are listening to them?! These zealots believe a woman SHOULD risk death or becoming sterile if she decides, whatever the circumstances, to have an abortion.

This is not the American way. Those who have the President’s ear are not the majority. Instead of being terrified at the upcoming four years, be ready to fight - fight long and hard! We have been silent too long, and look at where it has brought us. Wake up America, and get involved! Now is the time!

In this day and age, with the Internet at our fingertips making email access to members of Congress just a few clicks away, why have we not signed up to email our opinions every time we disagree with something that has been said?

Contact your local Planned Parenthood Federation of America, your local chapter of the National Organization for Women, your local Democratic party, and be prepared to not just donate: Be willing to commit time and energy, and not just in the upcoming months, but in the upcoming years. Set aside time each week, meet with each other, develop ideas and strategies, work within your community as well as nationally. We lost an election, but we cannot give up the war - we must not. Too much is at stake, and now more than ever we MUST be heard.