While women in the Middle East are concerned that they might be legally executed for showing too much leg or for driving a car or for any random reason that Islamic judges can conceive, American feminism continues to be about one thing above all others: the right to free, unrestricted birth control and abortions.
Writing on Fusion.net, an ex-pat named Rosie J. Spinks has an article titled, “Life in a magical land where abortions and birth control are free and plentiful.” In it, she describes her harrowing experience of living in California as a student, being forced to endure the painful humiliation of purchasing a Nuvaring with her father’s money. She contrasts this feeling of being “infantilized” with her subsequent experiences in Britain, where she now lives:
I turned up to a sexual health clinic in Soho with no appointment. I filled out some light paperwork and waited in a room filled with copies of Vogue and bowls of sweets. […] After being tested for the full gamut of potential ailments free of charge, a nurse practitioner talked to me about what kind of contraceptives I wanted. She then handed me a year’s worth of birth control in a brown paper bag, also completely free. A week later, the clinic sent me my results via text message.
Spinks goes on to tell her readers that “as a feminist and an American citizen, I’ve always been infuriated by conservative lawmakers’ fixation on legislating my vagina.”
Since Spinks describes getting the Nuvaring in college, we can assume that she has never lived in an America where abortion was illegal. So her problem isn’t with conservatives “legislating her vagina,” it’s with being asked to buck up some cash to pay for her own sexually active lifestyle. In an era where hardly anyone even bothers to discuss overturning Roe v. Wade anymore, today’s feminists aren’t concerned with protecting abortions; they want the taxpayers to fund them.
This is the paradise Spinks found in the UK, where all healthcare is more or less provided free by the state. And though she brings it around to make a statement on the pro-life movement, what she’s really doing – what all of today’s feminists are doing – is arguing for socialized medicine.
Living in the UK, I’ve learned what it feels like when free, unimpeded access reproductive health is considered my basic human right. So to the American feminists fighting this battle across the pond, take it from me: You shouldn’t be settling for anything less.
The fault lines in this divide have been drawn and re-drawn, but it’s becoming increasingly clear to anyone paying attention that this hasn’t been about reproductive health for a long time. This is about the bigger liberal agenda, and they have made up enough ground in the abortion debate to simply use it as part of their scheme to promote universal healthcare. Frame it as Religious Conservatives vs. Women, and hope that enough young feminists are dumb enough to fall for the charade.
From all available evidence, it’s a winning strategy.
Comments are closed.