There’s a war on women

by Susie
And it isn’t stopping.

I can’t even remember how many years it’s been since I lived in the Hellmouth, when I used to take the train downtown to the office. One morning the train was late, and I got into a conversation with another woman at the station.

She asked me what my job was, and I told her I worked for a political consulting firm. She looked at me as if I were slightly dotty and responded proudly that she was a Republican. “Really?” I said. “I could never be a Republican. All those people who insist they want the government out of their business, and instead they want it in mine.”

I remember she said she would “never” have an abortion, so it didn’t concern her. “They’re not stopping at abortion,” I said matter-of-factly. “They’re going after birth control, too.”

“Oh, that’s crazy,” she said. “They wouldn’t do that.”

“Not only are they going after birth control, they want to stop married couples from using it,” I said. I started to tell her about Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruling that decided married couples had a right to privacy that allowed them to purchase birth control, but you could tell she thought I was a wacko. When the train finally came, she sat in the next car.

Now we have Rick Santorum running for president, a man who has often said he’d like to overturn Griswold. But it doesn’t really matter which Republican, because even the ones who aren’t crazy have to placate the forced-birth wing of their party.

I wonder if she ever remembers that conversation. I wonder if it ever sank in that her daughters won’t have the same rights we did.