Femimism Friday: Dilation and Extraction of our Rights

What a week for women. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on "partial birth abortion". They actually stood by legislation that makes it illegal for doctors to perform a medical procedure that is sometimes necessary to save a woman's life, bestowing more rights on fetuses with complete disregard for the women who are carrying them.

There has never been a more appropriate time for me to recommend this book:



Every one of these "small victories" for the "pro-life" side is a step toward a scary future for our society. We can't expect too much from a country that makes such a clear statement about the value of women's health and lives. We're headed into a future in which there are no guaranteed rights to medical privacy, and even birth control is in danger of being completely taken away. (If that seems like a stretch, I assure you, it's not. Not only do ardent pro-lifers irrationally believe that most types of contraceptives are abortifacients, but Roe v. Wade was decided using the same "right to medical privacy" principle that was used to legalize birth control in the first place.) I joked in a comment over at Thinking Girl's blog that the right-wingers behind America's organized "pro-life" movement won't stop until zygotes are given social security numbers and we start celebrating fertilizationdays instead of birthdays, but I don't really feel much like laughing right now.

For more information and smart-blogger-insight into this decision, check out these links:

Thinking Girl: Feminism Friday: power in language, the abortion edition

Biting Giants: Justices Deliver Blow to Defenders of Choice and
A Woman Gets The Abortion Decision Right

Bitch Ph.D.: Supreme Court Declares Women Less Intelligent Than Legislators