ANOTHER WOMAN THING --

It broke my heart today to see the second turn in the anti-woman part of the health care debate. A few weeks ago I heard a representative had objected to reproductive health care in a Health Reform bill, saying that as a man he had no need of that. The official he said that to said something to the order of “Well your mother did”.

Now I hear that there is a concerted effort to make sure no health reform money goes for women’s access to abortion and birth control services. Hmmm … so a woman will have to go to the back alley? That is a reform??? Is that what they are calling pro-life? Won’t that cost much more in the long run?

The problem isn’t just an anti-abortion consideration. It is that the whole definition of a sex, in this case the female sex, is about reproduction issues! To define those out from a health bill is to do something very, very disturbing.

In this blog on March 12, 2009 I gave some information that has been helpful to many of you about the subject of abortion. I’d love you to go there if you haven’t. But this is about more than that. It smacks of the 1920s debate about whether women should be educated about birth control options (which were few then). It smacks of misogyny.

I wrote my congressman and senators today. Maybe you will, too.

For good insight into this crazy turn of events, you can go to rcrc.org for conversation about the issues from a faith perspective. Of course there is good stuff at ppfa.org as well.

Why does history ever wax toward oppression of women? I know that seems like a silly question after all the material we have from the feminist perspective, but it still bugs me and it hurts all of us.

Paul quoted what was apparently a central hymn in the early church in Galatians 3:28 saying that we are no longer viewed as Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we “are all one in Christ Jesus”. The issue of women’s full place in church leadership was one of the main reasons the early church had its pivotal debate about what amount of Jewish law Christians would have to follow, recounted in Acts chapter 15. That debate is what freed us to come to church even if we don’t eat kosher, aren’t circumcised, or haven’t offered sacrifice at the Temple. The church lost its way on women’s issues for generations. We can’t lose our way again.

Hey, guys, we need to make some noise here. And women, God hears you. I hope congress will, too.

Do Well