UPDATE: The House today approved a resolution stating – yet again – that life begins at conception. Supporters of SB 1433 [the Personhood Act] were not mollified, however. As spokesman Kevin Calvey put it, “This is a cop-out – not a compromise.” They demanded the House vote on SB 1433, but the speaker is holding firm – noting that the GOP caucus twice voted against scheduling a floor vote. Interestingly, the theocrats can’t seem to grasp the fact that “life-begins-at-conception” already is in state law. Look it up: Title 63. The gaggle of old white men pushing Personhood at the Capitol today is pursuing political power – the power to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. About 50 Personhood opponents filled the west House gallery this morning, most wearing pink shirts. Stay tuned to see whether the speaker and rational Republicans can withstand pressure from those who would turn Oklahoma into a theocracy.
BY KAREN WEBB
When is the Oklahoma Democratic Party going to excommunicate state Rep. Rebecca Hamilton?
There she was with the GOP attacking women [4.23.12 Capitol news conference on Personhood Act]. Too bad that women aren’t taking early pregnancy tests to the voting booth and if they come out positive demanding to get two votes.
Rebecca [D-Oklahoma City] used to be very pro-women’s rights. Is she ashamed of her husband’s name? A submissive wife should take her husband’s name.
Republican Sen. Ralph Shortey actually said that government can’t control men’s sexual practices that prevent pregnancy, but they can control women’s.
Women are controlled by Catholic religious dogma, but do not suggest that men give up masturbation for the Pope.
– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
Karen: I’m not advocating for the moral good or evil of what a man may do with his body. However, it is disingenuous to treat that matter as equivalent to the matter of a separate human life still inside the womb. It is at the foundation of the incomparable dignity of women that they are bearers of life. The matter of a human life in the woman’s womb is a separate, unique, and complete being apart from any man or the woman who carries it. What she carries is the result of the joining of a sperm and egg. In the case men you highlight, we are not speaking of an equivalent matter because what is contributed from the man’s body is not a human life without the woman’s contribution.
At the birth of a child, we may be surprised at whether the child is male or female (if we did not already know that information), but we are not and we cannot be surprised that what issues forth from the woman’s womb is a human being. It is not as if we are not sure whether we’ll end up seeing a human being or a zebra. That life begins at conception is not a religious dogma. It is a fact of science. It’s moral value is established in natural law. You ought not confuse religious people sharing this scientific truth with the advancement of dogma. I believe the mathematical truth that 2 plus 2 equals four. That I am a religious person does not make that matter an issue of dogma.
Perhaps you could offer more proof and an explanation for your claim at the article’s end: “Women are controlled by Catholic religious dogma, but do not suggest that men give up masturbation for the Pope.”
All the bills introduced nationwide to restrict abortion, contraception, personhood, access to low-cost health care, etc., since the “T.E.A. party” came into office are all attempts to take away a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her body, about whether or not she will carry a pregnancy to term, about her rights, her life. Men don’t know when to stop trying to control every breath and action of others, especially females.
Now we’re hearing noise from the Reich Wing about revoking a woman’s right to vote. The CPM keeps their daughters at home after home-schooling is complete, telling them not to go to college but to stay home and learn to be a good little wife when her father hands her over to her husband. Those poor brain-washed girls don’t even have a chance to make their own decisions for their lives. It’s been shown again and again “religious” men like that just want their wives and daughters as personal property/slaves. Polygamy and incest creep into the picture again and again. These men are scared to death of smart, educated women who insist on being whole human beings in their own right. Always, always, they preach they have a biblical mandate to their way of life. Baloney!
It will get a lot uglier before women get their fill of being treated like mindless robots here only to serve man but they will get enough. The earth will truly tremble when that day comes.
The life inside the mother’s womb is not “her” body. It is a separate life; it is the mother’s child. To insist a mother has a right to kill her offspring goes against the natural law. Mothers have the desire to defend their children. That same desire ought to exist when the mother is carrying her child in her womb.
I am not sure if the Okla. Observer is a real newspaper or just some leftist website (I’ve never heard of it before), but that last sentence of yours is insulting and vulgar. But just so you’re clear on the Catholic teaching regarding masturbation:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2352.htm