With
the elections approaching, I have been thinking a great deal about the need to
pass New York State’s Women’s Equality Act.
I had been thinking about it from a distance, for quite some time. And I had been doing this peripheral thinking
because it fills me with a great sense of frustration, or maybe even damn near
despair when I get close. Or closer. Or close enough to be outraged. Close enough to need to speak up against
those that have refused to pass it in it’s entirety when it was put before the
Legislative Session and failed for the second time this past summer.
And
so maybe I’ll take a different approach and not speak up against those that didn’t pass it, but instead I’ll speak up for
why I think it’s important to elect representatives that value women in their
entirety and are dedicated to passing The Women’s Equality Act.
So
here I am. Ready to attempt to calm and
tamp down my frustrated, not quite spitting mad, near despairing disbelief
about the state of equality for women in my beloved home state. I’ll try to
express why we need to vote for candidates that support women. And try in some way to articulate why the
upcoming elections are so important to ensuring the Women’s Equality Act is
passed, for women, and in turn for men. For equality. For access to equal protections, that we
cannot define as under the law, but need
instead to demand equal protections above and beside, the current law. Women can’t have equal protections ‘under the
law’ if the law continues to be determined and perceived and made, predominantly
by men and unfortunately, those few women, who don’t believe women are capable
of making personal and private decisions about their bodies without government
interference, restrictions and limitations.
There
has been a great deal of finger pointing and blame being thrown about and an
exaggerated twisting of facts, either suggested or blatantly stated, regarding
why one particular political party believes the Women’s Equality Act should be
passed in it’s entirety while the other party believes one particular part of
the act should not be included. An attempt
at revising the Women’s Equality Act by removing one specific part in an effort
to pass it lead to a stand off in the NY Senate. And so the Women’s Equality Act missed being passed,
again. This unfortunate outcome is
now being used as a political tool to disparage candidates that supported it’s
passing.
The
Women’s Equality Act, or that one specific part, is being misrepresented as
some free wheeling legal document that could potentially give women in New York
State the freedom to have abortions wherever, whenever and by whomever they
choose. In reality the point that has stopped the Women’s Equality
Act from passing, simply and emphatically codifies the state law to agree with current1
federal law regarding women and their reproductive rights.These rights would include the right
to an abortion if a woman should decide that is the best choice for her. Passing the
Women’s Equality Act with the one point dealing with the reproductive rights of
women would ensure access to the very provisions already available under federal
law, not less than, and no more than.
It
seems as though that one part of being a woman that no one likes to discuss
straight out in the open is connected to the one part of the Women’s Equality
Act that keeps us from fully realizing equality in New York State. If not for a woman’s rather private anatomical discrepancy that seems to require special2 rights, women
would otherwise be equal. And perhaps, if women could simply grow a penis, and
were not able to become impregnated by someone already well equipped, or even
moderately equipped for that matter, with a penis, women would be equal, or I suppose if they could grow that marvelous man part, they might
actually just be umm.....let's see.....MEN!!! Well equipped with rights. You see it sort of defeats the
purpose of granting equality if we women are still not permitted to make
decisions about our health and well being without the consent of the
government. And so the
problem with passing the Women’s Equality Act while excluding the one and only part
that deals directly with a woman’s use of her own female anatomy, is that we
fall short on providing equal rights to women because they are…..um…..let’s
see… give me a minute…… WOMEN!!
And since female anatomy isn’t customarily discussed in mixed
settings, including congress, court houses, state senate, and other government agencies, it
makes it hard to discuss those very inequalities solely related to being a woman, and damn near close to impossible to enact
policy related to righting the inappropriateness of government policy that
palpably crosses the lines, or simply eradicates the lines between separation
of church and state, but only as it relates to women.
The problem with the Women’s Equality Act or at least that one
part, is that it relates to a woman’s rights regarding reproductive health. And those rights might or might not be
exercised by choosing to have an abortion.
The Anti-Women's Equality Act rhetoric uses seditious language to
capture attention. Claims about changing
abortion law and practices have ensued.
In reality, The Women's Equality Act does not change how abortion is performed
or regulated in New York, but it guarantees it. Rabbi Dennis Ross, the director of Concerned Clergy for Choice wrote in a recent
Poughkeepsie Journal OpEd piece, "The debate about abortion is
really a debate about the relationship between religion and government.
Abortion opponents are open about their intentions to trample church-state
boundaries."' He goes on to state why
protecting women “as they come to their
own conclusions and receive medical care” is an important matter that
requires support. Electing officials
that will support passing the Women’s Equality Act is key.
Candidates
that oppose passing this act based on their religious beliefs are out of line
and over stepping their positions by attempting to create or block policy by promoting
government interference in matters that are religious. Religious liberty
relates to an individual's private life.
It provides citizens with protection to follow their faith. According to
the now defunct blogger, The Christian Knight,
religious liberty, means simply "believe how you like" without
interference from the government. It means the government cannot tell you what
to believe, or what not to believe, when it comes to religious matters.
In this sense it has nothing to do with what is right belief or wrong belief.
It is strictly limited to what the government can and cannot do. The restriction
is placed on government -- not the Church.
However,
this does not mean the Church is not
restricted in practicing and preaching it’s specific dogma within the
church. Government officials are free to
have and practice their personal beliefs as they see fit, but they are not permitted to create or block policy based on those privately
protected beliefs.
There are regrettably, women that oppose passing the Women’s
Equality Act. And so I ask those women running for office; Sue Serino, Kathleen A. Marchione, Elizabeth O’Connor Little, Patricia A. Ritchie, and
Catharine M. Young to consider
separating their personal and private beliefs about women’s reproductive rights
and support instead, equality for all women.
Better yet, I ask everyone in those districts to vote instead for Terry
Gipson, Brian Howard, and Amy
Tresidder and reach out to the senators that are running uncontested.
How will we ever be treated equally or have equal rights if policy
excludes a woman’s right to
make decisions about herself? How can we continue to permit the exclusion of
a woman’s right to medical health care access from the discussion and
legislation of equality? How can anyone justify
passing an act that protects women and provides equal rights, as long as it excludes
giving women rights to make decisions about their own bodies?
Providing
equal rights in a way that women in their entire being get to decide how to
live as women, as mother’s or not, as workers or not, as women, and not men is
the whole purpose for passing the Women’s Equality Act, in fact every other
section of the act includes issues that involve and could potentially grant
more rights to men. For those of us women that wish to practice freely, without
discrimination, the right to safe and viable choices related to whether or not we
wish to have an abortion or not is a necessary and important part of the
Women’s Equality Act. It does not mean
that every woman must make the same choice, or agree with the choices being
made by some women, but it is vital that all women be permitted to make
decisions related to being women.
Perhaps if we could pass the
Women’s Equality Act in New York State, who knows maybe the United States as a
whole might consider supporting and ratifying The Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, or the Treaty for the
Rights of Women), which was adopted by the United Nations in 1979. It is the
most comprehensive international agreement on the basic human rights of women,
and the United States currently holds the deeply disturbing distinction as being the one, the
only, country in the Western Hemisphereas well as the only industrialized democracy
that has not ratified this treaty. In
fact we are joined with Iran and Sudan as countries that have not ratified this
treaty.
Footnotes:
1 Current-
as in, since 1973. New York State’s laws
related to women have not been updated since 1970. You know back in a time before women had a
whole lot of rights….back before 1994, when domestic violence became illegal,
women’s rights…such a wild new current concept somehow…. Almost makes you
wonder
2Special-
as in restricted by government
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