Our Choice: Forward or Backward? Freedom or Oppression? 2024 or 1864? (video)
Will American voters choose a vibrant and articulate young woman for president or a befuddled old man? I'm not going back. How about you?
Will American voters choose a vibrant, articulate and capable woman for our next president or a befuddled elderly authoritarian whose signature issues — forced pregnancy and crowd size1 — are blowing up in his spray tan face?
I’m voting for Kamala Harris for president because I’m a Mom, a Grandma and a feminist who believes in equal rights, freedom of choice and freedom from government oppression.
I’m voting for a future in which my daughter, granddaughters and all women in the US will have the freedom to make their own medical decisions. Currently, women in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and many other states don’t have body autonomy and the power to make their own medical decisions when it comes to pregnancy. Women’s rights should not change at the state lines!
Arizona is one of the most repressive states in the country when it comes to women’s rights and access to reproductive care. We can thank long-time anti-abortion lobbyist Cathi Herrod2, her fundraising arm the Center for Arizona Policy and decades of Republican “lawmakers” who were more focused on courting Herrod’s endorsement and her money than on crafting sound, equitable government policy.
When discussing oppression of Arizona women, a special shoutout goes to former Republican Party leaders who were in power when some of the radical anti-abortion bills were signed into law: Governor Doug Ducey, Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, Senate President Karen Fann, House Majority Leader (and later Speaker) Ben Toma and Senate Majority Leader (and current Senate President) Warren Petersen.
All of them were in power when Republicans passed, on party line votes, Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban and the fetal rights bill that forces women to carry all pregnancies to term — even if the fetus is not viable. (See the links below to my video updates from the Legislature on these bills and related topics.)
Parental Choice & Freedom of Information — Not Government Regulation
The most important parental decision is not where your kid goes to school. The most important parental decisions are: if you want to have children, who you want to have children with and when to start a family.
In Arizona, thanks to the efforts of the Republican Party, the government makes those decisions for you3. That’s not right.
Patients should have the freedom to make their own medical choices — without government interference.
If the government wants to reduce the number of abortions, they should focus on prevention of unintended pregnancy — and not victimization of pregnant woman and forced childbirth.
Two straightforward and obvious strategies to prevent unintended pregnancy (and a percentage of abortions) are increasing the availability of cheap or free contraception (including voluntary sterilization) and offering medically accurate sex education in schools.
Sex education is already a states rights issue, unfortunately. Of course, Arizona is one of the backward states that does not require medically accurate sex education be taught in schools, and often sex ed class is an “opt-in” rather than an “opt-out” course. Parents have to give written permission for their kids to take sex ed class, if it is offered at all.
Arizona Republicans have long stood against medically accurate sex education because they prefer to suppress information about lifestyle choices they disagree with, rather than be open and honest with young people who are coming of age.
For example, if Arizona schools offered medically accurate sex education, they’d have to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality, recognize love and marriage between two people of the same gender and explain LGBTQ lifestyles, in addition to cis gender lifestyles.
A quality sex ed curriculum would also cover healthy relationships, consent, contraception, abortion, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual pleasure other than intercourse.
Information is power, and in the case of healthy sexuality and reproductive choice, information can save lives. Why are we withholding it?
In The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex, New York Times author Peggy Orenstein recently reported about a disturbing trend in sexual relations — the dramatic increase in choking during intercourse.
Cis gender women are more likely to experience choking during sex than orgasm. What?! Where did cis gender men get the idea that choking women during intercourse was cool and often expected, male orgasm is a must-have, and female pleasure is totally optional? Pornography.
Yikes! Now women not only have to worry about unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases from intercourse, they have to worry about being choked to death. Given these risks, is it finally time for medically accurate sex education nationwide?
Obviously, it would be preferable to teach young people about sex and healthy relationships in school in a sex education class taught by a health educator — rather than withholding information and forcing kids to cruise YouTube for how-to videos.
In 2019, Republican Rep. Michelle Udall proposed a bill to declare pornography a public health crisis. When I served in the Arizona House with her, I regularly proposed bills requiring school districts to adopt medically accurate sex education and gave them leeway to craft their own programs. In debate, I suggested that pornography wouldn’t be young people’s go-to source for information if we taught medically accurate sex education in the schools.
Anti-Abortion Laws Are Structural Sexism
Laws that restrict access to abortion or birth control are prime examples of structural sexism in the US legal system. These laws were crafted to restrict the freedom of one group — people born with a female anatomy.
Name one medical choice or procedure that is denied to men by state law. There aren’t any. Men have body autonomy in Arizona but not women. That’s not right. That’s sex discrimination baked into Arizona law.
Men play a role in unintended pregnancy and abortion, but male responsibility and regulating men’s behavior (as they do women’s behavior) are never mentioned by lawmakers. Why not? Cuz … The Patriarchy rules the Arizona Legislature.
In the name of reducing the number of abortions, what laws could be crafted to prevent men from fathering children they have no intention of caring for or supporting? I suggest the government consider adding regulations4 regarding access to Viagra and vasectomy.
OR instead of more regulations, perhaps we could give people the freedom to make their own reproductive choices — without government meddling.
Government-mandated pregnancy and government control over personal decisions has got to end. The only way will get the Republican Party
out of our bedrooms and our hospital rooms is to
defeat Trump, vote Republicans out of office AND pass Prop 139.
WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN.
Important Dates:
September 10, 2024: Harris/Trump televised debate.
October 7, 2024: Last day to register to vote in Arizona in order to vote in the November 5 election.
October 9 - November 1, 2024: Early Voting in Arizona.
November 5, 2024: In-person voting and ballot drop-off.
VOTE YES ON PROP 139!
Trump, Ducey, Bowers, Fann, Toma, Petersen, Herrod and the Supreme Court took away our reproductive freedom in 2022.
VOTE YES on Prop 139 to enshrine reproductive choice in the Arizona Constitution and restore abortion care in Arizona.
Why should a woman’s rights change when she crosses a state line in the
United States of America?
SHOW THEM THE POWER OF THE VOTE in 2024!
Here are links to a few of my video updates from the Legislature on abortion, fetal personhood, women’s rights and related topics:
15,000 Join Tucson’s 2017 Women’s March, January 21, 2017
Is Pornography a Public Health Crisis? February 7, 2019
Rep. Powers Hannley: It’s Time for the ERA Vote in AZ, March 12, 2019
Republicans Censor Speech on ERA, March 13, 2019
Protect Children, Not Predators, April 4, 2019
Crisis in maternal and child health, April 22, 2019
How Can Arizona Be the #1 ‘Pro-Life’ State & Treat Children So Poorly? February 4,2020
You Should Determine Your Choices in Pregnancy Care — Not the Government, February 5, 2020
HB2388: Fake Pregnancy Clinic Bill Passes HHS, February 6, 2020
Arizona Legislature Is Shortchanging Its Children, February 10, 2020
Arizona House Passes Anti-Trans Bill, March 4, 2020
SB1457 Is Government Overreach into Women’s Lives, April 1, 2021
Barto’s Anti-Abortion Bill Criminalizes Doctors & Victimizes Patients, April 1, 2021
SB1456 Anti-LGBTQ Bill Limits Health Info, April 14, 2021
#AZLeg Bill Protects Fetuses and Criminalizes Doctors and Patients, April 22, 2021
Social Engineering Day: Republicans Pass 15-Week Abortion Ban & Anti-Trans Bills, March 24, 2022
Stop Abortion Bans Rally, May 14, 2022
Abortion Care Severely Limited in Arizona if SCOTUS Strikes Down Roe v Wade, June 14, 2022
Arizona Reacts to End of Abortion Care, June 24, 2022
SCOTUS Decision Roe v Wade Ends Abortion Care in Arizona, June 24, 2022,
Now in addition to obsessing over who has the biggest rallies, Trump is now obsessing over Harris’ height (which is average for women in the US). I’m with President Obama. Why does Trump have an obsession with size? Hmmm.
Herrod is also vehemently anti-LGBTQ. She is behind the “show me your papers” bathroom bills, pronoun bills and the anti-trans bills in Arizona.
Guys, you may think abortion access is a women’s issue, but you will be forced into fatherhood if you get someone pregnant. You also will face legal consequences for assisting someone in an abortion — like driving them across state lines. Watch the State Line video. Hmmm … condom or child support for 18 years after a one-night stand? Wear a condom … or do other pleasurable sexual activities that don’t involve intercourse. If you don’t want to father more children (or any children), get a vasectomy. There is no such thing as “no strings attached sex” in Arizona if you get someone pregnant.
Arizona is a deregulation state — except when it comes to women’s rights and reproductive health.