Photo by StarBooze on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons.
Whatever happened to good old American ingenuity? What happened to having a back-up plan?
All of this bickering about vaginas and amendments, about who’s getting calls from the President and who’s not, about who started cursing at women first and who just followed suit, is missing the point. There’s more than one way to skin a cat… or medicate a vagina, if that so happens to be the topic at hand.
We have a problem: the current level of access to birth control in this country is not sufficient to prevent some women from falling through the cracks.
We’ve tried a solution: government mandates requiring employers to provide it.
This solution hasn’t worked. Not only has it resulted in a sizable portion of the population feeling as though a fundamental freedom is being infringed upon, it has both sides wrapped up in futile rhetoric. The entire country is in gridlock and yet we just keep arguing the same points over and over; the ones that haven’t gotten us anywhere to begin with.
Why? Because it’s so important we come out on top we can’t possibly compromise? Because we feel so compelled to force people to bend to our will that we can’t imagine working a solution around others’ convictions?
Do we really believe the only way to close gaps in birth control accessibility is to force religiously affiliated employers to provide it?
Today, I’m not disappointed in Rush Limbaugh for calling some woman he couldn’t possibly know anything about a slut or Obama for slighting hoards of others by ignoring them when they were called worse. Today, I’m disappointed that we — the supposed greatest country on earth — find ourselves in such a hostile political climate that, when we take an action that makes our fellow citizens feel trampled upon, rather than step back and look for an alternate way to solve the problem we engage in immature in-fighting. I’m disappointed that I have to identify with a population that is so wrapped up in being right at all costs, they can’t possibly compromise for the sake of moving forward.
This isn’t about an attack on women or freedom of religion; this isn’t even about whose caller ID has lit up with a Pennsylvania Avenue phone number. It ceased to be about those things after the first argument in their favor was made and then debunked by the other side — because the other side always has an equal and opposite argument. This is about coming out on top, this is about brute political strength and the raw power to force everyone else to play by one side’s rules. And that disappoints me. We can be better than this. Regardless of our genitalia.
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Diana Prichard has a vagina and a recurring prescription for birth control which she does not, at this time, source from any given Catholic entity. She’s also a freelance writer and farmer.
Sigh… I just discovered The Broad Side, and I am hopeful that it will satisfy at least part of my need for some badass lady blogging. But, come on. I can’t not comment on this headline. Medicate a vagina? Do we need to go back to Junior High health class and explain how babies are made? The vagina’s just the exit ramp, ladies. It’s not what makes the baby.