The Outrage Continues

Our friend John Richards, who keeps us up to date on some of the more concerning developments in the news and on the web, sent along very interesting articles from the Philadelphia Inquirer (registration required, but it's free) and the Seattle Post Intelligencer which illustrate the dire condition of women's rights in the US. It is discouraging that, as Laura pointed out in her post, Bush surrounds himself with women in seemingly important positions while his administration is working to increase the ability of the government to control women's lives.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Justice Department has issued guidelines for the treatment of rape victims which leave out prevention of pregnancy. Although the "morning-after pill" is safe and effective when given within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse, many people who would benefit from it are not aware of it, and few states require it to be offered to rape victims (New York does, but recently a NYC hospital was fined for violating the rule).

Obviously, the right to potential life of a rapist's offspring overrules the woman's needs. Think of the absurdity that an alleged rapist could possibly be condemned to death (not for the rape alone, of course, but for what society considers a real crime of violence) but the less than 72-hour-old potential embryo has an automatic right to life. A member of the commission that developed the Justice department guidelines stated that no one on the commission opposed informing women about pregnancy prevention but due to the political climate this recommendation was eliminated.

It is hard for me to understand why women are willing to accept the control of their bodies and medical care by the government. It would seem that conservative women, whose ideology supposedly is to restrain "big government," should be the first to jump on this issue.