Thumbs Up! For Women's Rights
  by Marsha Abelman

I was proud as I stood near the corner of Cascade and Cache La Poudre last week, holding a "Keep Abortion Legal" sign. I was proud to be standing with the committed people who were going to The March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., proud to support the continuing effort to preserve reproductive freedom for Americans.

The vast majority of passing motorists were supportive, up." Just a few men in large cars slowed down to scowl darkly and to give us a stern "thumbs down."

"Our" government has been chipping quietly away at reproductive rights in the months since Bush came into office. Many understand that the ultimate goal is to make abortion and contraception illegal once again.

The religious right, eager to bridge the wall of separation between church and state, is a driving force behind this goal. The Vatican is requiring public office holders who are Catholics to adhere to all church directives on contraception, abortion and "death with dignity" issues. The church already owns most of the hospitals in the United States and does not permit prochoice procedures in their hospitals, which can include tubal ligations and vasectomies.

I grew up in the 1950s, in the "Bible Belt." There was no sex education at home or school. "Sex education" in my health class was merely brief units on hygiene and male and female "plumbing," with chalk outline-like sketches of androgynous bodies.

Reared by my authoritarian family and a patriarchal church to be docile and agreeable in all circumstances, I would have had no voice, no ability to protest, if someone had wanted to molest me. I had no knowledge of birth control. If I'd become pregnant as the result of rape, I would have been forced to bear the child. Fortunately, neither molestation nor sexual violence was a factor in my life, and I never faced an unwanted pregnancy. However, I have often wondered what happened to the girl in my high school whose stomach seemed to be swelling before she simply "disappeared." It was rumored that she'd been sent to Fort Worth to have a baby. We never saw her again.

She had been a quiet little person who walked with downcast eyes. In the years since high school I've thought perhaps she had been a victim of incest or rape, too afraid or too poor to find help… help that in those days often led to death or sterility.

I'm thankful that we are far from the sexually repressive 1950s. Because society now has a more enlightened view of the human body and sex, children in America can learn about their bodies' sexual development. Thanks to the efforts of birth control advocates, people, young and old, can control when they have children.

Thank you, citizens of Colorado Springs who waved in support of the Women's March rally. And thank you, all the women and men who went to Washington, D.C., to remind George Bush's self righteous government that reproductive rights should always be accessible to a free citizenry. We must not forget that reproductive freedom could easily be legislated away by scowling people who want to control others' lives by forcing their personal religious beliefs on others. "Thumbs up" to personal reproductive freedom.

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