I'm failing to come up with a coherent subject line for this one

a_white_rain stole all the good subject lines for this issue, so I'll just be honest and comment "this is an awfully apt song title for the context, innit?" Read on.

The Bush Administration is trying, yet again, to tie religion to government, and therefore control people's lifestyle and choices. I'm all for people being able to practice their religion how they please, so long as that doesn't mean shoving one's religion down the throats (or up the uteruses, in this case) of others, forcing them to change their lives to suit those views.

Basically, they want to let medical clinics define "abortion" willy-nilly, based on a poll where NOT EVEN THE MAJORITY of people believe that life begins at conception (vs. implantation) and where the accepted medical definitions (from across several organizations) DIFFER from this whole "at conception/fertilization" point.

As is mentioned in some of the pages AWR links to, this is going to give power to religious right medical clinics, doctors, etc. to say that abortion can take place at a point when a woman doesn't even know if she's pregnant. There is NO definite way to know that an egg has been fertilized-- no blinking red light, no incontrovertible signs. Doctors can "opt out" of assisting a woman with getting birth control and/or an abortion, and there is no legislation that provides for a woman in this scenario: no alternatives she is given to seek, no transportation should the next nearest place be hundreds of miles away, nothing.

They call this a "conscience" act, as if to imply that doctors that DO assist women with birth control and/or abortions don't HAVE a conscience. What a bunch of bullshit! (For the record, I'm on birth control and have been since I was 16. I haven't been sexually active for that long; I've just had horrible, horrible, debilitating PMS and MS cycles. But will that minor detail stop a "conscientious" doctor from denying me my medication? No. And then I'll be S.O.L. for a good week out of every month. Thanks, Bush!)

*groan* I could probably rant on this for a while, and half the things I'd say might come out wrong because it just makes me that furious. Check out AWR's links, read up on it from various sources, and then ACT. I don't care if you're a man or a woman, young or old, religious, spiritual, or anything else in-between. Hell, even if you're not a U.S. citizen, write to our government and tell them how STUPID they're looking to the rest of the world and how, for a supposed world-superpower and global leader, we're sure acting like we've just popped into existence from the Middle Ages! (Actually, that's insulting the Middle Ages.)

I already sent out emails to both friends and family, and to the government in protest of this. It's bullshit and I won't stand for it as a woman or as a U.S. citizen.

Details, links, and more:
AWR's first post, including links out
Naamah Darling's rant on the subject, very nicely worded, with more links out
AWR's second post, with some more links out