Oh, I wish I could have been there! Mass Protest Decries Bush Abortion Policies . For a pretty good list of the specific ways in which Bush seems to have declared war on women, check this out: War On Women.
I just don't get Bush's blind devotion to abstinence. Yeah, sure - it works so long as you don't fall off the wagon, but that's a very hard thing to do. A recent study shows 88% of those teens who make virginity pledges still have sex before marriage. This is compared to 99% of non-pledgers. Pledgers do have fewer sex partners - but here's the downside (in my mind, anyway) they get married at a younger age. Which indicates to me, at least that they're just getting married because they're horny. Oh yeah, that's the foundation for a good, solid stable marriage.
Don't get me wrong - I think abstinence is a great option - I practiced it myself for extended periods of time before I got married. The problem is; Bush wants to teach kids that abstinence is the ONLY option for birth control - that it's the ONLY option for protecting themselves against STD's. He wants to INTENTIONALLY and DELIBERATELY keep kids IGNORANT of other ways to have sex safely and responsibly. So in Bush's ideal world, when they *do* fall off the wagon (as 88% of them DO) they are completely vulnerable to getting pregnant and catching STD's. They'd have no access to emergency contraception, or a safe first trimester abortion, or healthcare if they catch HIV's. Because in Bush's mind, they should be PUNISHED for CHOOSING to have unprotected sex - nevermind that he left them NO OTHER fucking choice. Literally.
Sorry for all the CAPS - it's something I get pretty worked up about. It's this fucking lose-lose situation he wants to force people into. Adhere to *MY* strict right wing religious beliefs about sex and marriage or suffer the consequences you heathen scum!! And what's worse is, he's not just trying to impose them on Americans. He's locking up all US funding and support for global reproductive health care, family planning and HIV prevention/care contingent upon foreign citizens complying with those beliefs, as well.
This is where the idiocy really shines through. Bush's master plan for fighting HIV in Africa (sorry - no specific source - I saw it on an OPB interview), for instance is to push (& fund) only "abstinence until marriage" programs. If he'd bother listening to any of the organizations who actually *work* in Africa and understand the culture and history there; he'd know that marriage is not defined the same way there as it is here, so there's a large % of couples living together or otherwise in long-term relationships who aren't, technically "married"; and that African men are not particularly known for their fidelity anyway (maybe not the women either, but I've only heard of the high incidence of men infecting women). Nevermind that rape is so prevalent in parts of Africa - specifically in Rwanda where an estimated 11% of all females, or approximately 535,000 women, living in Rwanda at the time of the genocide were victims of a concerted rape campaign. During the course of the rape campaign, an average of 4 women were violently sexually assaulted, most of them by HIV+ men, every minute of every hour of every day for 100 consecutive days. More than 67% of women who were raped in 1994 during the genocide are now facing death from AIDS. Now the same thing is happening in the Sudan; and not just to females.
So what's Bush expect these people to do? Prove under oath that their pregnancy/ HIV was a result of rape before he'll let UA funded air organizations provide care or perform an abortion?
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