Procreation Nation

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

August 1, 2006

On July 21, nearly 800 activists convened for NOW's Young Feminist Summit and 40th Anniversary Conference. We learned, we shared, we celebrated, and we marched.

Ani DiFranco brought tears to our eyes, Tyne Daly made us laugh, high school feminists from Pittsburgh gave us hope, and NOW's founders and past presidents inspired us with their groundbreaking vision. This was a conference to remember, and the connections and plans we made will undoubtedly sustain our passion and activism in the coming months and beyond.

With our hearts and minds reinvigorated by a weekend away from the fray, it's time to respond to the most recent below-the-belt hits from the right-wing.

First, I'm compelled once again to point out the baffling government fetish about baby-making. This country already has the highest fertility rate in the industrialized world, and the population is growing by about 3.2 million people each year. But apparently that's not enough for our leaders, who have a serious preoccupation with procreation, which is apparently more important than, well, anything else.

Last week, Washington State joined 45 other states in denying equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. Why? Because procreation, sayeth the state Supreme Court judges, "is a legitimate government interest furthered by limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples".

Never mind that the Social Security set can marry with no intention of procreating…or that many opposite-sex couples are infertile, or just don't plan to have children. But acknowledging reality has rarely been a defining characteristic of the current administration or its minions in the courts and in Congress.

Another case in point is the Senate's recent effort to make sure that unhappily pregnant teens stay that way. They passed the so-called Child Custody Protection Act, more accurately labeled the Teen Endangerment Act, which would make it a federal crime for anyone other than a young woman's parent—including her grandmother, aunt, adult sister or counselor—to accompany her across state lines to obtain an abortion (even if that's the closest clinic) unless the teen has complied with her home-state's parental involvement laws (note that 44 states have such laws on the books, and 35 are currently in effect).

I'm sure jailing her grandmother will make the whole situation much easier for a young woman already in crisis.

The reality that this bill brushes under the right-wing rug is the fact that not all young women live in ideal family situations—which also undermines the "we are family" rationale for parental involvement laws in the first place. Imagine the teen who is required to tell parents who are abusive, or the teen whose own father or brother is responsible for her pregnancy, or the multitude of other circumstances that would put a young woman at risk. Don't worry, dear—Congress knows best.

You and I may not have voted for the people who are helping to make the U.S. Procreation Nation—or maybe we did? Fourteen Democrats joined all but four Republicans in voting for the Teen Endangerment Bill: Senators Bayh (D-IN), Byrd (D-WV), Carper (D-DE), Conrad (D-ND), Dorgan (D-ND), Inouye (D-HI), Johnson (D-SD), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), Nelson (D-NE), Nelson (D-FL), Pryor (D-AK), Salazar (D-CO), and even Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

I list them because it's important to know who we can't count on. Feel free to call their offices and tell them so.

Though there is much to be said for a Democratic majority in the Senate (on such inside-the-beltway matters as who chairs which key committee, but also on other issues like the environment and the budget) but the reality is that it's not likely to do much to stop the governmental obsession with procreation-and it's especially not likely to protect the availability of contraception and abortion, because Democratic leaders have given so many of their colleagues (and themselves) a free pass to vote with the Republicans on those issues.

Before we leave that subject, I can't resist noting that, in the midst of debating the Teen Endangerment Bill, our stellar U.S. Senate voted down (48-51, mostly along party lines) a Democratic amendment to provide medically-accurate, comprehensive sex education to teens. Yes, ignorance in service of the Procreation Nation.

How does this relate to women's equality? In fact, the issues they're running headlong away from (sex education in school, access to birth control and legalization of abortion) are among the changes that made it possible for women to begin to compete with men on a somewhat equal footing (after all, competition was rather difficult when one pregnancy after another was the norm for married women) and positions on those same issues once distinguished egalitarian men from those who wanted women "barefoot and pregnant." Maybe they still do.

We've got a problem, and it will not be solved only by changing which party has power. Our government at every level is full of people who don't recognize discrimination when it hits them in the face—or when it comes up for a vote or a court ruling. We must seek out individuals, not parties, who have the courage to run, and who understand the government's interest in tolerance, liberty, privacy and equality—not procreation. We have enough people—let's focus on treating them fairly.

Speaking of treating people fairly, the U.N. Human Rights Committee just last week incorporated NOW Foundation's comprehensive report on the status of U.S. women's employment rights into the concluding observations from its eighty-seventh session. The Committee is "especially concerned about the reported persistence of employment discrimination against women." Using the U.N. and international law (and pressure) is another of our many tactics for achieving the goal of equal treatment and opportunities for women.

Twelve women in Pittsburgh have taken yet another tactic. All were ordained on Monday, eight as Catholic priests and four as deacons, in ordination ceremonies not sanctioned by the Catholic Church. According to United Press International, the women "are willing to risk excommunication in the hope of sparking a revolution of equality within an institution resistant to change."

We need a lot more revolutions of equality . . .
in a lot more institutions resistant to change.

May our numbers multiply,

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