Who's behind the war on women's rights?
The Secret About The Men Behind The War On Women
A group of men with no real background in law or medicine, but blessed with a strong personal interest in women’s bodies, have quietly influenced all of the major anti-abortion legislation over the past several years. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops may be one of the quietest, yet most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, with political allies that have enabled them to roll back decades of law and precedent.
Over the past two years the GOP-controlled House of Representatives has launched one of the most extreme assaults on women's choice the U.S. has seen in decades. Republicans voted twice to slash federal family planning funds for low-income women, moved to prevent women from using their own money to buy insurance plans that cover abortion, introduced legislation that would force women to have ultrasounds before receiving an abortion and, most recently, passed a bill that will allow hospitals to refuse to perform emergency abortions for women with life-threatening pregnancy complications.
But the erosion of women's rights didn't begin with the GOP takeover. President Barack Obama's health care reform law contained some of the most restrictive abortion language seen in decades.
Lift the curtain, and behind the assault was the conference of bishops.
"It is a very effective lobby, unfortunately, and now they have an ally in the Republican majority because both groups find this a means by which to fight women's health issues in general," said Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), a member of the House Pro-Choice Caucus. "The bishops carry a lot of clout."
(((SNIP)))
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/the-men-behind-the-war-on_n_1069406.html
---edited to put up a working link
---obviously the bishops aren't the only people trying to deny women's rights, but I found the article interesting nonetheless.
= new reply since forum marked as read
This far on from 1995 it can be a bit tricky googling for the story. Here's a little.
http://webspace.webring.com/people/mg/glowmaid/glowingmaidrant15.html
In the year 2000, this line of thinking might seem merely quaint were it not for the cloak of respectability afforded to these and other reactionary positions by the Vatican's access to the floor of the United Nations. Although it has refused to sign the UN Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women because it reserves the right to discriminate against Catholic women, the Vatican has used various UN bodies to try impose its opinions on female sexuality and health on all the women of the world.
It was the Vatican that led opposition to providing contraception and abortion for women in conflict zones such as Bosnia and Kosovo, where rape was a weapon of war. The Vatican's childless celibates also orchestrated a campaign to cut off funding to UNICEF for the world's most needy children because the agency distributes emergency contraception to teenage girls in war zones.
At a meeting in March to prepare for this week's conference following up on the Beijing session, the tactics of the Holy See and its fundamentalist allies changed from obstruction to intimidation. Priests in full clerical garb, waving rosaries as a weapon to ward off evil spirits, invaded women's caucuses. Some conducted an exorcism in the room where the lesbian caucus had met.
Given this latest rash of outrageous behaviour, a movement known as See Change is building among several non-governmental organizations determined to expose the status of the Holy See to public scrutiny. ...
And more intersectionality.
The Vatican's allies in 1995 included the most fundamentalist Muslim regimes in the world. United against women. They certainly know where their interests intersect.