Reproductive Rights as HUMAN RIGHTS

I don't care what your views are on abortion. I don't care if you are "pro-life" "pro-death" "pro-birth" or whatever else you want to categorize yourself as. Just don't assume that you have the RIGHT to choose what is best for others just because YOU occupy a certain space of privilege.
It pisses me off to no end to read stories such as the one linked above that speaks of "religion getting in the way of "abortion" pills." Please think about what pills they are speaking of. The "morning after pill" is EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION given to RAPED WOMEN. NOT WOMEN WHO ARE SIMPLY SEEKING A QUICKIE, 7-11 style ABORTION. I swear every time I read something like this I want to scream. The other part of the article talks about pharmacists who not only refuse to tell women that this pill is available to them but refuse to refer them to another pharmacist who might not have such overpowering religious leanings.
I don't care if you're against birth control. DON'T USE IT! Fine by me. I think birth control is also well over peddled primarily because doctors rarely alert women to the full side effects of such drugs (such as blood clots that can kill you, unwanted facial hair, unwanted facial blemishing, weight gain, nausea, anxiety AND depression...in "rare cases"). When I was in the military I had doctors issue (I'm NOT JOKING) me birth control pills. I thought, well that's nice. I never took them. Point though is that I don't have the right to choose for another person what is best for their bodies or their health based upon MY spirituality and I truly don't think anyone should limit anyone else's choices through disinformation, failure to provide information and ignorance. To me, this is just as bad as doctors throwing anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pills at a woman every time she comes to them for anything. I firmly believe and will argue readily that the pharmaceutical industry is extremely sexist in its dispensiary targeting of women for "certain lifestyle drugs" and for men, other drugs. What possible good does it do to give a woman a damned zoloft if she is depressed due to a violent marriage? What possible good does it do to give a child prozac for attention deficit disorder if the child is diagnosed from a four question quiz MADE and DISTRIBUTED BY A DRUG COMPANY who markets that particular drug? I think that women should ask the question, has the drug industry simply reformed the notion that all women's problems could be solved by removing the uterus, lobotomy, shock-therapy or by simply throwing a pill at her? These companies make SOOOOOOOO much money off of people's lack of education regarding trial studies, legal cases, side effects and the like thus ignorance is extremely profittable. Also, (back to the religion thing) I wonder if these same people who take issue with dispensing birth control or (god forbid) the "morning after pill" take the same stand on male contraception and male sex drugs? Are they equally turned off by the manipulation of genetics to produce the "perfect" or ideal baby or at the very least, to diagnose potential birth defects? I am so very tired of people using religion as an excuse for discrimination. Health care, especially INFORMED CONSENT, is just as much a human right as is the freedom to worship. I don't care if you feel compelled to refuse to distribute a drug but do not mis or disinform a woman when it regards her body and her choices for her body. Women are not infants. They do not need some institution to care for them as such and certainly not to make medical decisions for them according to the religious preferences of a few. The other big aspect of this that rarely gets addressed is the crazy hipocrasy between the idea of calling policies "pro-life" when really, really they are simply pro-birth. Policies that make no effort what so ever to ensure that these ever important fetuses are actually protected after birth into infancy, childhood and young adulthood are really only pro-birth and even there they fall short. Pro-life is such a misleading label. I am all for life. That is why I don't think that such political encroachments on a woman's choice and control over her body should ever be in the hands of those who wear whatever morality is in fashion or fashion themselves as forces of morality either. For every person that stands and passionately argues about saving a fetus, I would like to offer them an equally powerful image, one from before Roe vs. Wade and that is of the FULL TERM babies left in dumpsters, drainpipes or left to starve to death or left on doorsteps or left permanently brain damaged by a botched back alley abortion. Today there are countless children who are abused, raped, sold into slavery of various kinds (especially sexual), made into "child soldiers" and murdered by disease (often treatable), starvation, power politics, war, the demonization of "universal" healthcare and the ever increasing fleecing of money from social programs to fund prison building and empire building. So...if you really really really want to fight for life, there are plenty of spaces that could definately use your passion. If you want to continue to "fight for the life of the unborn" then please also fight for the right of the life, after it is born all the way up to its adulthood.

Liberate the female (and feminized) body from an age old designation of being the preferred place upon which to wage war. peace!