President Bush recently distanced himself from the sex scandals plaguing his fellow Republicans. People go to the polls, he remarked, to strengthen the economy and national defense. Gone were the bywords of his presidency, the religious platform calling for a culture of life.
Whatever the President might say, the truth remains to be told.
Most visibly, in South Dakota, voters must decide whether to follow their state government's radical elimination of reproductive rights. It has tried to ban all abortions, going so far as to criminalize doctors who choose to help a woman who has been the victim of rape or incest.
Such extremism is not the exception. It's the rule behind the anti-choice agenda.
South Dakota is only one battleground in a highly sophisticated campaign to restrict a woman's right to basic health care and, at the same time, to establish a rigid, male-dominated society.
This last half of the story often goes untold. The values of anti-choice — a perversion of mainstream Christianity and a distortion of religious morality — are values inimical to equal rights and free government. As Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) eloquently said, "If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."
This distorted religious sentiment sees access to medically informed reproductive healthcare as the greatest sin facing our country. A woman cannot be trusted with her womb. She shouldn't make any choices about sex.
This September the Pro-Life Action League sponsored a conference in Chicago called "Contraception Is Not The Answer." In their words, contraception has caused "widespread promiscuity, divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, single parent households and abortion."
Perhaps they preferred the good old days of rampant syphilis, flourishing brothels, death in childbirth and a man's right to marital rape.
Indeed, they twist reality to make men the victims of women's freedom. One conference speaker, Dr. Lionel Tiger, has written a book entitled "The Decline of Males." In it, conference organizers write, he "examines from an anthropological perspective the consequences of giving women unprecedented control of human reproduction, especially on the status of men in society."
Don't let this secular academic language fool you. As with Harris, it's part of the same strategy to erode our fundamental Constitutional separation of church and state. Men will rule over women in this new legal order. Gone is the free practice of religion along with our access to open, objective medical advice.
It's no accident that the anti-choice movement doesn't flaunt its real views. It doesn't want the vast majority of sensible Americans — religious and secular alike — to realize what's at stake in their so-called culture of life. We're all potential targets.
Terri Schiavo and her husband Michael found this out the hard way. Rather than being able to heed the advice of their own excellently qualified doctors, they were subjected to a personal assault by Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist '74 (R-Tenn.) led the charge. "In the video footage ... " Frist decided, "she certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli." Of course, an autopsy later confirmed that Schiavo had been completely brain dead.
Will we let a misguided, morally righteous Congress determine when, where and how we live?
I support unconditionally a woman's right to have an abortion. As for anyone, with any medical procedure, we have and should always retain complete control over our health care decisions.
I support our cherished American values of freedom and equality, not a regime of male power trying to strip one half of our population of its liberty. Oppression is not the answer.
Let us ask questions that improve the lives of everyone in our society. When will all families flourish free from the threat of unwanted pregnancy? When will young boys learn about their sexual selves in ways that directly challenge and counteract our culture of violence against women? When will all couples, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, receive equal treatment before the law, with their love recognized and honored, rather than denied and villainized, by our government?
The next time you fill your birth control prescription, ask yourself what the Republicans' culture of life means. The next time you put on a condom, consider which sexual privileges might soon be taken away. The next time you go to the doctor, think how different it will be if your physician's advice is dictated by Pro-Life Action.
More importantly, ask yourself these questions when you vote today. Christopher Moses is a graduate student in the History Department and a member of Princeton Pro-Choice Vox. He may be reached at cmoses@princeton.edu.
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