A few interesting thoughts

Well it’s the first time I’ve posted on here in quite some time. Not having a computer really slows me down. Typing on a keyboard feels crazy weird.

Tonight in my capstone Women’s Gender Studies class we watched Iron Jawed Angels, which is a move about the suffragette movement in America in the early part of the 20th century. One thing that they discussed in the movie that really caught my attention was when the lead character, Alice Paul, talked about supporting the right for women to vote. It wasn’t about what women would do once they got the vote. Instead, it was about their right to voice their opinion in their government. Plain and simple.

Today, there is a lot of discussion about women’s rights in the medical field. Do women have the right to have an abortion? Can they have access to birth control? And so on and so on.

But that isn’t the point.

The point is that all people, regardless of their sex, should be able to make informed decisions about their personal health. This means that all people should be able to access information most importantly and that no one should be able to deny that right.

There is no reason why the government, or anyone else for that matter, should need to stick their noses into anyone’s medical decisions. If we pay for it then we should be able to access it.

This country was built on the idea that a person should be free from persecution. Shouldn’t this include the freedom from being persecuted for seeking out certain medical procedures?

Another thought that has long been nagging at me is that the majority of these decisions about what people (mainly women) can and can’t do in regards to their medical decisions is based on Christian values. There is a huge argument that this country was founded on Christian values. I would like to point out that the founding father’s brand of Christianity would be unrecognizable today to any church-goer, but also that America was colonized in the hopes of escaping religious persecution. We have no national religion so why do our law makers insist on pressing Christian values in their laws? Especially those that should be private and are protected by doctor-patient confidentiality?

My personal beliefs and values are important to me. But more important to me is that each individual is afforded the freedoms that our country is supposedly so proud of.
 America is only proud of freedom when it falls in line with our preconceived values. We only support freedom of expression when we can agree with what is said. This is an undermining of the very principle of freedom.

This is not a radical notion. I do not support anarchy. But I also don’t support hypocrisy. If America is unwilling to embrace the ‘melting pot’ then where will it go? The world is changing all around us and it does no good to shut it out. Is it not better to hear all opinions, to learn all that we can about the world and the people in it and draw our own conclusions?

Consider being the minority. Consider your life if you were on the outskirts and your beliefs and/or values were insulted subtly every single day. Consider this and act accordingly to those around you. Learn all you can first, then begin to form your beliefs.