On women's rights and conservative view (aka GOP)...

You should know by now that I'm not a GOP supporter, but let me get that out of my system, just to be sure. I view myself more of an issue voter, rather than someone who votes by party line or in accordance to endorsement (which I never do). Even my husband finds it hard to pin down how to "label" me, because I can liberal one day, and conservative the next, but mostly, I'm view myself more of an Independent.

In any case, I don't put much stock in the hoopla of the GOP primaries and the news headlines that go with it since I know they'll get me fire up and mad as hell. But all the flavor-of-the-month type of in candidate that rise and fall faster than a meteorite, from names like Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, and John Huntsman. Looking at the lame GOP line-up, one has to say, why bother? They all look different, yet they all look/sound/smell the same.

Once in a while, I do get upset. Today is one of those days, when I read one of Rick Santorum's big supporters as saying, the best contraception for women is to keep their legs shut. If you follow the news, you'd know that this all borne out of the debate over contraception, and the recent Obama attempt to make healthcare insurers to provide coverage of contraception.

While I'm unsure of the political agenda of Obama in injecting this debate into the political at this time of the year when the GOP conservatives are all fired up about who would be best to unseat Obama in the 2012 presidential election in November, I find the knee-jerk - I hope it's knee-jerk - reaction by the GOP conservatives frightfully maddening.

While I'm a bit more leery about across-the-board endorsement of abortion, late-term abortion and abortion due to circumstances (eg. incest, rape, or medical conditions that endanger the woman's life), I don't have any moral dilemma about contraception. As the poll shows, I'm not alone. Sure, Catholic Church is going to come out swinging with their opposition with anything related to birth control, on a practical and pragmatic level, contraception has been a godsend to women of all stripes. Some GOP right-wing conservatives want to paint the picture of birth control (contraception, abortion, what-have-you) as a negative byproduct of women's liberation movement and feminism, I strongly beg to differ.

For millennium, women have been reduced to commodity and objects. Women have no control over their own lives (or those of their children or family) or their own body. The natural tendency of a woman to be left with the caring of her baby when she's made pregnant, be it out of choice or not, renders the woman dependent on someone else (primarily men) to provide for their livelihood. Contraception has been one great way for women to claim their lives back, in the most humane way possible. How dare they, for Santorum and those in the GOP right-wing corners to come out and tell women what they should or should not with their own lives?

On a more pragmatic level, I would rather be able to provide a better life and support for a smaller number of children, than to have a large number of offsprings that I cannot provide for. If GOP really is a party about self-reliant, they should realize that, on a fundamental level, this is all about self-sufficiency. Do they really want to see the rank of welfare single mothers to grow, or would they rather see more children growing up as healthy, productive members of the society? To the eyes of any reasonable (wo)man, the choice is so easy and straightforward that there cannot be any argument about it.

And so, to those in the GOP conservatives that still continue to push the ban of birth control like contraception, I have only two words for them: Shut up.