why dumb men are a danger to women

El Paso Times Online

reason #1 why sex ed needs to happen in schools. any woman can tell you that birth control pills isn't an abortifacient. birth control pills prevent ovulation, thereby preventing sperm from fertilizing the egg -- because the egg hasn't been released!!

gaah! dumb men who know NOTHING about women's bodies are making decisions for them.

this is how it starts. one's position on abortion is one thing - on birth control is another. reproductive control over one's body is absolutely necessary for a woman to be independent and autonomous.

for if she can't make decisions about when she wants to have children and how many children to have, then whose decision is it? it's incredibly short-sighted to prevent women access to medically safe and legal birth control--what about family planning? i can't tell you the problems in the black community that could be solved if only someone knew how to wear a condom or take birth control.

but this is how it starts - if abortion rights are knocked down, then the right's next move will be to limit access to birth control (birth control pills, iuds, depo provera, the ring, condoms, tubal ligation, etc.) until a woman's choice regarding her reproductive future belongs to someone else. if she can't get birth control pills, then how will she prevent pregnancy? if she can't buy condoms, then how will she protect herself against disease? and this isn't just about single women or teenage girls - married women also need birth control (or do men think that women will give birth until they die?) do they know that the largest number of women who ask for tubal ligation are married women?

and the predictable response from the conservative right will be 'ah, but then she shouldn't have sex unless she's married, should she?'

let's trace the argument: if a woman is sexually active and gets pregnant, she can't get an abortion because that's murder; but neither could she have prevented pregnancy because that's against judeo-christian ethics, so her sexual activity should never have happened in the first place. or if it did, only in a church/state sanctioned relationship so that the fruits of it will be legitimate.

so we come full circle - basically every law restricting a woman's right to practice safe sex and/or control her reproductive destiny is in the interest of a man (or a masculine institution) controlling her sexuality and her body.

feminism 101, people: if this isn't mysogyny and patriarchy at work then i don't know what is.

(update: the hormones in birth control pills can also change the chemistry of the mucal lining of the cervix, making it 'inhospitable' to sperm - again, preventing sperm from even making it to an egg.)