WOMEN'S HEALTH

10 May, 2017

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,

101 Main Street #380

Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Dear Congressman,

I realize that the Senate is not your bailiwick, but my thoughts on the issue of women’s rights are equally applicable to the House of Representatives. They were prompted in part by Senator Mitch McConnell’s selection of a panel of 13 men—and only men—to review your American Health Care Act. How could the man be so tone-deaf to deafening cries from women? Was he unaware of the massive Women’s Marches, the day after inauguration? Does he not feel the scorch of their justified anger? It seems not.

Sadly, however, it’s not just McConnell but his fellow Republicans who dismiss the needs and opinions of American women. In the AHCA, the almost vindictive disregard for the medical needs of half the population is a glaring admission of mindless, casual misogyny. The defunding of Planned Parenthood is but the most obvious example; under the guise of opposition to abortion, it undermines every other need specific to women’s health. Are your Republican colleagues not aware that there are differences between the male and female bodies? Or are they so obsessed with their own genitalia that they simply don’t care? Viagra’s fine; forget the morning-after pill.

On a broader, world-wide scale, American male hostility to contraception and abortion is the cause of widespread misery, poverty and, by all accounts, an unconscionable amount of needless sickness and death. Meanwhile, the world population grows exponentially, beyond the planet’s capacity to accommodate the expansion. Women everywhere are endangered by routine, unwanted pregnancies, and forced into a kind of slavery to the men who impregnate them and the children that result. And the US Congress wags its collective finger and votes to cut off even the minimal funds that were once allocated to alleviate the problem.

Like racism, misogyny is most frequently stealthy and unacknowledged. Your president* is a prime example of its dire effects, claiming that no one respects women more than he even as he mindlessly tramples their rights and ignores their needs. McConnell is quite simply witlessly stuck in the patriarchal nineteenth century. So where do you stand, Congressman? Are you “woke” to the growing impatience of women in the 21^st century?

Respectfully,

Peter Clothier, Ph.D.