April 20, 2007
"The Supreme Court's decision
is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past
six years in protecting human dignity."
-- George W. Bush praising
the Supreme Court decision to uphold the ban on dilation and
extraction abortions, August 18, 2007
"What does that mean, 'outrages upon human dignity'?"
-- George W. Bush lashing out
against the Geneva Conventions and demanding that Congress remove
legal obstacles to torture, September 6, 2006
In an act of perverse dishonesty, Bush
claimed the war on Iraq would liberate women. In reality, it
has visited the stench of death upon the birth wards, the bedrooms
of children, and the daily routines of women as well as men throughout
Iraq. In the post-Sadam central power vacuum, Sharia law is flourishing,
forcing women under the hijab, fostering "honor killings"
and filling the morgues with growing numbers of women's bodies
bearing signs of rape, sexual mutilation and torture. A dark
curtain is being curtain being pulled over the schools that once
served girls and dreams of equality are being snuffed out.
Here at home, George Bush's claim to support the liberation of
women is more shameless hypocrisy. Speaking sanctimoniously about
the "value" of fetal tissue, Bush has overseen the
most aggressive and cruel assault on women's fundamental rights
and the fostering of an openly patriarchal culture.
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision, which Bush heralded, criminalized
the abortion procedure scientifically known as dilation and extraction
(and manipulatively labeled "partial birth abortion"
by anti-choice fanatics) and was written so vaguely that it could
be used to ban the most common abortion procedure used by women
after the first trimester. It is a law that lays the basis to
begin sending the courageous doctors who provide women abortion
procedures -- often at the risk of death -- to prison. And, in
a situation where lack of abortion access is beginning to drive
women to seek illegal abortions, this new law is a five ton weight
pressed down on women's lives already stalked by brutality, degradation,
and endless insults large and small. It is not only a new legal
precedent along the way towards outlawing abortion it is also
red meat thrown to a hungry movement of Christian fascists determined
to end not only abortion, but also birth control and any kind
of independence of women.
If women are not free to decide for themselves without shame
and without apology when and whether they will become mothers,
they cannot be free. If women are not free, then no one can be
free.
Although the forms of the oppression
of women in this country are today different, this Christian
fascist movement in the U.S. is the near twin of the movements
imposing Sharia law in Iraq, only it is far more powerful given
that it is embedded within the ruling elites of the world's only
superpower. It is rooted in a literal interpretation of a scripture
every bit as brutal as the Q'uran -- biblical scripture that
casts child-bearing as the only way women can be redeemed for
their alleged "original sin": "For Adam was first
formed, then Eve; and Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being
beguiled hath fallen into transgression: but she shall be saved
through her child-bearing." (1 Timothy 2:13-15) This movement
has initiative in the ruling class today.
On a world scale the future for women -- HALF OF HUMANITY --
is in grave danger.
This is not the time for putting ones hopes into a political
process that has done nothing but facilitate and legitimate the
invasion, occupation, continued occupation and now possible widening
of the war on Iraq in the face of massive public opposition.
Now is not the time for resting the future of women's control
of their own destiny in the same political process that has facilitated
and legitimated the chipping away of abortion, clinic closing
by clinic closing, law by law, and judicial nominee by judicial
nominee.
This is not a time for turning one's energies towards '08 and
the slate of Democratic Party hopefuls which have ceded the moral
high ground on abortion to religious fanatics and refused to
demand an end to colonial occupation of Iraq. This is not a time
for remaining polite, being patient, or seeking "common
ground."
The Bush administration -- and the imperialist system it is a
product of -- have no claim to any moral high ground in regard
to women's lives or in regard to human dignity. With their wars
of aggression, their torture, and their frontal assault on the
lives of women, this is a time when the direction they are dragging
the world in must be resisted. Fiercely. And urgently.
This is a time when Bush must be impeached and his whole direction
must be reversed.
And this is a time when everyone seriously concerned about women,
here and around the world, must look deeper to see how the oppressive,
exploitative, and brutal conditions for women are deeply rooted
not only in thousands of years of tradition's chains but also
in the basic relations, structures, and institutions of "modern"
capitalist society. As Bob Avakian has written, "The oppression
of women is completely bound up with the division of society
into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending
of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation
of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play
not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way
revolution."
For all those who thought "they would never outlaw abortion"
let this be our final, sobering wake-up call. Let it be said
that this was the Supreme Court decision was the final straw
after which a powerful resistance rose.
For all those heartsick after
four years of unjust war, let us shake off passivity and complicity
and prepare for struggle.
For all those who dream of a better world, break the chains!
Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!
Sunsara Taylor writes for Revolution
Newspaper and sits on the Advisory Board of The
World Can't Wait Drive Out the Bush Regime. She can
be reached at: sunsarasworld@yahoo.com
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