Issa

Dear Representative Issa, 

Though I understand that the hearing held yesterday, February 16, 2012 was to discuss the constitutionality of Obama’s plan to have religious institutions offer contraception, I have to say that to disallow any woman from being heard in a discussion that primarily affects women’s reproductive rights is beyond ludicrous. I understand that religious institutions have a conflict of conscious regarding contraception, but as a woman I have a conflict of logical reasoning when men attempt to control my reproductive rights. Perhaps it is my own fallible “female logic”, but just because contraception is provided for does not mean it has to be used, having a religious institution offer that coverage is not the government saying that the people in that institution have to use it, only that they have it available. How could that ever be considered unconstitutional? Moreover, how would the lack of that coverage for women merely working for that institution (a hospital, university, or school perhaps) wherein the religious beliefs are being forced onto the employees/students thereby eradicating their religious freedoms and their rights to their own bodies?  I realize those female employees and students could simply find a clinic and pay out of pocket, but clinics are not always inexpensive nor are they always conveniently located. 

I find it disconcerting that the government is often using religion as a means to tell women what we should or should not do with our bodies. Unsurprisingly, it is so often men in government telling us how we should conduct our reproductive health. From defunding Planned Parenthood (one of the only affordable women’s health clinics nationwide) because they perform abortions – regardless of whether over 90% of what they do is simply women’s health screenings and providing contraception, to the creation of laws restricting our control over our bodies; government has slowly led the march back in time, eroding and minimizing women’s reproductive rights. I fear that any daughter I might have will live in a society where a man will decide the fate of her body. 

I am not saying you are guilty of this, but I am saying that in your decision to disallow women from having a voice in matters that affect us most, our bodies, you have passively consented to this form of treatment. You are lucky that as a man you will never understand the blessing and curse that is being a female: we are able to bring forth life, but we can also be forced to do so, we can also die doing so. If America truly wants to be the land of the free, where equality is paramount; all must be equal, and all must be free, even if our personal doctrines disagree.