This article was originally published on DailyKos.

See all our coverage of the 2012 Contraceptive Mandate here.

See all our coverage of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s break with Planned Parenthood here.

When a young girl tells her parents that she’s pregnant, they don’t hear that she’s “pregnant”. They hear: “Oh shit, my daughter had sex with some ruffian.” They try not to, but they can’t help visualizing their sweet innocent child in sexual situations. This can be very disconcerting.

It’s hard to talk about sex, especially with your parents.  How many of you adults reading this have ever talked frankly with your parents about sex?  

Also, when an anti-abortion right-wing Republican gets pregnant and doesn’t want to be, she has a “good reason” for not wanting to be pregnant and get an abortion.  You see, her reason is different and more justifiable than the pathetic excuses of all those sluts in the waiting room at the abortion clinic.  All those sluts are getting an abortion for “convenience” and “selfishness” and maybe even “punishment” for being a slut.

I’ve seen it with my very own eyes.  One day, they’re out picketing the abortion clinic. Next day, oops, they’re inside getting an abortion. Then, they’re back outside picketing. Major disconnect.

Part of that major disconnect has to do with terminology.  We couch abortion in all sorts of euphemisms: “choice,” “termination,” “procedure,” “reproductive rights,” “D&C,” etc. Even people working in clinics do it.  So, when a woman comes into a clinic, she has a disconnect with that nasty abortion issue out there because she had a “procedure,” not an abortion.

There are 45,000,000 women out there who have had legal abortions in this country since it was legalized in 1973, 39 years ago.  You’d think that would be a major voting block that politicians wouldn’t want to piss off.  But, the politicians continue to hammer away and women who’ve had abortions and their families continue to turn a deaf ear. Where are those women and men on election day?  Oh yea, same place as all those Social Security recipients who demonize “Obamacare” and any government program. But, “Keep the government out of my Medicare.”

Additionally, using birth control is equated with being ready for sex. And this puritanical society has told us that it’s not good or “ladylike” to be anticipating sex.  The underlying meme of the anti-abortionists is that sex should only be for procreation within the confines of marriage.  So, I guess that women in menopause who can’t procreate or sterile men should be denied the pleasures of a sexual relationship, eh?  Oh, but somehow Viagra et al are OK.  But, what are all those men going to do with all those erections if nobody can have sex with them? So, the men get to freely manufacture erections, but the women who get pregnant from those erections aren’t allowed birth control or abortion.

So, don’t be fooled.  They don’t care about babies and they don’t care about women. They only care about maintaining an “Ozzie and Harriet” society that keeps women in their place and men firmly in charge. (Note Viagra pun.)

The Komen and Birth Control fiascos of the past 2 weeks have let the cat out of the bag. Republicans and the Catholic hierarchy don’t care about women’s health and well being. They only care about returning to the days when men were totally in control and women died in back alleys.

Rant on.