The war on women just added another notch to the belt, this time is Washington, D.C.
Late Thursday evening the House voted to overturn the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act by a vote of 228-192. The act had prohibited employers from discriminating in the workplace based on employees’ use of contraception or other family planning services. The law also protected employees from retaliation for having an abortion.
So yeah, let’s throw that out the window.
"This is a new low in the war on women," said Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) in an interviewwith The Hill. "The majority doesn't even have the courage to bring up this bill in the light of day.”
Proponents of the resolution, in carefully worded phrases, claim that this isn’t an obvious case in the war against women, but rather an effort to fight the “war on religious freedom.”
Basically, this means if you choose to work for someone in the District of Columbia, or for a Memphis realtor, they have the option to withdraw insurance coverage or even fire you based on your personal family planning decisions, citing religious beliefs as their carte blanche.
And it gets weirder. The decision to pass this resolution was made by representatives of other districts whose constituents would not be affected by the law. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), the District's nonvoting representative in Congress, balked at her colleagues for forcing a debate on a law which wouldn’t touch them.
"This resolution is wildly undemocratic. It is a naked violation of the nation's founding principle of local control of local affairs and is profoundly offensive to D.C. residents,” Norton said while opening floor debate. “This resolution uniquely targets my district, but every member will get to vote on it except for me, the District's elected representative.”
It’s a double irony that a law allowing companies to play judge and jury over employees’ personal lives was passed by a group of representatives who would not be personally affected whatsoever by the decision.
But this twice-removed bigotry is sadly not news. Does anyone remember the Georgia bill put up in 2011 that would have made miscarriages illegal, with the death penalty as a possible punishment? Or when a woman was charged with first-degree murder after one of her twins was a stillborn, because of a delayed decision to have a c-section? This is of course in addition to the “seismic shift” in anti-abortion legislation across the U.S. over the last decade.
It’s a shame that our government prioritizes the subjugating of women’s rights in the face of so many other issues that deserve acute scrutiny and heavy involvement. That our leaders still thump a book when asked to explain why they feel they have the right to encroach on the personal lives of others, whom they can only pretend to understand. Perhaps in a country where homosexual and African American citizens still have to fight for some semblance of equality, it may be too much to ask to leave women’s bodies alone.