She had a good show yesterday that had this ringing, no-holds-barred endorsement of abortion rights. This is why we need more women political comedy talk show hosts like Wolf and Samantha Bee. They address topics and take stands that men may find uncomfortable addressing, however progressive they may be.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
Thank you very much for that post!! Women`s issues too often get sidelined. And yes, comedians like Wolf and Bee are much needed!
I would like to “shoehorne” in how female issues (especially abortion) got “killed” by the religious right -- globally. And how environmentalism was a collateral. Please bear with me!
I take you back in time to 1994 and the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. QUOTE:
^Islamic leaders and the Vatican are joining forces to oppose a United Nations conference promoting birth control as the best remedy to limit population growth. (…) The unlikely allies have assailed a preliminary document that sets out remedies for curbing the world population explosion. (…) The document has set off a firestorm by calling for making contraceptives and family planning services available to adolescents and by suggesting that abortion should be permitted for reasons other than to save a woman’s life. “It seems one of the most important aims of the conference is to facilitate sex, to undermine its passive consequences and to encourage the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of diseases caused by illegal sexual relations,” said Sheik Mohammed al-Ghazali, a world-renowned Islamic scholar considered a religious moderate. (…) While Vatican officials have been conducting their campaign behind the scenes, Catholic clerics from Australia to the Philippines have gone public in vilifying the conference. As many as 200,000 turned out early this month for a church-sponsored rally in Manila, capital of the Philippines, denouncing condoms and other forms of birth control as sinful.”^ END OF QUOTE http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-08-26/news/1994238202_1_vatican-islamic-egypt
Also remember this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/09/aids Read that, you are in for a treat! Here just an appetizer: QUOTE
^The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass -- potentially exposing thousands of people to risk. The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV. (…) The church opposes any kind of contraception because it claims it breaks the link between sex and procreation -- a position Pope John Paul II has fought to defend. In Kenya -- where an estimated 20% of people have HIV -- the church condemns condoms for promoting promiscuity and repeats the claim about permeability. The archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki, said: “Aids… has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms.” (…) In Lwak, near Lake Victoria, the director of an Aids testing centre says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition. Gordon Wambi told the programme: “Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids.” Panorama found the claims about permeable condoms repeated by Catholics as far apart as Asia and Latin America.^ END OF QUOTE
Have you heard much about “population growth” since the ICPD in 1994? Maybe, but mostly in the context of SMEARING environmentalists as “eugenicists and racists” with “genocidal ideas”. Both from the right AND the left.
Read the quote above again; what environmentalist and feminists hoped for was merely “promoting birth control as the best remedy to limit population growth”! They called for “making contraceptives and family planning services available to adolescents” and suggested that “abortion should be permitted for reasons other than to save a woman’s life”. This all should be a HUMAN RIGHT anyway, environmentalism aside!
Even the most “controversial” of this meek suggestions, namely that “abortion should be permitted for reasons other than to save a woman’s life” is correctly seen as a fundamental human right for women in Western countries! In Ireland there was just a referendum finally granting women this essential right, overturning the inhumane (Catholic) treatment of Irish (white!) women.
There you have it! Religion was allowed to meddle freely with public opinion. The result:
Feminism is seen as a “humpty-dumpty” concept that is only “working for white girls anyway”. And nobody cares about the environment anymore. Well, maybe a few “old geezers” that some leftists deride as “white entitled bourgeois men”. (Is that becoming the “SJW” equivalent for the left?) The left should look at ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES without prejudice. Otherwise we are as anti-intellectual as the right. And becoming as anti-women and anti-environment. Is that a way forward? Is that progressive?
I say: no.
Sad, how many “thumbs down” Michelle Wolf`s video got on youtube. Also telling how many people commented here -- besides me, ZERO.
The religious right did win. That`s it, folks! Not only a fetus but even a zygote, “a “clump of cells”, is now widely regarded as a “full human being”, making abortion into “baby murder” and women who abort into “killers” of “children”.
Progressives dropped the ball, again. And not just yesterday. This was a long time in the making. Propaganda and deliberate misinformation, blatant LIES were allowed to make the rounds, mostly unchallenged.
As a result, women`s rights all over the world WILL degrade further. Public opinion changed thanks to the religious right and the meekness of the left/progressives who were the only ally women`s rights EVER had.