Where are the women in the contraception debate?

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We're not there because they don't care what we think. We're just vessles to carry their seed. Which we can't do if we're taking birth control. To me, that's the problem.

Birth control is not a women's issue, it's EVERYONE'S ISSUE. Or at least it should be. When I enter into a relationship with a man, I'm very adamant about condom use, and if they're as passionate about it as me, I thank them. "Thank you for protecting me." Where's that in these debates? I wouldn't mind a panel of men if they had that mindset, because in that moment, they're no more a man than I'm a woman, we're just human beings trying to make our lives better.

Going Back to the Future is certainly the discussion and subtext for the absurd baseless opinions being offered as positions that contain the well being of women and society by those 12 Angry men we see all over the internet determining contraception put in place to free women of their biology being their destiny, freeing women to choose the use of their lives for the purposes they decide which has only come about due to the contraception option of birth control which began in 1964.

Since 1964, the choice for family planning has been a right to all women and since then the timeline of women and societal advance to full participation, representation and equal rights all have been the result. Women gathered for the Civil Rights of workers in factories during World War II, and Civil Rights of groups outside the power structures that be in this country ever since.

TIMELINE from 1964 to present

1966: National Organization of Women takes the role of moving forward on civil rights for women
Gloria Steinem rejects double standard with women's right to work
1968: American Psychiatric Associates defend Homosexuality

1968: Shirley Chisholm - Democrat and First African American Representative of New York

1970: Equal Rights Amendment

1973: Roe VS Wade women's right to choose

1973: First Women's Shelter in Tucson, Arizona

1975: First World Conference

1976: The Hite Report -Sheryl Hite reports sexual research on female orgasm

1978: First year more women then men entered college

1980: Elizabeth Dole became Secretary of Labor

1981: Sandra Day O'Connor 1st Supreme Court Justice

1984: Geraldine Ferrari, VP candidate for the United States

1990: Number of Black Women in Congress rose to 131

1992: Women paid .71 for every $1 men paid
12.2 families had Women as head of household
6 million more women than men in the world
Janet Reno and Madeline Albright on William Jefferson Clinton's Cabinet

1998: Government ban on Gay discrimination

2008: Lilly Ledbetter delivered the Paycheck Fairness Act in Congress

Women make up 46.5% of the workforce

2011: Report that more men are loosing their jobs than women in the work force

HISTORY of Women's Freedom through Family Planning

First taken up by Margaret Sangar in the 40's, the timeline shows the progression that came about with the right to choose. The issue of power is clear, given the facts of the history in terms of what women have achieved since the origin of the birth control pill. In 1970, 4% of women worked outside the home, but by 1978, 28% were working outside the home. The spin off of protest to the war allowed for the gathering of women who together brought about change from as early when women went as a group and then became the Suffragettes taking the issues to the streets and to the bars that they protested; the commerce of the bars was an issue for the women who saw their men's being laid on the bar or worse endured the alcohol ignited anger that had the women confront abuse in their homes. Civil rights has been the dynamic that has had the power of women in groups recognized and admitted into the realm of equality over hundreds of years commitment. But since the advance of the birth control pill in 1964, women have had the privilege of determining life choices in terms of the use of their own bodies. Equality followed on the path through the work of women and a society that saw it to their advantage to bring more equitable partnerships in and out of the bedroom and work place.

So the idea that the topic of birth control contraception as available to all women, rich or poor, though a new topic in various parts of the world seems entirely out of place in 2012. What could be gained is a huge question, but what would be lost is even more of a catastrophe.

What's worrisome is there are generations of women who came up at a time where they could responsibly go to Planned Parenthood and determine their engagement in life, their sexual choices with education, training and professional advice from physicians. Or even the family doctor-though there are not of those accessible to girls from16-21, but however it was that the last couple of generations came to determine their sexual activity and the means to be responsible for themselves, or making the choice of abstaining, it was their decision. These young women do not even know of the women who suffered silently prior to 1964. The social punishment of getting pregnant without marriage was like an atomic bomb to young girls or mid life women who did not have the means to guarantee their conception or lack of conception.

The world population is an issue, the economy that is cutting programs of support for mothers and children is not of small consequence, there is no gain from opening up the doors to a history that was endured by our grandmothers. Many of us or our mothers stood in isolation in taking a stand for our own choice about our sexuality and family planning and life choices, condemned and made light of in the 60's and 70's. This is no time to let go of the positions hard won for women to choose their lives' path;. All women of all ages should be aware that this obstruction using contraception as yet one more device to have the Congress not succeed, the President not succeed. An attempt to extort one painful potential of loss that takes away the work of 48 years is not just a strike against all women and the families that are in struggle now, but ultimately all civil rights of all groups that need power and support, not dialing and limiting their choices.

The women were on the second set of witnesses, the ones that the gentle ladies from New York and the District of Columbia walked out on, apparently they didn't want to hear from a woman on the subject.

I've been wondering the exact same thing. Maybe tomorrow, I'll email and/or call some of them to find out what's happened to their voices on this. We don't elect political officials to back down, disappear or cower when faced with a crisis like this. Backbones and voices are needed. Now.

It is a highly paranoid white man's culture in case you haven't noticed...been this way since around 1607 when the first English settlement was established in Jamestown, Va. The bottom line hasn't changed much since then...only the background of circumstances against which that dominance is evident...Issa is a classic chauvnist, and so are most of the politicos in Washington and our State capitals...

When you control the agenda and the outcomes...you don't allow any sense of objectivity or fairness to get in the way...pretty simple concept...

Yes where are the women? Why is it always men that make the laws that decide women's rights. As Bob Franken said on Ed's show last night, the GOP probably regrets giving women the vote. I would like to know how religious rights trump civil and personal rights?

Just like religion to feel the need to get involved with our reproductive organs. Jesus, I feel so violated.