As a neutral observer of religion, one of the most striking characteristics I find is the rampant misogyny in nearly every religion in the world. Worldwide, women are denigrated as lesser beings, barred from positions of leadership, commanded to be subservient, and told that they're weaker or more sinful than men. Even in the relatively few religions where women play a significant role, it tends to be a late-arising development brought about by modern moral progress. By comparison, just consider how many major world religions clearly state in their founding documents that women and men are equal (can you think of any?). Why is the hatred and oppression of women such a common thread, even in faiths that otherwise have nothing in common?

In the wake of some recent discussions about feminism, I had an inspiration, and I'd like to share it: it's rooted in how religion propagates itself.

Despite the evangelistic efforts of some faiths, it's clear that the primary vector of religious memes is vertical, from parents to children. And conservative religious leaders know very well that women hold the key to that effort. Given the choice, most women limit the size of their families, but it's not in the best interests of religious authorities to allow that. Hence, all their misogynist rhetoric, demands for female subservience, opposition to sex education and contraception, and alloting sole authority over sex to men (who, it has to be said, have far less at stake): all part of a strategy to ensure that women don't exercise control over when or whether to have children.

This suggests a counterstrategy: to advance the atheist cause and stop the spread of religions that seek to grow by proliferation, we have to work to ensure that women have access to contraception, abortion and other reproductive health services. And for that reason, I was very pleased to read this article about a massive charitable gift by Warren Buffett:

Last year, The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Buffett's first wife, who died in 2005, gave more than $2 million each to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Abortion Access Project Inc. and Washington-based Catholics for Choice and more than $40 million to Ipas, which works to expand the availability of safe abortions and provides reproductive health care.

There's also this encouraging article, "The New Abortion Providers". It details how doctors' groups are making a greater effort to train abortion providers and bring them into the medical mainstream, while anti-choice activists' attempts to intimidate and harass doctors are meeting with less success than they used to. There's an important point in it that clinics which only offer family planning services are easy for zealots to target, whereas if abortion care is brought into hospitals and performed like any other procedure, it makes it much more difficult for them.

And besides charitable gifts and support from the medical profession, there's one more very effective way we can give women control over their own reproductive destinies: make it possible for women to abort a pregnancy themselves, without having to travel or find a cooperative doctor or clinic. That's why I was greatly encouraged to read this column by Nicholas Kristof about the increasing use of misopristol, a cheap, common drug used to treat ulcers and hemorrhaging. It's one component of the RU-486 pill, but it's almost as effective at terminating pregnancy if taken on its own. It also causes a miscarriage indistinguishable from a natural one, which is crucial in countries whose theocratic laws punish women who are found to have exerted control over their own biology.

Unfortunately, there are still such countries. One of them is the Philippines, whose laws are largely dictated by the Catholic church. Abortion is outlawed there without exception, with the following result:

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, more than half a million Filipino women undergo illegal abortions every year. Of this number, 90,000 suffer complications, and a thousand eventually die, the center said. Abortion-related complications, it said, are one of the top 10 causes of hospitalization among women in the Philippines. According to the World Health Organization, 20 percent of maternal deaths in the country are a result of unsafe abortions.

It's often observed, but still indisputably true: outlawing abortion doesn't prevent abortion, it just makes women more likely to die or be maimed in the bargain. As in many other countries around the world, Filipino women's lives are being sacrificed on the altar of Catholic dogma, their bodies treated as breeding stock to produce more children for the church. Atheists and freethinkers have every reason to stand against this - to reduce the power of a tyrannical religion, to promote human happiness by ensuring that every child is wanted, and to defend human liberty. But if we're ever going to succeed, we need to build alliances with all women and treat them as full and equal partners in the effort, capable of exercising autonomy over their bodies and minds alike.

By Richard Hollis (aka Ritchie)

Two rather interesting and welcome stories have hit the headlines in as many days that I thought I'd bring up here.

The first bit of news is that from next week, for the first time, an abortion advisory service is to screen an advert on TV in Britain. Centred around the slogan 'Are you late?' the commercial will advertise the services of the organisation Marie Stopes, which offers advice on sexual health matters, including abortion services.

Abortion has been legal in Britain since the Abortion Act of 1967, but Marie Stopes is adamant that there is a need to promote sexual health issues. "Clearly there are hundreds of thousands of women who want and need sexual health information and advice, and access to services." (source)

Unsurprisingly this has been met by a backlash from pro-life organisations who insist that the advert will be promoting abortion. The campaign Pro-Life had this to say: "The purpose of an abortion commercial is clearly to 'sell' abortion and it will not provide full information about foetal development, the abortion procedure itself, the health risks which abortion poses for women, let alone the alternatives to abortion." (source) While religious organisations are more hysterical. "These adverts will just mean more women will end up on the abortion industry conveyor belt," said the Christian Medical Fellowship. "Getting an abortion is not like buying soap powder, and it shouldn’t be advertised on TV," said the Christian Institute. (source)

I for one, however, am delighted at the news. This is more than about advertising a particular helpline - it is about introducing the topic of sexual health into the public domain and breaking through this taboo topic. It is about power and control. It is about shame and repression.

While the media is absolutely awash with images of a superhuman ideal of female perfection, marketing everything from cosmetics to operations to endow youth and beauty, actual frank discussion about sexual health is still woefully sparse. If organisations which promote impartial advice on such matters are not to be advertised, then how are women to know about them? How are they to know the options if faced with an unplanned pregnancy?

Presumably pro-life groups would prefer it if women never knew about such organisations - and never needed to. Women should never have sex unless they intend to get pregnant and then should turn into good little breeding machines.

Granted I haven't actually SEEN the advert. For all I know it might be the tasteless promotion of cheerful abortion Pro-Life and the Christian Institute envisage. But I doubt it. I am confident this is nothing more than an impartial advisory service offering their services. And its presence encourages open debate on a sensitive subject. I applaud this and certainly intend to tune in to watch its first screening (Monday 24th May, Channel 4, 22.10, to those who want to do the same).

The second news item is that US scientists, led by Dr Craig Venter has developed a cell controlled entirely by synthetic DNA. He and his team had already succeeded in transplanting a genome from one bacterium into another, and in creating a synthetic bacterial genome, but this is the first time they have combined the two already remarkable achievements. (source)

The potential of this breakthrough is massive. This could be the start of gigantic leaps in the fields of medicine, biology, and even climate change. It is also another milestone reached by dedicated scientists doing empirical research into unlocking the mysteries of life itself.

As the religious right never tire of reminding us, we don't know exactly how life started or works. We do not have all the answers. Yet we are making progress. Scientific investigation based on methodological naturalism and materialism is yielding results. Answers are being uncovered. And those who care about human progress should rejoice that we are one step nearer to an answer which will never be found just by sitting around in slack-jawed bewilderment at how complex everything is and concluding magic fills in the gaps in our knowledge.

The rather tepid reaction to scientific progress was demonstrated well by the Vatican's response to the news. While, to their credit, Catholic church officials praised the pioneering scientists, they tempered this with words of caution. "Pretending to be God and parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity," warned one. "In the wrong hands, today's development can lead tomorrow to a devastating leap in the dark," cautioned another. (source)

So it's, 'Well done on getting us this far, but think twice before you take us any further', is it? How encouraging.

While outraged accusations of 'playing God' and visions of the imminent zombie apocalypse inevitably accompany the experiment, I am left wondering if there has ever been a significant scientific achievement that was NOT met with such cries? Were we 'playing God' when we performed the first organ transplant? When we discovered antibiotics? When we drew up the periodic table? When we discovered how to make fire?

Yes, new technology always needs to be handled with caution. But that is no reason to be afraid of it. Science puts the 'ability' in 'responsability' (if you spell it wrong).

I'm happy to report that there's quite a lot of good news this week:

• The U.K. government recommends that primary school religious education classes should teach about "secular beliefs such as humanism and atheism", in addition to learning about major world religions like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. This is just one more symptom of how far ahead of us our European friends are in some respects - can you imagine the religious right frenzy that would ensue if a U.S. politician recommended teaching about atheism in public high schools?

• In a story that made me especially happy, Andrew Wakefield, the pseudoscientific doctor who's almost single-handedly responsible for the anti-vaccination movement, was found to have seriously abused his trust as a medical practitioner by a U.K. ethics panel. According to the ruling, Wakefield ordered unnecessary and invasive tests on autistic children (including spinal taps and colonoscopies), without securing proper ethical approval, in the paper that claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He also failed to disclose major conflicts of interest (he was being paid by trial lawyers looking to file claims against vaccine manufacturers). The General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield was "dishonest, irresponsible and showed callous disregard for the distress and pain" of the children, and is still evaluating a charge of professional misconduct that could lead to Wakefield's losing his license to practice medicine.

• And lastly, I'm glad to report that Scott Roeder, the Christian terrorist who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller, was convicted of first-degree murder by a Kansas jury this week. The judge rejected the defense's ludicrous request that the jury be allowed to consider voluntary manslaughter, and they returned the verdict after just 37 minutes of deliberation. Roeder faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison, the most fitting punishment for a cold-blooded and vicious killer like himself.

Although the cause of justice was served, this verdict can't undo the damage; Dr. Tiller's clinic will be closing for good, which means in a way that Roeder got exactly what he wanted. Still, the verdict sends a message that anti-choice zealots cannot commit these crimes with impunity. It may not be enough to discourage future acts of terrorism against abortion providers, but at least we have assurance that the rule of law is still operative in America.

Summary: An outstanding book, broad in its sweep and compelling in its use of fascinating detail, that paints a clear picture of the international forces opposing women's rights - and what's at stake in the fight against them.

I've said in the past that I believe all feminists should be atheists, the better to deny power and legitimacy to the religious belief systems that have treated women unjustly throughout history. But after reading Michelle Goldberg's outstanding new book The Means of Reproduction, I'm convinced that the converse is also true: all atheists should be feminists, in recognition of how many of the goals of religious fundamentalists entail the subjugation of women, and how effectively we can defeat them at home and around the world by working to uphold gender equality.

Goldberg's book examines the state of women's rights throughout the world and explores how the inevitable clashes with fundamentalist religion and traditionalist culture play out in the lives of millions of women. It's not, as I had assumed, primarily about the culture wars in the U.S. over abortion - although both abortion and American culture war politics do play a central role. But the legal and cultural equilibrium in this country hasn't changed much in the past several decades, and as Goldberg brilliantly shows, by far the most consequential impact of America's shifting political winds isn't felt at home, but abroad.

The opening chapters of the book offer a historical perspective on this fight by showing how, ironically, the U.S. was once the biggest provider of contraception and abortion services to developing countries worldwide. This happened during the Cold War era, when Malthusian fears of overpopulation were intertwined with concerns over the spread of communism in impoverished countries. The ways that American politicians lined up to combat this seem bizarre to anyone used to today's ideological battle lines. (One of many great tidbits is that former president George H.W. Bush, when he served in Congress, was so zealous an advocate of contraception that he was nicknamed "Rubbers".) By fighting overpopulation, politicians hoped to check the spread of Marxism - and so the U.S. in its heyday spent millions of dollars to launch family-planning clinics and distribute birth control pills around the world.

But these programs, in many cases, were victims of their own success. Most of them focused only on preventing births, while doing little or nothing else to help or empower the poor and disenfranchised women who most needed them. As a result, the growing international conservative movement, which took off during the Reagan administration, was able to frame them as Western racism and cultural imperialism - a charge that was not always without merit. Today, the worldwide feminist movement is opposed by a bizarre, but equally transnational, coalition of Christian and Islamic conservatives who join together in defense of patriarchy - often working hand-in-hand at the U.N. even as they denounce each other at home.

Goldberg next traces the origins of the international conservative movement. At the root of this bitter tree stands the Roman Catholic church, which was and is the staunchest opponent of women's rights in the world - as she points out, even Islamic theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Iran have a more permissive view of abortion than the Vatican. There are some truly amazing details here: I was startled to learn that a papal commission in the 1960s actually recommended that the Catholic ban on birth control be lifted - but Pope Paul VI overruled his own commission's advice and issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, reiterating the church's absolute ban on contraception. Several prominent bishops explained at the time that the pope had to do this, because anything else would have been a tacit admission that the church's prior beliefs were wrong and that can never be permitted, regardless of the consequences.

But the Catholic church alone was largely ineffective in stemming the tide of women's rights, until it was joined by conservative Christians from other denominations. Goldberg argues that, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't Roe v. Wade that galvanized Protestant evangelicals into entering politics, but the rise of the feminist movement that threatened traditional notions of the patriarchal family and the subservient wife. This reactionary movement, which began mostly in America, has been exported abroad in recent decades. The effects can be seen in Latin American countries like El Salvador, where pro-life groups have triumphed. In these countries, women who come to the hospital hemorrhaging from a miscarriage are handcuffed to their hospital beds until they can be examined by forensic vagina inspectors, to ensure they didn't obtain an illegal abortion; other women die horribly from ruptured Fallopian tubes because their country's laws don't permit abortion even in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.

However, not all anti-woman practices come from religion. In Africa, we learn of a few incredibly brave activists fighting the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation, a tribal custom which predates Islam but has been perpetuated by many Islamic societies. In even the mildest versions of FGM, the woman's clitoris is sliced off with crude instruments like scissors or razors, without anesthetic. (This is the practice that Ayaan Hirsi Ali was subjected to as a child.) But there are even more extreme versions, such as infibulation, in which the woman's clitoris is cut off and her vagina is sewn shut, leaving only a tiny hole to urinate - on her wedding night, her husband must literally rip her open. Bizarrely, this practice is still defended by some women - even well-educated, cosmopolitan women - who argue that it's an ineradicable part of their culture and a necessary step of womanhood.

As the FGM controversy shows, feminist issues don't always play out along familiar ideological lines. In India, Goldberg discusses the rampant practice of sex-selective abortion, which has led to dramatically skewed sex ratios - in some areas, as imbalanced as 700 women to every 1000 men. The resulting demand for wives not only encourages human trafficking and sexual slavery, but poses a threat to societal stability from the millions of angry, frustrated, unmarriageable young men.

Yet India is a clear example of the principle Goldberg repeatedly returns to: the root problem isn't the availability of birth control, but the need for female emancipation. She describes how India's growing wealth has encouraged an explosion of ever-more exorbitant demands for dowry, making daughters more and more of a financial drain on their families and increasing the pressure to have sons. Shockingly, in some places, dowry has become not just a one-time payment but a steady stream of demands from the groom's family - and if the woman's parents refuse to pay, their daughter may be beaten or murdered by her own husband and in-laws. The depth of the problem is summed up in a local saying she quotes: "Having a daughter is like watering your neighbor's garden."

But despite all the horrible sexism that Goldberg chronicles, all the discrimination and oppression she details, her conclusions are not wholly pessimistic. The cause of women's rights is advancing, albeit frustratingly slowly and haltingly, but advancing nevertheless.

One of her arguments that came as a revelation to me is that the United Nations does a lot more good than most people are aware of. Its treaties and resolutions on the rights of women, so often disparaged as powerless symbolism, have had major, concrete effects in reforming the legal systems of many countries and establishing reproductive choice as a human right before national and international judicial bodies.

Second, as I mentioned earlier, Goldberg argues convincingly that the greatest effects of American politics are felt abroad rather than at home. Abortion politics in the U.S. have settled into an uneasy but stable equilibrium, one that changes little regardless of which party is in power. But in the developing world, it makes a huge difference whether and to whom the U.S. provides aid. The most infamous example is the "global gag rule", which forbids family planning groups that receive any federal aid from providing, or even acknowledging the existence of, abortion. This rule, which has been repeatedly canceled by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republican presidents, makes all the difference in developing countries whose only source of family planning aid is the U.S. When in effect, it's forced the closure of countless clinics that provide not just contraception or abortion, but also prenatal care, checkups, vaccinations, and other help for new mothers and families.

There's even more in this book that I haven't mentioned, but I've written enough to support the conclusions from my opening words. Goldberg makes a clear and compelling case that all the evils she mentions, all the battles that feminist groups are fighting, all of this stems from the same source: the refusal to recognize women as full human beings with equal rights, including autonomy over their own bodies and the right to decide for themselves when and whether to have children. This pervasive sexism is still entrenched throughout the world, and although religion isn't solely to blame for this, it has always been the strongest and most enduring friend to patriarchy. Only when its malignant influence is defeated will women truly be free. And conversely, by freeing women, we take one of the most effective steps to roll back religion's power and influence.

By Sarah Braasch

The following is a parody of a recent New York Times interview with Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, which may be read here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/us/politics/07stupak.html

This parody constitutes a 'fair use' of this copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law, 17 U.S.C. § 107

Representative Sarah Braasch often endures things others find unbearable. She crisscrosses a Congressional district so vast that some constituents live eight hours apart and so cold that the beer at her beloved football games sometimes freezes. Years ago, as a state trooper, she blew out her knee chasing a suspect, and she has since had so many operations that she now returns to work the same day, toting crutches and ice.

After her younger son committed suicide in 2000, using the congresswoman's gun, Ms. Braasch soon resumed her predawn commute to Washington and her solid voting record with the National Rifle Association.

Now she is enduring more hatred than perhaps any other member of Congress, much of it from fellow Democrats. Her name has become a slogan: "Stop Braasch!"

Ebonmuse, her chief of staff, said wearily, "I can't tell you how many New Yorkers have called me up and yelled at me about this Braasch woman."

With final negotiations on a health care overhaul beginning this week, complaints about "the evil Braasch amendment," as the congresswoman dryly called it over dinner here recently, are likely to grow even louder. The amendment prevents anyone who receives federal insurance subsidies from buying blood transfusion coverage – but critics assert it could cause those who buy their own insurance difficulty in obtaining coverage.

Ms. Braasch insists that the final bill include her terms, which she says merely reflect current law. If she prevails, she will have won an audacious, counterintuitive victory, forcing a Democratic-controlled Congress to pass a measure that will be hailed as an anti-blood transfusion triumph. If party members do not accept her terms – and many vow they will not – Ms. Braasch is prepared to block passage of the health care overhaul.

"It's not the end of the world if it goes down," she said over dinner. She did not sound downbeat about the prospect of being blamed for blocking the long-sought goal of President Obama and a chain of presidents and legislators before her. "Then you get the message," she continued. "Fix the blood transfusion language and bring the bill back."

Ms. Braasch says her stand is a straightforward matter of Jehovah's Witness faith, but it also seems like the result of a long, slow burn. As dinner progressed, the congresswoman described years of feeling ignored, slighted or marginalized by her party for her anti-blood transfusion views.

"We're members without a party," she said. "Democrats are mad at you, and Republicans don't trust you."

Ms. Braasch, 57, with a mane of thick auburn hair and the stare of a law school professor, is a Yooper, a resident of this state's Upper Peninsula – snowy and hushed in winter, lush and tourist-filled in summer.

Her father attended the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead before marrying and later also sent his 10 children to the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead until the money ran out. As a state trooper, Ms. Braasch worked the highways but also trailed Ku Klux Klan members and drove home drunken state legislators. She attended law school at night, spent a term in the State Legislature, and then ran for Congress in 1992.

In the primary, she beat a candidate who supported blood transfusion rights. But when she tried to hire Democratic political consultants for the general election, they refused – with expletives, she says – to work for a candidate with her views.

Ms. Braasch won anyway, and her freshman year in Washington, she requested but did not receive a seat on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. "I had one or two members tell me I'd never get on because I'm right-to-blood," she said.

She cannot run for governor, she continued, because no one with her stands on guns and blood transfusions can win in Michigan.

When Republicans ruled Washington, her fellow Democrats had to listen to anti-blood transfusion views, she said. But, with Democratic victories, blood transfusion rights supporters felt their time had come.

"You're never getting a right-to-blood amendment," Ms. Braasch said Representative D, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, told her during health care negotiations. "We have pro-choice Democrats in the White House. We have majorities in the House and the Senate. You're done."

In a phone interview, D said she did not recall the conversation.

But Democratic control of the House carries a paradox: because the party expanded by winning what had been Republican districts, it has more members who oppose federal financing for blood transfusions and restrictions on guns. Ms. Braasch's measure on blood transfusions passed the House with the support of 64 Democrats.

"Before, when we talked about pro-blood Democrats, you'd get a snicker and a laugh," she said. "We were just always overlooked. We're not overlooked anymore."

Now the disagreement over blood transfusion financing has become a game of chicken, with Ms. Braasch saying she and 10 or 11 others, whom she would not name, will vote against a final bill that does not meet her standards, and some backers of blood transfusion rights threatening to do the same in what is expected to be a close vote.

Last fall, Ms. Braasch told constituents that even if her amendment failed, she would still vote yes on the overall health care legislation – she merely wanted to vote her conscience first. Now she says that statement applied only to the bill's early version.

"You fight for a principle you've believed in your whole life, then you fold up the tent?" she said.

Some of Ms. Braasch's colleagues on the other side of the blood transfusion issue offer a different version of her lonely-woman-of-principle story. She has hardly been an outcast within her own party, they say; two years after being elected, she joined the Energy and Commerce Committee, and now serves as chairwoman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Like Ms. Braasch, they say they have worked for months to avert precisely this sort of standoff. And they accuse her of being less of a brave holdout than an instrument of conservative Jehovah's Witness and anti-blood transfusion organizations.

"The National Right to Blood Committee and the Governing Body of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society saw this as a way to vastly increase restrictions on choice," said Representative Slater, Democrat of Colorado, who is a chief deputy House whip and co-chairman, with D, of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus.

Ms. Braasch was "not given very much negotiating room" by those organizations, Slater said. Now "she's gotten herself into a corner where she says it's my amendment or it's nothing."

(Ms. Braasch says she urged the Governing Body of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society to toughen its stance on the legislation; representatives from the Society and the National Right to Blood Committee did not return calls.)

For now, as she mulls her return to Washington, Ms. Braasch is canvassing her district, adding to the 180,000 miles on her Oldsmobile, and grilling – in the snow, without a jacket – at her lakeside log-cabin home for her wife, Ophelia.

She is trying to pass the health care overhaul, she insists, not sabotage it, and predicts that the legislation will ultimately collapse for reasons apart from blood transfusions. But she will be blamed anyway, she is sure.

"I get the distinct impression that I'm the last woman the president wants to see," she said.

By Sarah Braasch

Representative Bart Stupak from Michigan was paraphrased in a recent New York Times interview as saying that his resolve to defeat the healthcare reform bill, unless the bill includes his anti-abortion amendment language, is a straightforward matter of Roman Catholic faith. The article states that Representative Stupak said that he actually urged the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to toughen its stance on the legislation. Representative Stupak is also quoted as saying: "It's not the end of the world if it goes down."

What?!?! Let me say that again. WTF?!?!

I don't understand how something like this goes unnoticed and unmentioned.

How does he get a free pass on saying something like that in his capacity as a US Representative? How does he not get called out on that?

He just proclaimed to the press that he holds religious law in higher esteem than the US Constitution. He just stated, unequivocally, that he intends to impose religious law upon the American citizenry. He just asserted that he intends to defeat healthcare reform unless religious law is deemed the supreme law of the land, usurping the position of the US Constitution.

I am trying to imagine the reaction if Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota were to say something similar. Keith Ellison is the first Muslim member of the US Congress. I am trying to imagine the resulting tumult and uproar if he were to defy his Democratic Party and vote in opposition to its platform, all the while maintaining that he was doing so as a straightforward matter of his Islamic faith, because he holds the tenets of Islam in higher esteem than the US Constitution, because the Quran and the Hadith demand that he impose Sharia (Islamic Law) upon American citizens, as a matter of principle and conscience. Does anyone honestly believe that a comment like that would go unnoticed in a New York Times interview?

Representative Stupak took an oath to support and defend the US Constitution. He is openly admitting to violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution by attempting to establish religious law as US Federal Law. He may not seek recourse under the Free Exercise or Free Speech Clauses, because federal congressional legislation is textbook government speech. He is not acting as a private individual citizen when he acts in his capacity as a US Representative in Congress.

Is there something about the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, which Representative Stupak fails to understand? I find it fairly straightforward myself. In case you had forgotten, I am including our glorious First Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There is no religious test for public office, but there should be a competency test for public office, to determine if one is capable of maintaining the separation between church and state, if one is capable of NOT violating the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, if one is capable of comprehending the difference between government speech and the private speech of an individual citizen.

If immigrants desiring citizenship must take a test that demonstrates their knowledge of the United States Constitution, then maybe we should require the same of our Representatives and Senators, since they are also being asked to take an oath or affirmation to support and defend the Constitution and all.

For the record, I am not Catholic. I reject Roman Catholicism. And, I am deeply and personally offended that Mr. Stupak would abuse his position as a US Congressman by attempting to force me to kneel to Roman Catholic doctrine as a matter of US Federal Law in direct violation of our Constitution.

And, even if I were Catholic, what entitles Representative Stupak to interpret the tenets of Roman Catholicism on my behalf? I didn't realize we had a Theologian Laureate in the United States of America. Thank God for Representative Stupak from Michigan. Thank God we have Representative Stupak to interpret Catholic doctrine and then legislate accordingly on our behalf.

I can sleep easy now. Congress is looking after my spiritual wellbeing. Congress is looking after my soul.

Of course Representative Stupak doesn't care if healthcare reform passes or no. Of course he doesn't care how many American citizens continue to die unnecessarily. He isn't interested in saving our lives. He's interested in saving our souls. For Jesus. Nothing unconstitutional about that.

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Taking its "life begins at conception" charade from State Legislature to State Legislature, one of the most dangerous political forces in the U.S. is stepping up its crusade for the "rights" of the unborn. Backed by an organization called Personhood USA, the latest offensive from the Religious Right involves a renewed movement to amend state constitutions to establish human rights and personhood status for fertilized eggs. Ever immune to morality, reason, church-state separation precedents and an understanding of the basic laws of biology, the most flat earth reactionary segment of the so-called pro-life movement wants to circumvent constitutional protections for abortion by conferring personhood on fertilized eggs. This would eviscerate the premise that women have a sovereign and singular right to control their bodies by designating rights even before implantation and a clinically viable pregnancy has been determined. For those who have any elementary grasp of the human reproductive process, conception does not automatically result in pregnancy and the majority of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus. Yet if the egg crusade zealots had their way, these new edicts would potentially criminalize any woman attempting to use birth control pills or IUDs, and jeopardize in vitro fertilization procedures and stem cell research.

Though the egg crusade has failed to gain the imprimatur of the National Right to Life Committee, those who would dismiss such a campaign as too extreme to gain traction do so at their peril. According to the L.A. Times, earlier this year the egg crusaders were able to convince the North Dakota House of Representatives to pass a constitutional amendment on personhood, although it was later vetoed by the State Senate. Colorado voters also rejected a similar ballot initiative 73% to 27%. Yet in California the egg crusaders are collecting signatures and whipping up support for an amendment insidiously dubbed the California Human Rights Amendment.

One of the most reprehensible arguments that the egg crusaders make to bolster their cause is a comparison between their movement and the movement to abolish slavery. Their website cites Joshua Giddings, a 19th century American anti-slavery legislator who held that "God" as "author" of all life grants the inalienable right to life to every being. Following this argument it is unclear who is exactly "enslaving" pre-implanted fertilized eggs. Is it potential mothers who arrogantly lay claim to their own bodies? Is it the state for failing to protect the right of pre-implanted fertilized eggs to implantation? By cloaking its propaganda in the rhetoric of civil and human rights, the egg crusaders avoid delineation of the real life consequences for women, once again reducing them to vessels with no agency, right to privacy or control over their own bodies.

The website does not specify what rights un-implanted eggs would be conferred with other than, presumably, the right to progress to the implantation stage, fetal development and then birth. There are no details about who or what could act on the behalf of the un-implanted egg as person if the host carrier (formerly known as mother) of the egg were to determine that she should receive medical treatment. There was no information on who would legally be empowered to intervene or act on behalf of the un-implanted egg as person (the state perhaps?) to object to any stance that the mother might take. It stands to reason that if contraception were used to prevent the inalienable right of the egg as "person" to implant, then host carriers who did so would be criminalized and prosecuted for murder. As a preventive measure, potentially offending host carriers could perhaps be fitted with special ankle bracelets or encoded with state monitored electronic microchips to preclude violations.

The Catholic and fundamentalist Christian activists at the forefront of the egg crusade are curiously silent on these small details. In true schizoid fashion they push for special faith-based government entitlements and yet scream about government interference, rallying big government to run roughshod over women's fundamental right to privacy through a new regime of policing. And indeed, their own "family planning" policies have proven an abysmal failure, as evidenced by the exploding teen birth rates in Bible Belt states like Alabama and Mississippi in comparison to lower rates in the relatively godless Northeast and Northwest (abstinence-only sex education programs and fundamentalist Christian propaganda against fornication outside marriage would seem to be a source of cognitive dissonance for Southern teens).

The decidedly anti-human rights egg crusade would take this national obscenity one step further by deepening the region's poverty and straining its already overburdened, single parent-averse social welfare net. The fervor of this "new" brand of anti-abortion activism only underscores the need for a vigorous secular defense against the continued incursions of the Religious Right. It's either that or get ready for the ankle bracelets.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for Some of Us Are Brave KPFK 90.7 FM. This is an excerpt from her book Scarlet Letters on race/gender politics, atheism and secular belief in America.

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Recently on a popular Black Entertainment Network talk show, R&B singer Monica pitched her new reality show and extolled the virtues of prayer. Suited up in hip-high boots like an emissary from God's army, she credited God with guiding her through life and imbuing her with purpose. His word was her marching order, she proclaimed, as the rapt studio audience nodded in approval, giving credence to surveys that indicate African Americans are more religious, more likely to subscribe to Creationism and more apt to break out the Bible for guidance and counsel than any other group in the U.S.

Yet not since the Great Awakening of the 18th Century has "God" spoken through so many American public figures so unequivocally. The medievalist Sarah Palin has risen to cult status touting her personal speed dial to the Lord. The Old Testament God has become the kamikaze co-pilot of the Republican Party. And President Barack Obama frequently invokes both God as an adjudicating figure and prayer as an antidote to tragedy.

Prayer has become the national bromide for generalized suffering. If it can't be sanitized, domesticated and defanged by prayer then it isn't worth experiencing. Now, in the midst of the healthcare reform morass, prayer healing "therapy" may become a legitimate form of government subsidized medical treatment. According to the Los Angeles Times, a "little known" provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would authorize coverage for Christian Science prayer as a medical expense. The provision is sponsored by the ultra-conservative Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and the liberal Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. This strange bedfellow pairing is part ideology and part political expedience. Hatch is a notorious Mormon ideologue and Kerry's state is the Christian Science Church's base. Despite several high profile cases in which religious fanatic parents have been convicted for using prayer healing to "treat" their terminally ill children rather than seek medical treatment, the Senate healthcare provision would sanction this practice.

In a nation in which millions go bankrupt and/or die from not having health care insurance the decision to include prayer healing into the insidiously partisan healthcare deliberations is an outrage. Increasingly, prayer has wormed its way into the most mundane of American moments. Moments of prayer or "silence" have become more commonplace during local government meetings, schools, social functions and games. A recent AOL poll surveying site users about a Southern school's decision to post a message to God received overwhelming support. A majority of users agreed that reverence for God is part of "our" nation's heritage. As more and more Americans shrug in apathy at the leaky wall separating church and state, those who abstain from or question these mass spiritual entreaties are viewed as curmudgeon naysayers at best and un-American public enemies at worst. The explosion of public prayer—exemplified by the near manic drive to enshrine the most simple of pursuits with Godly sanction—seems to bespeak some deep-seated crisis of American selfhood which afflicts all classes and ethnicities.

According to the Christian Science Church, a faith healing internship takes the form of an "'intensive' two-week class instruction in Christian Science healing" after which practitioners "may take patients." Treatment "may rely on passages of the Bible...or may simply be a period of silent communion. There is no formula and 'treatment' can be given in absentia by telephone or email." Since Christian Science practitioners can hang up their virtual shingles after a two-week crash course why can't apostles of Frodo or oracles of Pan be similarly credentialed? Ethnocentric bias has apparently banished Pentecostal snakes, Santeria chants, Wiccan spells and animist rituals from consideration as insurable faith treatments. However, the Senate provision would ultimately provide protection for so-called religious and spiritual healthcare, opening the gate to all manner of medically dangerous, clinically unproven treatments.

Few on the Left have raised concerns about the contradiction between conservatives' draconian attempts to eliminate coverage for abortion (a medically established and lifesaving practice) in the healthcare overhaul and this obscure provision for government subsidized Christian Science hocus pocus. The House of Representatives' deliberations on its version of the healthcare bill are being stalled by endless wrangling over toughening restrictions on abortion coverage from private healthcare companies that participate in a government public option insurance "exchange." Under the current language these private plans could be purchased by poor subscribers with the aid of government subsidies. Yet anti-abortion legislators are jockeying to prevent private insurers that offer abortion coverage from even being included in the public option.

Perhaps poor women seeking reproductive healthcare would be advised to submit an email request for God's intervention to their nearest Christian Science provider, courtesy of the federal government. In the only democratic nation in the postindustrial world that doesn't have equitable government healthcare the watchwords will be "let them have prayer."

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM.

"Ignorance, poverty and vice must stop populating the world. This cannot be done by moral suasion. This cannot be done by talk or example. This cannot be done by religion or by law, by priest or by hangman. This cannot be done by force, physical or moral.

To accomplish this there is but one way. Science must make woman the owner, the mistress of herself. Science, the only possible savior of mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother.

This is the solution of the whole question. This frees woman. The babes that are then born will be welcome. They will be clasped with glad hands to happy breasts. They will fill homes with light and joy."

—Robert Green Ingersoll, "What Is Religion?" (1899)

For several months now, my fiancee has been volunteering as a clinic escort at a local Planned Parenthood. The escorts' job is to keep an eye on the protesters (because there are always protesters) and make sure they don't violate the law by trespassing on clinic property or blocking other people from entering.

I'd been wanting to join her, but it took me a while to work up the willpower. (I wasn't afraid; to be brutally honest, it was more about having to get up early on weekends - as well as the difficulty of scheduling the required training sessions with a full-time job.) But the murder of Dr. George Tiller gave me the spark of motivation I needed, and today was the first day I accompanied her.

When we got to the clinic this morning, there was only one protestor on the sidewalk outside, a man waving a sign that read "Personhood Now". But three more soon showed up, all waving or carrying similar signs: "Abortion Kills Children," "Planned Parenthood - The Killing Place", "They Kill Babies Here", and so on. Other than a few pictures of sonograms, there wasn't much variety or creativity in evidence.

None of the protestors tried to block the clinic entrance or seriously harassed any patients that morning. The most they did was approach arriving cars to offer literature (most people ignored them, a few accepted it). On one or two occasions, they yelled at arriving women who were visibly pregnant: "Save your baby! We can help you!" Perhaps they don't realize that Planned Parenthood also offers prenatal care and checkups for pregnant women, since that is, of course, what pro-choice means. They did shout at one arriving car which apparently was one of the doctors: "It's blood money! It's all blood money!"

Mostly their signs were pointed at the road, although they'd occasionally turn and face the clinic. About one in every fifty or a hundred cars honked at them, whether in support or opposition it's impossible to tell, although I did see several drivers give the protesters a thumbs-up. At one point, the driver of a passing car made an obscene gesture at them, while another slowed down to yell out the passenger-side window: "Get a life!" (I burst out laughing at that, I have to admit.)

My fiancee had warned me that the protesters often tried to test new escorts, and that I could expect to be harassed if they realized this was my first time there. Nothing like that happened, although one of them did try to engage with me at one point. I was standing near the street entrance, about ten feet away from one of the protesters standing on the other side of the chain-link fence. He appeared to notice me, turned so his sign was facing me, and held out a pamphlet: "Hey, young fella! Come and read this!"

I made no move toward him, more than half suspecting he would grab me or try to spit on me. I shook my head slowly, giving him a flat stare.

He persisted. "Aren't you pro-choice? Don't you want to read it so you can make a choice? Come on, I'm not trying to insult you. I'm trying to help you!" When I continued ignoring him, he tried one last time - "I guess you're not pro-choice!" - and then turned away.

More protesters trickled in over the course of the morning, and by the time our two-hour shift was almost up, there was a crowd of about fifteen people. Almost without exception, they were all elderly, male, and white. (There were two elderly white women, and one other exception, which I'll come to in a moment.) As far as I could tell, they were also all Catholic. Many of them held crucifixes or rosary beads, and one, showing some rare creativity, brought a poster showing the Virgin Mary wrapped in an American flag and looking sorrowful.

That exception I mentioned came near the end of our shift. I was watching the protesters in a desultory way, not expecting them to make much trouble after two hours of relative quiet, when - wait: that new one there, dressed all in black. Wait a minute: he's not dressed in just any black. Yes, that's a priest's collar he's wearing, all right. Is he really a priest showing up to protest the clinic?

I didn't have reason to doubt that for much longer. A young woman, probably about my age or a little older, whom I had thought was an ordinary passerby, stopped and embraced him, and I was close enough to hear her call him "Father". But it wasn't the woman that disturbed me so much; it was that she had brought her daughter, a little blonde girl who couldn't have been older than six or seven.

The protester with the Virgin Mary poster had also brought several squares of carpet, and the priest, several other protesters, the young woman - and, to my shock and disgust, her daughter - knelt on the sidewalk and started to pray the Rosary out loud. These prayers went on for a good forty-five minutes without a break. Near the end, the little girl was obviously getting bored, if she even knew what was going on. She fidgeted, squirmed around, but didn't leave her mother's side.

Of all the things I saw that morning, this was the one that most appalled me. For adults to exercise their right of free speech and protest is one thing; I wouldn't seek to deny them that freedom, however repugnant and medieval I may find their opinions. (I don't think it was a coincidence that by far the majority of protesters were male.) But using your young daughter as a political prop, brainwashing her with religious rhetoric from the earliest possible age, and forcing her to participate in a protest whose nature she can't possibly grasp - this is child abuse, in a moral if not a legal sense. Parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit, but we as a society should react with outrage when parents seek to mold their children into copies of themselves, rather than giving them the freedom to make up their own minds.

There was one impression I got from clinic escorting that heartened me, which was this: Despite the numbers and noise of the protesters, they were far outnumbered by the people who came to the clinic simply to use its services. The parking lot had room for around forty or fifty cars, and it was almost full by the time my fiancee and I left. An incautious observer, seeing just the two of us (and one hired security guard) standing guard duty in the parking lot and facing down a noisy crowd of fifteen or sixteen chanting Catholics, might mistakenly conclude that pro-lifers far outnumber pro-choicers. In fact, if today's traffic was any estimation, there are hundreds of people from throughout the community who come to Planned Parenthood for medical assistance each week, while the same relative handful of believers show up every weekend to picket. As always, the way religious fanatics concentrate their numbers and act out in highly visible ways makes them seem more numerous than they really are. The majority of Americans already accept the idea that people have a right to control their own bodies, to have sex safely, and to have children only when wanted - and they seem more than happy to let this rest as a settled matter and get on with their lives.

I have one final observation, which is that Planned Parenthood is a clinic. It's a place where people come for medical procedures, no different than any other outpatient clinic or hospital. It's not here to advance a political agenda, but to care for women, for couples and for children. Its patients often come under desperate or trying circumstances, people who've already had enough shame and misery heaped on them. (One of the other escorts who arrived after us told us a story about a woman who was harassed and yelled at by the protesters until she left in tears, without ever getting into the clinic.) These people need our understanding and compassion, not the hateful shouting or the false front of sympathy put on by these spiteful bigots and their misogynist religion. They affect loving concern, but what they are really seeking is for other people's bodies to be put under their church's control. That is something we can never permit to happen again.

If you've been following the news, you already know that Dr. George Tiller, one of only a handful of doctors left in the United States who perform late-term abortions, was murdered this week. A suspect, Scott Roeder, is already in custody.

Since the election of Barack Obama, there's been a noticeable upsurge in right-wing terrorism. This frightening trend tracks the evolution of the American right in general, which is becoming smaller, more insular, and more ideologically rigid, and its language more violent and more extreme. I don't think it's a stretch to say that their recent string of political defeats have caused some among the fringes to believe that the only way to achieve their goals is through violence.

Late-term abortion is never performed on a whim. The only time such abortions are performed is when the fetus has severe abnormalities incompatible with life, or when the woman develops a life-threatening complication, such as preeclampsia, and terminating the pregnancy is the only way to save her. But even these limited exceptions are too much for anti-choice Christian terrorists. It was for these acts - for his compassion in saving the lives of women - that Dr. Tiller was murdered.

Although there's no evidence that the alleged killer wasn't acting alone, there's abundant evidence that the crime was inspired by the hateful, poisonous, and inflammatory language that pours in a steady stream from the anti-choice religious right. Exhibit A is Bill O'Reilly, who repeatedly denounced Dr. Tiller on his show as "Tiller the Baby Killer" and said he "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000" (source). If this were true, Dr. Tiller would have been breaking the law in Kansas, which, like other states, bans abortion past the point of viability except in the case of severe fetal deformity or to save the life of the mother. In other words, O'Reilly was accusing Tiller of committing a crime, which meets the legal definition of defamation if he cannot prove his claim to be true.

Even if Dr. Tiller's murderer acted alone, he isn't the only one who's been inspired to do so by right-wing rhetoric. In addition to those in the link on Christian terrorism cited earlier, there's also Paul Evans, who was sentenced to forty years in prison for leaving a nail bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center, and Cheryl Sullenger, who served two years in prison in the 1980s for planning to bomb a California clinic. Significantly, Sullenger is now Operation Rescue's senior policy advisor, and her phone number was found in Roeder's car - suggesting that the mainstream anti-choice movement, even if it does not openly call for violence, is quite willing to associate with and embrace those who have committed violent acts in the past.

This isn't the first time we've seen this pattern, and it won't be the last: right-wing pundits continually spew hate rhetoric against their political adversaries, and then piously wash their hands of blood when the inevitable occurs and some violent lunatic decides to take those words to their logical conclusion. It's vital for atheists and progressives to realize that we are all potential targets of this bloodthirsty madness. If the murder of Dr. Tiller has any lesson, it's that we must stand up to defend the human rights that are still under siege from fanatics. One way to begin is to make a donation to Planned Parenthood today in Dr. Tiller's memory.