How the Christofacists are making us all poorer: the creation of a Permanent Under Class

[Elspeth]

Family planning is one of those issues that always gets seen as a "women's" issue, and men make the mistake thinking it doesn't affect them. But the Christofacist assault on family planning--birth control and abortion--as well as its insistence that women should be at hme, DOES affect men who marry or live with women.

Family planning allows women and the men they marry or live with to LIMIT the number of children they will have. This allows people in the working and middle classes to control at least some of their economic destiny. Family planning services allow couples to delay having children until they can afford them; it allows couples to decide on how many children they think they can afford. It allows couples not to spend their entire lives in debt paying for children they can't afford.

When choices about family size are taken out of the hands of couples and put into the hands of government, which at the moment seems inclined to deny this kind of control to couples, the working and middle classes are denied any control over their economic destiny. Unplanned pregnancies abound and poverty can be the end result for many working class people who cannot afford them.

In addition, the prejudice that women "should be in the home" affects how women are regarded in the workforce. If a company's personnel believe that a woman should not be working anyway, they don't have any qualms about paying her less or limiting her choices of profession in the workplace.

This is not just a woman's issue: If a man is married or in a committed relationship with a woman, his own lifestyle will be affected by his SO's lack of choices in the workplace. If there are children, the welfare of these children is at stake because of the prejudices against women.

In other words, guys, "women's" issues are your issues. It's about dollars coming out of your pocket. It is about having no control over your economic life as a couple. And, when "the rich get richer and the poor get children," children that they cannot afford to take care of, an increase of poverty, a permanent underclass with no control over its destiny, is the result.

[Elspeth]

1. Thanks for the recs

:kick:

[tanyev]

2. Did you see this thread?

God's Own Baby-Killers: Abortions Soar Where Religious Zeal Abounds
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2926493#2926529

[Elspeth]

4. Wow, great link!!

Everyone should check out that thread!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. If and when a man has a daughter, she will also be subjected to these prejudices.

I would hope that most men would not take well to their daughters being so devalued and demeaned.
I have long believed that the entire "Right to Life" campaign has been an attempt to control women.
As has been said in other threads today..these Christofascists want to keep as much of the public as possible, ignorant, pregnant and/or enslaved..either economically, physically or psychologically.

Their "deep concern" for the fetus and its well-being ends abruptly the second it is born. They are against health care, education, gun-control or any other form of support that might needed to succeed in life. Of course they are also PRO-war and PRO-capital punishment.

[L. Coyote]

5. Bellicose societies need soldiers.

[Lars39]

6. K&R...

Very well put.

[sarcasmo]

7. A slave labor class.

[immoderate]

8. K&R well said.

--IMM

[Lars39]

9. Ohio Abortion Clinic Ordered To Close Will Remain Open

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/15448428/detail.htm

I wanted to link this article and DU thread here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2942319

[panzerfaust]

12. newsnet5 link gives 404

[GeorgeGist]

10. Will Jesus ...

forgive the victims of all religions? Or just Christians.

[katty]

11. religion and politics always get in the way of common sense

[Elspeth]

15. That's because their goals are not about what is good for the rank and file

Their goal is power--and wealth.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

13. K & R

Well put indeed.

[Donnachaidh]

14. Monty Python song "Every Sperm is Sacred" surely fits into the permanent serfdom idea

Michael Palin's poor Catholic man has to sell his kid's to medical science, because he cannot afford to feed them. And he's bound by Church law to not use birth control.

But hell, I bet he comes up with some coin for the church on sunday. :eyes: