Millennial Women: You Aren't Worth What Your Amazing Female Body Can Do
PolicyMic, a news organization that claims to know and report on what matters most to young people, tells readers that their promise is to report on "perspectives that aren't typically showcased at other outlets." Yet, a recent article regurgitated one piece of fiction that almost all of the other media outlets have already showcased ad nauseam. And I can't be the only Millennial who is getting annoyed by the lack of integrity in reporting about my generation.
Their recent article, Dear American Women: You Are Being Lied to, lists nine ways in which American women are supposedly being duped by "a society still steeped in the sexism of years past." This is as specific a description that the elusive guilty party of accused liars merits in the piece. (The site has a penchant for churning out lists of reasons why Millennials --well, mostly women and minorities-- are victims of one thing or another. If PolicyMic becomes the paradigm of Millennial reporting, today's young people will undoubtedly go down in history as the self-proclaimed victim generation.)
Number six in the list of nine reasons why women have it so bad in America is, "You are not capable of making your own medical decisions." The accusation reads:
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Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, making such a ban [on late-term abortion] arguably unconstitutional. But that hasn't stopped anti-choice politicians from passing legislation making access to safe abortion procedures increasingly difficult in states across the country. [Sen. Lindsey] Graham claimed he knows twins who were born at 20 weeks... let's all remember that what Graham believes should have no bearing on a woman's choices about her health. Research shows that in states with more access to contraception and family planning, teenage pregnancy rates are lower and median incomes are higher. In fact, when young women are given robust sex education and access to affordable contraception, they are able to make more informed choices and the teen pregnancy rate drops.
Aside from the fact that there is blatant misinformation about the effect of birth control and "robust" sex education in the author's attack on pro-life legislators, the title of the accusation itself is misleading. Claiming that pro-life legislators like Sen. Lindsey are trying to tell women that they can't make their "own medical decisions" assumes that life-affirming laws infringe on a woman's ability to be independent and to take care of her own health. In reality, they do the opposite.
Remember the "war on women" we heard so much about last year? Many actual American women know that it is being waged against us by the other side. The side that would tell us that our fertility is a disease, and that the pathway to freedom is sex without its biological consequences (like children). And if our carcinogenic pills and the copper IUDs in our bodies fail to prevent our bodies from doing what they so fiercely and incredibly do, there's abortion.
We know that legislators who are looking out for the welfare of our pre-born children, and for our own safety and informed consent in our reproductive decisions are acting in the interest of women's progress. They are upholding a commitment not to let women regress by being subjected to the coercive and misleading forces of the abortion lobby, which stands for little more than profit. We know that these forces mimic all too vividly the patriarchal nature of the American yesteryear. And that is why we are pro-life: because it is the only way to ensure justice for women -- including pre-born women -- and to ensure that women's rights move forward rather than slip away.
Maybe the real lie being told to women is: "You aren't WORTH what your amazing female body can do."
