The Vagina Strategy

A day or so ago, I wrote about the Repugnicant’s Southern Strategy: Grits and Vaginas.

In the first part of this two-part analysis, I used grits as a symbol of Southern pride and pointed out that candidates frequently make rather juvenille and ostentatious attempts to identify with local cultures.

Mitt Romney, for example, uttered one of his more insincere attempts to establish commonality when he said to an audience in Mississippi, “I love grits.”

My guess is that the closest ol’ Mitt ever came to a grit was when a little caviar stuck in his throat at a formal dinner with ex-Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

Today, in the second part of my anallysis, I am going to adopt a more sober and serious tone because the Republicants have been on a years-long crusade in their curious attempt to deprive women of health care, particularly if the health care concerns abortion, birth control and contraception. These attempts at deprivation are often referred to as the Vagina Strategy.

Recently, their efforts have taken a frantic turn, as they cram through local legislatures law after law designed to proscribe or eliminate entirely womens’ Constitutiuonal rights to health care on a par with mens’.

An excellent source for the extent of these efforts can be found on Emily’s List.com. In an article titled “Top 10 Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Attacks on Women’s Rights,” author Allison McQuade details ten of the more egregious efforts to curtail women’s health care rights.

As good as her article is, however, it is only the tip of the iceberg that the Repugnicants have managed to float in the path of civil rights in general and womens’ rights in particular.

For more than 40 years, the Repugnicants have silently worked under the radar in a malicious effort to appoint right wing judges to courts at all levels up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today, at the Federal level alone, the 12 Federal District Courts are dominated by conservative judges. The only exception is the 9th District Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which serves the Western United States.

At the state level, courts are also packed with conservative judges, and legislative bodies have become increasingly red in their makeup based on questionable redistricting, thus permitting easier passage of laws such as Virginia’s odious law requiring women to be virtually raped before they could have an abortion. Only a massive public outcry forced the governor to eliminate this tortuous provision.

The question many people may ask, is why does the makeup of courts matters? The answer lies in the structure of the United States government itself. Courts in this country are arbiters of political questions and questions of constitutional rights.

Thus, a woman who wishes to challenge an odious law in court may well have three strikes against her before her case reaches the first court in the chain.

Why is the Vagina stragegy particularly effective in the South?

Because the Southern states are comprised primarily of rigid religionists who believe a woman’s place is in the home and that a woman’s activities are subject to her husband’s whims. The strategy has only limited effectiveness in other parts of the country.

While all of the information I’ve covered in here is important to know, it is more important to participate in the political process. As long as more than half of the American voting public fails to vote, only active special interest groups will dominate not only the political but also the legal process in this country.

Unless you vote and make your voice heard in other ways, you will be a part of the problem.

Why not become a part of the solution?