MINDY NEWELL: What Would Wonder Woman Do?
On Thursday, February 16, 2011, in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Foster Friess, one of the billionaire funders of the Super PAC (Political Action Committee) backing Rick Santorum, said, “Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. LOL! ROFL! Hee-hee-hee! BWA-HA-HA-SNORT!
Not.
Funny.
Definitely not.
Defiantly not.
Watch this video from The Daily Show in which Jon Stewart masterfully attacks the crap coming out of the Republican’s mouths these days.
The Republican Party has really stepped in it this time. They are so desperate. It would be funny if it weren’t so scary. Now they’re trying to switch the argument into one in which Obama is attacking Catholics. According to the Republicans, Obama has been a Muslim plant, a communist, and a socialist, a Kenyan (as in not born on American soil), anti-Christian, anti-Israel…
What next?
How nuts is the Republican’s newest election campaign? Watch Megan Kelly of Fox News, newly returned from maternity leave, as she defends the “entitlement program” maternity leave against right-wing radio pundit Mike Gallagher, who calls maternity leave “a racket.”
Several columns ago I talked about why I believed that Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Princess Diana of Themiscrya, would come down on the side of pro-life in the abortion debate.
I never considered about how she would feel towards the use of contraceptives.
Hmm…
What I think is that, at first, she wouldn’t understand it. As I said, coming from a place where natural procreation has been unknown for 3000 years and more, Diana would have a true reverence for pregnancy and birth – not to mention children.
However, as she became acclimated to the modern world – I don’t use the word “assimilated” because it is my writer’s conceit to think of Diana as a continual “stranger in a strange land.” I believe she would come to accept the importance of a “woman’s right to choose” contraceptives, based on her own experiences growing up on a island in which there are no men to place a “glass ceiling” on women’s abilities and/or aspirations. After all, her own mother, Hippolyta, is Queen in every sense of the word, a queen with the power of a king, such as this world has not seen since Elizabeth I of England. In Diana’s world, there is no question that a woman has the capability to be a front-line warrior or a priest – it’s a fact. It just is.
And I also think she would come to realize that using contraceptives – obviously – drastically eliminate the need for abortions. Yes, I still believe she would stand firm in her pro-life stance.
A final point. Diana comes from a theocratic society. However, it is an enlightened theocratic society that does not impose its religion on others. I believe she would find it inappropriate that those campaigning for the Presidency of this country are actively working to impose their faith’s beliefs on others.
Inappropriate?
No.
Dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
TUESDAY: What Would Michael Davis Do?
Not having read your reasoning for Diana’s being “pro-life,” I would suggest that Diana–once she’s exposed to women facing UNWANTED or LIFE-THREATENING pregnancies–might be fully in favor of a woman’s right to choose, bearing in mind that the Amazons come from an era where rape was essentially a man’s RIGHT by law; she’d be more than familiar with the stories of situations where Zeus and Hades and Poseidon and even Heracles simply took women with pregnancy being the usual end result–just how many of those women WANTED to be “brood cows to the Gods?”
Now….if you mean “pro-life” in the sense of caring about the children once they’ve exited the vaginal canal, then yes, by all means, Diana would be “pro-life.” Unfortunately, too many of these “pro-life” advocates don’t seem to give the least regard for the “post-birth” end of life. Cuts to all sorts of beneficial social programs (one might note the GOPers even wanted cuts to programs designed to help PREGNANT WOMEN deliver HEALTHY BABIES) have been the norm for the “pro-life” advocates at ALL political strata (federal AND state).
If anything, Diana would be more critical of the “pro-life” movement for its sheer hypocrisy. Diana would call for programs to end bullying in school. She would demand that programs like WIC be immune from political grandstanding. She would expect that women’s health issues be given as much importance as men’s health (I can only imagine she’d be absolutely perplexed at the idea that insurance programs should cover the “Pill” for erectile dysfunction but not the “Pill” for pregnancy prevention, regardless of who the employer is or what faith s/he follows).
Mindy,
It was on January 2, a column named “The Enemy Within” where you postulated Diana’s Pro-Life stance. You wrote, “yes, pregnancy, the unborn child, would be ultimate, holy, sacrosanct, untouchable, inviolable object of worship of a woman raised in this environment.”
I thought this was a very enlightened take on Wonder Woman and posted that I would have loved to read that story arc.
I have to point out that this take on Wonder Woman makes it seem as though her opinion of pregnancy is one borne out of its rarity in her experience and if she had been a character of our world she may not feel the same way. But pregnancy’s relative routine status in our world makes it no less sacrosanct. Would Diana’s opinion change when she becomes, as you said, “acclimated.”
All that said, the point of this column, contraception, is, in my view, an entirely different subject and one that I have no issue with. In fact, using artificial or medical means to prevent conception is a decision similar to being celibate. Both practices prevent a life from being formed.
Joseph W:
Unfortunately, too many of these “pro-life” advocates don’t seem to give the least regard for the “post-birth” end of life.
This is a common unfounded canard that is consistently brought up to imply that the Pro-Life movement is hypocritical. In fact, The Pro-life movement does care for both the woman and her child before and after birth. Crisis pregnancy centers established around the country help women find jobs, apartments or housing with a volunteer if she is homeless, give her help with medical expenses, transportation to medical facilities, provide layettes for newborns, baby furniture, clothing for siblings and a host of other necessities. And these organizations exist without funding from governmental sources.
George, some folks see being pro-death penalty as being antithetical to the title of pro-life. Some see lack of support of universal health care as antithetical to the title of pro-life. Some see the lack of support for education programs… you get the idea. Pro-life is a misnomer; what its supporters mean is anti-abortion.
We did a GREAT story about this in our Wasteland #1 — Ostrander/Close script, Loebs art — called R.Ab. It was awesome. It pissed EVERYBODY off, including the publisher, who never read the book again. That, of course, gave us carte blache.
Nicely done, Ms.Newell!