The Land of the Free? Not Really

What kind of country do we live in, where it’s 2012, the age of internet from our phones and movies with CGI so good it looks real, women still have to fight for the right to our own bodies? I was in the car with my mom one day and she told me about this woman, a college student named Sandra Fluke, who went before Congress to testify for birth control to be paid for by insurance under a woman’s health care. She then told me about this man I’d never heard of before named Rush Limbaugh.

My mom told me that this guy said this woman was a slut and a prostitute simply because she wants birth control paid for under insurance because in his eyes, that means she wants to be paid to have sex. He then went on to say that if she wants her birth control paid for, the American people should get something in return, that she should videotape herself having sex and posting it on the internet. And you know what? People actually agree with him. What. The. Hell. This is not ok. This is an absolute outrage.

I don’t even understand where he got the idea that because she wants birth control that automatically means she’s going to use it to have tons of sex. That’s not even close to what most woman use birth control for. This whole debate on banning contraception really bugs me because girls with irregular periods will be out of luck. They’ll bleed too much, too often and end up with anemia or whatever. They’ll go to their doctor for help and you know what will happen? The doctor will say there’s nothing I can do. Birth control, the thing that will most likely help the most, is illegal. You’re out of luck.

What I really don’t get is why this is such an issue. I thought woman got their rights years ago. But we’re still fighting to be equal to men. We’re still fighting for our rights when this whole issue should have been solved so long ago. This isn’t the Middle Ages, guys. This is 20 freaking 12. We really should be less worried about whether abortion should be banned or not and more worried about so much else, like our national debt and unemployment and the people starving on the freaking streets.

I was told recently that this issue is still going on because some men, men with lots of influence and power, feel threatened by women. Seriously? It’s like, hello, the 1700s called, they want their ideologies back. Come on! When the founding fathers created this country, they weren’t looking at abortion or equal rights between men and women. Those were completely ridiculous ideas back in 1776. But I can say that if they looked at our country now, they’d want to crawl right back into their graves. They escaped England and fought a whole freaking war so we could be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But you look at our country now, and I don’t see very much that’s free or brave. I see discrimination, corruption, weakness, and oppression. We fought so hard for this country and so many people died so we could be the land of the free and the land of opportunities. It really sucks to see their lives were lost in vain.