TOTALLY APPALLING

How is this POSSIBLE: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20assess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I am appalled at the Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v. Carhart (http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-380.pdf). Totally appalled. Reading this decision makes me sick. The fact that Justice Kennedy feels it necessary to take it upon himself to dictate women's MORALS makes me angry. This is the slippery slope issue - how long before they remove the right completely. I was ranting & raving at Dad yesterday about it - women will NEVER be equal in this country until we stop legislating & suing over our reproduction. This is not an issue for men, it is solely an issue for women - so why are men making all the decisions about what is going to happen to my uterus??? They are going to make it difficult for me to get access to birth control (example: Permitting Pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions on moral grounds; decreasing funding for Planned Parenthood, etc.) AND they are going to make in next to impossible to get an abortion - a decision that they will never have to make.

I ask you to think of your sisters, your wives, your daughters. A partial birth abortion comes at a stage in the prenancy when that woman was likely planning on having the child - having no reservations in the law for the health of the mother is ABSURD. And who is Anthony Kennedy to say what a woman feels & that abortion causes a woman to fall away from "true womanhood." I AM NOT A BABY FACTORY!!! My sole function on this planet AS A WOMAN is NOT to have babies. So if we define "true womanhood" as giving birth to children, then I do not wish to be defined as a "true" woman. To say otherwise is to condemn women to a reproductive playpen. It makes me ill that this is the way that the Supreme Court of the United States views women. It makes it so dreadfully apparent that women are NOT equal in this country - we will not achieve equality as long as the educated leaders of our government and legal system see women as nothing more than mothers & wives.

Men don't have to deal with legislation surrounding their reproduction. They aren't forced to wear condoms, the Court has declared that it is a "fundamental right" to reproduce...for men. But the protection of women's rights to self determine are completely neglected. I would not want to be a man, but being a woman is a constant legal battle that so few are fighting. Every time a man gets up and says "you can't", every woman should get up and say "wanna bet?" Instead too many women buy into it or don't even pay attention. I get SO ANGRY. What next?