The Aggressive Campaign for the Social Control of Women

Exploiting the false narrative of "reproductive health,"  the Democratic Party has for far too long enjoyed -- uncontested -- the social control of women. Translated, this means not health at all but rather unrestricted, politically guaranteed access to contraception, sterilization, and abortion on demand, without which women allegedly have no real control in their lives.

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P>EDMOND, OK (Catholic Online) - Exploiting the false narrative of "reproductive health,"  the Democratic Party has for far too long enjoyed -- uncontested -- the social control of women. Translated, this means not health at all but rather unrestricted, politically guaranteed access to contraception, sterilization, and abortion on demand, without which women allegedly have no real control in their lives.

A woman therefore needs the Democrats to ensure access to these services, and it is only through them that she becomes the captain of her own destiny. This false, contrived, and disgracefully cultivated dependency was on full display in the recent hysterical charge that the Republicans and conservatives were engaging in a "war on women" by opposing Obama's HHS contraceptive mandate, even when the opposition was framed strictly as a defense of religious liberty.

But there are signs everywhere that this heretofore uncontested narrative is beginning to be challenged. For many women the narrative never did make much sense in the first place.

If society is to respect womanhood, they asked, shouldn't solutions be sought which don't require women to engage in hostilities against their own bodies and minds, solutions which, in other words, allow women to truly be women?

And since motherhood and sexuality in women are so intimately associated with one another, would not abortion run the risk of driving a stake right in the heart of at least one crucial part of a woman's identity?

Gradually scientists, physicians, and experts in the social and psychiatric sciences began to take notice, and began to study the mental health outcomes especially of induce abortion, braving in many cases the fiery and passionate anger of the almost monolithic pro-abortion women's health research community, and their Democratic political comrades.

When preliminary studies by Reardon and others suggested a 300% or so increase in suicide rates among women who underwent abortion, it became entirely clear that more determined and comprehensive study was justified, despite loud and vocal recriminations.

When Priscilla Coleman, the world's leading researcher on the negative mental health effects of abortion, published her landmark findings in 2011 in the British Journal of Psychiatry -- a massive metanalysis whose meticulous and scientifically untouchable conclusions demonstrated an 81% increase in adverse mental health outcomes associated with induced abortion.

Adversaries tried every rhetorical and statistical objection in the book to no avail, and the respected journal stood resolutely by her work, despite politically and ideologically motivated calls to disavow it.

Pretty much the same thing has happened with the reports of abortion being associated with increases of breast cancer.

Despite attempts at disavowal and denial, the original findings of Joel Brind and others in this regard -- that women who have induced abortions are at increased risk of developing breast cancer later in life -- have held up and withstood an avalanche of ideologically motivated hyper-scrutiny.

It was also extremely encouraging to see The New York Times  criticizing President Obama for his reprehensible condescension to women during the May 14, 2012 commencement speech at Barnard College.

In that speech, as noted by New York Times writer Campbell Brown, President Obama insulted the intelligence of women with deliberately and knowingly false compliments cravenly calculated to win their approval, revealing in the process something other than a deep and abiding respect for women.

Surprisingly and almost unexpectedly, women now have a real opportunity to shake off the social control foisted on them like so many ropes and chains, and decide who really, in the end, is their true friend.

Would she rather trust those who abuse slogan-like references to her "health" for political gains all the while paying no political price? Or should she rather trust those who bravely, and without any discernible credit or payoff, pursue policies revealing a deep respect for womanhood? 

The choice seems to be getting easier.

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Dominic M. Pedulla MD, FACC, CNFPMC, ABVM, ACPh, President, The Edith Stein Foundation, Social Science Researcher, Interventional Cardiologist

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