Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: BBC: Bernie Sanders in climate change 'population control' uproar [View all]Hekate
(90,552 posts)Last edited Mon Sep 9, 2019, 01:40 AM - Edit history (1)
...what is going on in America right now -- and what has been building for over 30 years.
Access to the full range of women's necessary health care has been broken in the US. As before the passage of Roe vs Wade, it is now limited to those who can afford it and who can afford to travel to obtain it.
In addition, for a long time there was something called "the Global Gag Order," which withheld funding from any overseas health organization that so much as mentioned the word abortion or referred women to agencies that would provide it. That included war zones where many women were and are raped as a weapon of war.
Now the Global Gag Order has come home to America -- the GOP is in process of enforcing it here.
So, Senator Sanders has not been paying attention to what a lot of men think is just a "women's issue." He's playing catch-up. Big surprise.
Aside from that, I don't quite understand the frothing outrage here over what he said. Or at least the parts quoted here in more than one thread. He did not say that "brown and black" people need to practice birth control, nor did he even hint at eugenics. He did not say that an i dividual who is poor -- of any color, in any country -- has a bigger carbon footprint than the average American, just that the grand total of population is a problem for the Earth. I agree with that. It is a problem.
Bernie said that "poor people" need to have access to family planning services. Well duh. They don't currently, and they do need it. Also he referred to "over half the population" needing such services -- well, that would comprise all women, seeing as how we are over half the numerical population in every country (with the exception of India and China, where a generation of girls failed to be born at all). Again duh. Bernie is saying all women need these services, regardless, and we do.
I'm going by what was quoted here, mind you, and my response is as a feminist and lifelong supporter of Planned Parenthood.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden