Gentlemen,

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (see URL http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2011), the United States ranks number 17. Considering our country and the avowed strength of our Christian heritage, why are we not the preeminent leader in championing equal rights for women (and all minorities around the globe)? Why is our country not number one? Don’t we believe in the equality of ALL men and women?

Women's right to choose, as well as other minority groups including LGBT’s, persons of color, religious, and voters’ rights are under attack as individual groups by Republicans, supposed believers in kind personage of Jesus Christ (e.g. Walker, R-WI “Divide and Conquer”). These "minorities" need a representative to unite them in one cause that promotes equal rights for all citizens as stated in our Bill of Rights and The Constitution of the United States. 

Our government tells all Americans that we are, as individuals, equal, and as written in our Constitution to be afforded the same rights as any other man or woman.  Why do the Republicans, the Christian right, and all others of narrow minds keep trying to hold America at risk by restricting the rights of individuals because of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or party affiliation?

It is my belief that of these minorities, women in America are in the most severe danger as the Republican Congress is laying the groundwork across our country to control their lives. Presently, an onslaught of state and federal bills have been introduced at both the state and federal levels since March 2011, many in our state of Virginia, proposed by politicians such as Cuccinelli instead of the Board of Health or other MD's trained to be more familiar with the physiological processes of the human body. All these bills purport to control women’s rights concerning family planning and health care. Is this the Republican movement to relegate women to “second-class citizen status” as men pass laws to control how their lives should be lived? What is next? Limits on education, lower expectations of a woman’s worth and duties in life, including lower wages, menial jobs, or just keeping them at home both “barefoot and pregnant.”

The Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers (TARP) movement is an assault against women led by people like Congressman Paul Ryan who quite recently co-authored bills with Mr. Todd Akin stating coldly that an impregnated women MUST carry every pregnancy to fruition without regard to the women’s wishes, even in cases of “forced or legitimate” rape!  Do these men consider the women’s health, the economic viability of  her raising a child at a particular stage of life, or how it will affect her family’s well being? Who should make these decisions? The woman and her spouse with the guidance of her OBGYN or is this a decision to be relegated to state or federal representatives ready to incarcerate the new mother or the doctor responsible for a necessary abortion? 

Women do not take these decisions lightly!

The women affected by such a choice should be the person responsible to make that choice for the care and control of their own. In short, women should have universal access to contraceptives and other methods of birth control when circumstances warrant it.