Much has been made recently of the War on Women taking place in our nation's Congress and in the governments of many states. Battles are being waged to wrest control of reproduction away from women, fights women thought had been won with the advent of the Pill and the ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973. They were wrong. Fear is at the heart of it all, just as it was back in the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century when immigrants poured into the United States. At that time, the West was open to settlement, and Yankees were determined that it not be settled by the Irish, Poles, Scandinavians, Slavs, and such like; these people would get too much political clout. White men were in a panic, but what could they do about it? They'd enlist the women by passing laws against birth control and abortion; thereby, literally forcing women into maternity in an effort to outnumber less desirable, in their eyes, the people flooding onto our shores. Information about contraception was considered obscene and prohibited by the Comstock Act of 1873, an act against distribution of any obscene material through the mail. Many states passed similar laws, referred to collectively as the Comstock Laws. Sometimes the states' laws outlawed both the use and also the distribution of contraceptives. The earliest laws against abortion were laws against the commercialization of abortion producing plants. But the push was on, and by 1880 every state had criminalized abortion, with the exception of therapeutic abortion to save a woman's life. Today, white men are again in a panic for fear of becoming outnumbered in the United States by Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans, who will by 2050 make up about 54% of our country's population (US census). With minority status comes loss of political power-my G-d we've already got a black President! What to do? They decide, consciously or subconsciously, to enlist the aid of white women. Women, however, fight the proposed strictures on contraception and abortion. They've tasted the freedom that comes with control of reproduction, of having a life beyond diapers and parent-teacher meetings. They're becoming doctors, and lawyers, and such: Forced Maternity? No way. Fear of the "invasion of the immigrants" has again raised its ugly head, this time; women will refuse to passively knuckle under.
About the Author: Ardyce C. Whalen earned both of her bachelor's degrees-Education and Visual Arts-and her master's degree in Communication from the University of North Dakota. She then went on to teach English at the junior and senior high levels during her years as a public school teacher. In addition, she and her husband raised five children; at one time they had five teenagers in the house until the oldest daughter celebrated her twentieth birthday. Whalen has been published in Central States Speech Journal and Gifted, Creative, Talented (a magazine for elementary and junior high students).