LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Edit: Letter faxed!

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Dear Senator Isakson:

I am writing to you today because I am deeply troubled by current trends in American politics and government.

First of all, while I was delighted to hear that the Senate voted to overturn the Global Gag Rule, I was not so pleased to learn that you voted against ending this oppressive policy. Your past record seems to indicate that while you oppose government subsidization of abortion, you also oppose restrictions on abortion rights. If this is accurate, I don’t understand why you would defend the Global Gag Rule, since foreign NGOs that perform abortions do so with their own funds. Also, very flimsy pretexts have been cited to deny funding to some organizations. For example, in Nepal one group lost its support because it advocated the release of a prisoner who, at 13, was forced to have an illegal abortion after being raped by a relative. Does this really advance the cause of American justice?

I see opposition to the Global Gag Rule as part of the broader “Culture of Life” agenda. To me, this is a euphemism for a government informed by sectarian religious dogma, in which zygotes and blastocysts have the same rights as thinking, feeling women. Politicians are leaping to defend pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, even though this conduct is unethical and unprofessional and often involves verbal harrassment. I hardly need mention how the Right-To-Life lobby cynically manipulated the Terri Schiavo situation, and I’m appalled that Congress overstepped its Constitutional authority to interfere.

In the context of these events, I ask you to remember pre-revolutionary Romania. Ceausescu banned sex education, abortion, and all forms of contraception. His police regularly monitored women of child-bearing age for pregnancy, and those who failed to conceive were often subjected to questioning. Though he reduced women to the status of incubators for the state, the actual abortion rate skyrocketed. His ineffective policies caused widespread misery, and yet I believe that some politicans and activists would approve of implementing the same strategies here in the United States.

I would also like to express my concern about the Constitutional Restoration Act of 2005. With this legislation, religious extremists hope to compromise the separation of powers as well as the separation of church and state. This would be disastrous for the American people, and women in particular. It would mark the birth of America’s own Taliban.

I do not want to live in a “Christian nation”; I don’t want to live in any kind of theocracy. I look to you as my public representative to protect my rights from the tyranny of a vocal minority. I ask that you look beyond the smokescreen of the “Culture of Life” and work to safeguard America’s Culture of Liberty. After all, wasn’t it a patriot who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”?

Thank you for your kind attention.


Cross-posted all over creation.