Progressives have been on the defensive when talking about a women’s right to make choices about continuing pregnancies and family planning. In addition, social conservatives have been successful in claiming that their religious rights have been violated if their institutions are forced to provide contraceptives to their employees. It is time that the progressives turned this around by claiming violations of their religious freedom and their religious liberty.
Until now, progressives have ceded the use of words like “freedom” and “religious liberty” to the conservatives. We need to reclaim that these words and show how they apply to our beliefs and our lives.
Women’s issues constitute one arena in which progressives can start using this language is the following:
If a woman is forced by the government to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, she is not free.
Freedom is having control over your own body. (Applies to both men and women.)
Freedom is being able to plan my own family. If the government restricts my ability to plan my own family, it is taking away my freedom.
It is my religious belief that my fetus does not become a human being until it emerges from my womb and takes its first breath. Until then it is part of my body. You are violating my religious liberty by restricting my freedom to have minor medical procedures as I see fit which in this case is to have an abortion. All these rules and regulations RW legislators have passed with respect to these minor medical procedures are violating my religious freedom. They should not be applied to me.
Please note that the Holy Bible’s Old Testament specifies
clearly in multiple passages that life begins with the first breath. Since the passage of RFRA and the recent holdings of the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case, the discussion can be based on what does the individual believe as part of their sincerely-held religious belief, not what is scientifically true or what is the case according to someone else’s religious belief. Which beliefs trump other beliefs? RFRA holds that the religious beliefs of the affected individuals trump those of government.