George Will mansplains women’s GYN rights – I invite him to do that in person

Thank you Mr. Will for mansplaining that the war on women is a fictitious democratic construct. In fact, to speak of things like failure to respond to the epidemic of campus rape, the need to have access to all forms of birth control through health insurance, or to have an abortion in your own county is clearly infantilizing women.

We women have been so infantilized that Mr. Will used his October 17^th column for the Washington Post to show us the following proof that we have nothing to worry about, because “Access to contraception has been a constitutional right for 49 years (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965)” and “The judiciary has controlled abortion policy for 41 years (Roe v. Wade, 1973).” Wow, I don’t know about you, but I feel so much better. I mean TRAP laws, the Supreme Court choosing employers’ religious beliefs over medical fact, and personhood amendments must all be “mythical menaces” just like Mr. Will says!

If a politician wants to support a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own body, like Sen. Mark Udall in Colorado, it’s not about basic human rights it’s a relentless “gynecological campaign” worthy of such derision that Mr. Will refers to Sen Udall as “Mark Uterus.” (Seriously. I couldn’t make that up if I tried).

Mr. Will offers nothing in this column, besides the 1965 and the 1973 Supreme Courts decisions to prove his assertion that the “war on women” is a mindless incantation. Obviously, we just need to take his word for it.

So here’s the deal Mr. Will, states are chipping away at Roe v. Wade very effectively. TRAP laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers) exist to close clinics. No medical society feels that closet space improves abortion safety. And when women can’t get access to safe abortion they turn to other options. I’ve seen the sad ramifications and it’s only going to get worse.

Limiting birth control options, i.e. medical care, based on religious beliefs is wrong.

Personhood amendments turn fertilized eggs into super-humans, taking away more rights from women before birth than a child would after birth. They also jeopardize birth control because the Supreme Court has decided that religious beliefs matter more than facts (apparently Mr. Will, you aren’t too fond of facts either).

Saying this does not, as Mr. Will opines, make me a civic illiterate, rather it makes me informed on exactly how legislation that interferes with gynecologic care impacts women. After all, I am a gynecologist. And I’d happily debate the detrimental effect of legislation about GYN care (I won’t say reproductive, because there is of course no legislation that similarly affects men) with him anywhere.

So what do you say Mr. Will, game for a chat? I won’t mind if you call me GYNO-Jen.