As November approaches for the Presidential elections, many women will want to pay close attention to who will be supporting their rights. The first major milestone for women was winning the right to vote. It was not until the 1920s that the Nineteenth Amendment was put into the Constitution; it prohibits each of the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex. In many ways, from that day forward the rights of women took many steps forward to the equality of men. On Senator John McCain’s website under his issues tab you will not find a tab that directly addresses women, but anyone who has watched the news in recent months knows exactly how Mr. McCain feels about birth control, abortion, and the magic pill Viagra. It appears John McCain avoids answering questions related to women’s issues and purposely keeps some of his views hidden from the women voters hoping to slide one over their eyes.
The most alarming thing about John McCain is that women often get swept up with his shiny “maverick” attitude and truly don’t look for the facts. One really doesn’t have to look far on the internet to find some of the scoop on Mr. McCain. According to Planned Parenthood, one of the largest health care providers for reproductive health; when they polled “1,205 women in 16 likely battleground states, finding that despite his extreme voting record, 51 percent of women voters in battleground states have no idea what John McCain's positions are on women's reproductive health issues” (Planned Parenthood). Furthermore, of these women Planned Parenthood polled “Forty-nine percent of women currently backing McCain express pro-choice views” and, “46 percent of women supporting McCain over Obama want to see Roe v. Wade upheld.”(Planned Parenthood). This is the kind of information women voters should take another look at, if they truly knew John McCain they would know they were casting their vote for the guy who will not uphold their ideals and basic rights. Every woman voter concerned with reproductive issues and women’s rights should be more involved in examining this candidate’s positions on these topics.
One might wonder if women voters have paid attention to all the news that birth control and abortion have received lately, a lot of that news is giving a glimpse of what a future with John McCain may be like. As of recently, the Bush administration has pushed forward a proposal that would begin treating certain kinds of birth control pills as abortion. According to the Wall street Journal, “The Bush Administration has ignited a furor with a proposed definition of pregnancy that has the effect of classifying some of the most widely used methods of contraception as abortion.”(Simon). The article also said many Democrats, including Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, have signed letters to oppose the proposal. John McCain had no comment. This seems to be a theme with the topic of reproductive issues for McCain. Last month John McCain was asked about his thoughts about health insurance companies covering Viagra but not Birth Control Pills. According to The New York times, “The normally voluble Senator John McCain found himself at a loss for words Wednesday when he was asked aboard his campaign bus on its way to Portsmouth, Ohio, whether he thought it was fair that some health insurance companies covered Viagra but not birth control. ‘I don't usually duck an issue,’ he said, ‘but I'll try to get back to you.’”(Cooper). Again, John McCain left women voters with unanswered questions on what their future might be like if he was the commander-in-chief. This promoted anger from Naral Pro-Choice America who noted that “Mr. McCain had voted against a 2005 bill requiring health insurance companies to cover birth-control pills as well as Viagra. Mr. McCain said he did not recall the vote.”(Cooper). The truth is John McCain stays quite unambiguous on his website to blind the women voters into voting for the wrong guy.
If a woman voter truly wanted to know where John McCain stood on reproductive rights a few answers are spelled out on his website. Under his issues tab there is no link given directly to women, like his opponent Obama has, but there is one called “Human Dignity and Life” (JohnMcCain.com). At the very top in bright blue colors it states overturning Roe vs. Wade. According to the website John McCain believes that “Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.”(JohnMcCain.com). If you go over the whole list with a fine comb there in no mention of birth control pills, so again women are left with an unclear picture of his stance.
In defense of John McCain, the one option he brings up on his web-page to help women in crisis is the promotion of adoption for unwanted pregnancies. He shares his own personal story of him and his wife Cindy McCain adopting a little girl in 1993 from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. As stated on the website, “As president, motivated by his personal experience, John McCain will seek ways to promote adoption as a first option for women struggling with a crisis pregnancy. In the past, he cosponsored legislation to prohibit discrimination against families with adopted children, to provide adoption education, and to permit tax deductions for qualified adoption expenses, as well as to remove barriers to interracial and inter-ethnic adoptions”(JohnMcCain.com).
Yet this doesn’t seem like enough. John McCain mentions nothing of the current high rise of pregnancies across the nation. His only options for them that he spells out on his page is adoption or helping her bring the baby into the world. As he says on his site; “However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby” (JohnMcCain.com) Nothing is noted on his website about prevention, sexual education, or access to birth control pills, and he absolutely will overturn the option of abortion.
In reality John McCain undoubtedly always tries to avoid questions on the topic of women’s reproductive leaving women voters with no real facts to go on. He has consigned the Bush administrations policy of only abstinence as the form of sexual education. John McCain is so opposed to contraception, the one thing that can avoid the rising pregnancies in the nation and prevent abortions, and still he voted against having insurance plans to cover it. And, rarely can the Senator McCain conveniently remember how he voted. If John McCain was voted in as President, women’s rights would slide back to the time before 1973 when abortion first became legal and birth control pills became more accessible. If women’s reproductive rights are pushed back thirty-five years it will only “drive them into back alleys where they became dangerous, expensive, and humiliating. Thousands of American women died and thousands more were maimed before abortion was legal. For this reason and others, women and men fought for and achieved women's legal right to make their own decisions about abortion.” (Planned Parenthood). American women voters truly need to read into the facts they are fed on the internet and TV and with just a little cross-checking they could find where John McCain stands on some of these vital issues and find out what he really means when he leaves issues intentionally unclear and buying many of their votes unknowingly.
-Crystal Ainardi
Cooper, Michael. "Sex, Drugs and Insurance :[National Desk]. " New York Times [New York, N.Y.] 10 Jul 2008, Late Edition (East Coast): A.19. ProQuest National Newspapers Core. ProQuest. 7 Aug. 2008 http://www.proquest.com/
McCain, John. August 9, 2008 “Human Dignity and Life” John McCain.com http://www.johnmccain.com/
Planned Parenthood. “Know John McCain” Planned Parenthood © 2008 Planned Parenthood® Action Fund, Inc. 9 Aug 2008 http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/campaigns/know-john-mccain-122.htm
Stephanie Simon. "Currents: Treating the Pill as Abortion, Draft Regulation Stirs Debate. " Wall Street Journal [New York, N.Y.] 31 Jul 2008, Eastern edition: A.11. ProQuest National Newspapers Core. ProQuest. 7 Aug. 2008
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