I thought I'd emerge from storm drama to engage in another pressing issue - the election. I was really moved today by Mike Bloomberg's bold endorsement of President Obama, not because I have an unexplainable attraction to the Mayor, but because his endorsement centers on precisely the issues I find most important; climate change, rights for gays, health care, gun control and abortion....

Barbara Comstock, an advisor to the Romney campaign, was on the radio last week answering questions for NPR. When asked about Mitt Romney's stand on abortion and women's rights the advisor (she!) said that that was not an important issue to voters...that voters wanted to hear about jobs. About the economy.

JOBS THE ECONOMY JOBS THE ECONOMY JOBS THE ECONOMY JOBS THE

Listening to this bobblehead of a woman talking on the radio I nearly wrecked on the west side highway. I came home and started reading the Romney website:

Mitt Romney is pro-life. He believes it speaks well of the country that almost all Americans recognize that abortion is a problem. And in the quiet of conscience, people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America. [My blackened heart just started to race]
Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade – a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. [WOW] With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.
Mitt supports the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. As president, he will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is an absolutely vital organization devoted to women's health. How has it come to be demonized?

I have depended on Planned Parenthood. It is nothing but a safe, convenient and reliable haven for information and affordable contraception. Nothing but a good place for women. The type of organization that civilized nations like ours should fund.

The religiously zealous pro-life jargon put forth by the political right is so typically male to me. It feels like another century, another country - one in which women are kept from making their own decisions. It's insulting - and it's also a ruse. The 'sanctity of life' is a guise for a very male problem -- not being able to control women.

Further, to gloss over the issue as less important than jobs and the economy is a cop-out. Women without access to family planning and health care become disadvantaged in our economy and ultimately weigh it down. But this argument - regardless of its strength - is unsettling to me. I don't want my reproductive rights lumped in with economic issues. They are intrinsic and should be out of the political realm all together...but we are still so far from that day.

A Romney administration would squander the work of generations of women; putting us back in the kitchen making meatloaf for our husbands like poor Anne Romney. Good grief!