From: Bonnie Tillery, NJ Chapter of the Sierra Club
To the editor:
There has been much in the news about the “war against women.” What you haven’t heard is that in Congress, Chris Smith has been leading the attack.
On the floor of the House, he has called birth control pills “baby pesticide.” For the past 32 years he has tried in every way possible to deny women the ability to control their reproductive health by eliminating access to contraceptives, both overseas and right here in New Jersey. While he has been less successful in the United States, he has been quite effective in other countries where I have seen women desperate to control their own fertility so that they can feed, clothe, educate and house the children they already have. He has also been more effective when Republicans control the White House and Congress.
Some will argue that Smith has done great things for women by working against trafficking. Yet, he refuses to address the root cause of people selling their children, especially their daughters, to traffickers. A recent BBC News article tells about a woman in India who gave away her three daughters because they were living in the streets and she couldn’t feed them. Poverty, in many cases exacerbated by women not being able to control their own reproductive health, has to be addressed. Denying women the basic right to decide how many children they will have only makes the problems worse.
To ensure that women can make their own decisions, it is imperative that President Obama be re-elected. However, we also need to give him a Democratic Congress and Senate so we can move forward, not back to a time when women were nothing more than vessels for as many children as their bodies could bear.
Bonnie Tillery
Volunteer Population Issues Coordinator
New Jersey Chapter Sierra Club

