[fla-left] Women's Lives Endangered (fwd)

["Michael Hoover" <hoov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> --------- Begin forwarded message ----------
>
> Subject: Women's Lives Endangered by Catholic Takeover
> of Tamps Bay Area Hospitals
>
> Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 19:50:26 -0400 (EDT)
>
> NOWnet, The Florida NOW Feminist Communication Network 1-888-5-FLANOW
> sent in by Toni Van Pelt, President, Florida NOW vanpelt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> -------------------------------------------------------
> We heaved a sigh of relief when Roe V Wade became the law of the land. We
> are proud the Florida Constitution allows women of all ages the
> constitutional right to privacy to make decisions about their
> reproductive health care and childbearing.
>
> We all know of the Christian Coalition's war against women's equality,
> abortion and birth control. After all, according to their beliefs, they
> have the bible and they have god on their side. They prize an egg, a
> zygote, an embryo, a fetus above woman. And so they have reasoned they
> have godly permission to war against Floridian Women. They want to come
> into our lives and decide when and if we can have birth control. They
> want to force women to continue unwanted pregnancies... they want to
> place our well-being... health and lives in jeopardy, to satisfy their
> fetal worship.
>
> We are cognizant of their tactics to seed the nation's state and federal
> legislatures with rabid anti-abortion fundamentalists. We are aware of
> their plan to replace members of our judicial system with their minions.
> We know of their efforts to ghettoize women's health care clinics and
> their crusade to shut them down by purchasing the property adjacent to
> the clinics and harassing, screaming and yelling at the patients and
> clinic owners. We track their violent web sites, stalkings and wanted
> posters attacking doctors. We realize they give arsonist, fire bombers
> and murderers a wink and a nod and then make statements that they are
> non-violent and pro-life.
>
> But we were shocked to read of the religious takeover of most of our bay
> area community hospitals by the Catholic Church under the cover of the
> BayCare Alliance. The secrecy and stealth involved in this deal is
> despicable. The kowtowing of hospital officials to the Catholic doctrine
> of female submissiveness is frightening. As recently reported in the
> Guardian Newspaper of London, UK, "A world that does not encourage men to
> be more virile and women to be more feminine is not the world God wants,"
> reveals Msgr Cormac Burke, an official of the Vatican's marriage
> tribunal.
>
> Their message is clear....pregnancy, and childbearing are the primary and
> only valid reasons for women's existence. Even mothering and nurturing
> existing children takes a back seat to delivery, at any and all costs to
> the woman.
>
> To have a representative of the Vatican, in this case, a nun, make these
> most private decisions of women is frightening. The fact that the
> Catholics hold themselves in a position of authority over Bay area women
> and their health care decisions is unconscionable and must be stopped
> immediately.
>
> It takes courage to stand up and speak out against the fundamentalist,
> patriarchal, religious agenda. Florida NOW members and her Tampa Bay Area
> chapters, will be vocal and vigilant until this fundamentalist, zealot
> control is stamped out of our hospitals.
>
> We are here to defend women's freedom and equality. And to witness and
> avow women and their life decisions are primary and of first importance
> to eggs, zygotes, embryos and fetuses.
>
> Toni Van Pelt President
> FL National Organization for Women, Inc.
> vanpelt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 727 393-4676B