Good article Ladd, I like how you called out the hypocrisy of "conservatives" today.

Great column. The wealthy have always had access to birth control and abortion. Criminalizing these practices basically just means taking them away from everyone else. When it comes to national politics, "values" voters should remember what happened under the Bush administration, which championed culture war only until it won the election. Then, it went ahead with its big business agenda, throwing them scraps like the Terry Schiavo circus. It's a cynical exploitation of people who are mostly genuine in their beliefs--genuine but grossly misguided. The problem for the true believers is that a jihad against women's rights can't actually win in the long run. It can't win because it's incredibly unpopular. Why haven't they passed a constitutional amendment banning abortion? Because such an amendment cannot pass. At the same time, I have to imagine that business interests are getting awfully queasy about the Santorum surge, because he would almost certainly lose badly in a national election and take down the Republican House with him. Conservatives use dog whistle politics because coming right out in the open with such views destroys their chances with the 60+ percent of the population who disagree. But now a lot of this stuff is coming out into the open, and they will reap the whirlwind.

Great column as well. I hadn't thought about the slavery angle to this debate over women's rights, but if you think about it, it's pretty much all men who're trying to make women second-class citizens. Why else were no women called to testify in front of Congressman Darrell Issa's dog-and-pony show, er, committee hearing last week? Why else would the commonwealth of Virginia even consider forcing women who wanted an abortion to go through an extremely invasive, medically unnecessary ultrasound? All the while, these are the same conservatives who rail against government intrusion into our lives. I don't know why the GOP chooses to fight such a losing battle.

The Civil War was about preservation of the union in the north; in the south it was about slavery. The abrogation of women's rights is about foisting an ill thought, narrow minded misconception of religious ideas to some legislators and state politicians. But to women, and to my more enlightened and thoughtful fellow men, it is about nothing more than the abrogation of women's rights. That's a kind assessment. The more draconian interpretation is, it's still about slavery. Women are not property that can be regulated by legislative fiat. To the politicians I say, get your context right.

Great Article, Ladd. Your analysis of this attempt by these men as "womb politics" is right on the money. I also believe that this movement is about wealth, greed. power and control. MS has a Republican controlled House and Senate. Our Governor is Republican and so is the LT. Gov. Women of all races, creed and color must join forces with other women in the US to stop this madness. This is a war that women can and WILL WIN. Have you noticed the number of male sexual enhancement products that are on the market and with almost constant TV Ad coverage? From Cealis(sp) to Elongate...all the way to the bath tub. These products are paid for by most insurance companies,yet, women are having to fight a war to be able to have family planning methods.

Outstanding article Donna! I continue to be amazed at how stupid the Koch brothers and other powers in the Republican Party assume we are! We can't continue down the road much longer as sheeple for the profits of the few.

Keep hate... er I mean hope alive right Donna? You and the CL share the same mission statement of dividing the races. Every once in a while I come over here and it's the same thing, you as the self appointed condecending champion of the black race in Mississippi. Draggin up the past if you can't find something today. Ignoring the facts, statistics and most of all anyone with a different opinion as you'll exhibit here as soon as you read this if you print it. I don't think anyone needs you to speak for them but you seem to think they cannot speak for themselves so have at it sister. I'll be back in a few months if you haven't cancelled me.

Alex, first, I appreciate your permission to "have at it," but I don't need your blessing to talk about my rights, or to speak frankly about history, race or otherwise. Draggin up the past if you can't find something today. With due respect, that is the language of bigots and apologists (or both, if the shoe fits) and the ignorant who don't want us talking about history that makes you uncomfortable. That is EXACTLY the history we need to talk about—the kind that wadn't put in our history books because it makes dudes like you uncomfortable. Your response is exactly why we must and will keep talking about history until far more people are educated about the effects of it. The irony of this particular whine of yours is that I'm using facts about the past to be anything but divisive—women of all races in America have much in common, and a whole lot of it has to do with (some) men using our bodies for their own political and economic purposes. I hate to tell you this, but you can't erase (or make us not talk about history) just because you say we shouldn't. And guess what? Everything I wrote about in that column is NOT just black history, nor does it have anything to do with just being a "champion of the black race in Mississippi," even though I sure don't take that as an insult. (Reminds me of when Richard Barrett called me an "integrationist" on his website, presumably as an insult. Joke on him.) Let me be clear, Alex, so you get it right going forward; I am a critic of white supremacy in Mississippi and what it has done to every single damn one of us. Many white people still benefit from it, and thus discussion of the real history is going to make those folks uncomfortable or even angry, or they're so ashamed of the past that they think we should put our shared history in a lockbox. So be it. There are much bigger concerns here than whether or not discussing history makes someone uncomfortable. That is the least of my worries, and it will never guide my editorial decisions or my work. The really tragic approach of your desire—that we bury our race history back in the past—is that is also buries the complexity and allows so many people (especially African Americans) to think that every white person was complicit. We don't talk about our real history, and we have no understanding. We have no idea why things are the way they are now, and why some folks have been able to build more wealth than others. Often, it's because they stole the land, or bought it from someone who stole it, and then used and bred slave labor to develop it. And that land, friend, has never become a level playing field. Learning and/or admitting that is a form of love and compassion and a way to figure out how to solve our state's problems and divides -- not further "division" or hate. Only someone who thinks that divisiveness is cured by lies and ignorance would dare charge such a thing. (And if you read "The Healing," which I reference above, you will see how everyone involved really was living "in hell," even if it financially benefitted the planter; what a horrible, stupid, cruel life those fools led. There is nothing glorious about the Old South and its ways; nothing to be proud of there.) We must move forward—by using our history to inform the how and the why and the what-next. If not, we will continue stumbling in the dark, divide firmly in place, as we keep our position at the bottom of the U.S. barrel. THAT is not OK with me, no matter how many of you there are still out there trying to forget the past. So come on back any time. We'll be here having the same level of in-depth conversation, steeped in the context of history. I urge you to join in rather than trying to hush us. Because, you know, that ain't gonna happen.

BTW, I doubt seriously that the mission statements of The Clarion-Ledger and the JFP have anything in common. They've done some good work in the past to help put old Klansmen in jail, but I can't think of anything substantive I've read there (or seen reported) that really puts our complex history in context or that does anything to actually further racial reconciliation. In fact, quite the opposite. The Clarion-Ledger's mission, clearly, is to make as much money off the poor ignorant fools down here in Mississippi to send back to Virginia and Gannett's shareholders, and that applies to their free and party-pic publications such as VIP Jackson. If they gave a damn about what Mississippians think, there is no way they would have pushed out the Clevelands: one of the dumbest business moves I've ever seen. Oh, and we find plenty to report and discuss today (including the personhood/birth control efforts the above column is actually about). Let's see: flood control, the mess that was Melton, development, arenas, ridiculous politicians of all parties, corruption, school discipline ... I could go on. And trust me, our coverage on those issues and many others have left some folks of all races mad at us. Your defensive dog just don't hunt, Alex.

I was having a very interesting conversation with a co-worker last week about generational shame being passed down from mother to daughter. She asked a question that I answered and then not an hour later I read this column and it was about this very thing! She asked me "What do you think was handed down generationally that makes it easier for AA women to, at times, put a man before their children?" I told her the story of slaves having their babies taken from them. How horrific that must have been as a mother. How one probably almost couldn't take the pain of that...constantly giving birth to have it wrenched from you over and over again. It would almost make you stop even trying to love them, wouldn't it? Just to protect that fragile part of every mother that breaks when their baby is taken. The women would be emotionally crippled. As a mother, I cry thinking about it. And then people do not get how this has been handed down and played out. In order to move on in this life, and to help others move on, we have to accept that we caused that. Every single time a white man or a white woman questions the behavior of an African American woman they must know and understand how all of their pasts entertwined in order to created the very behavior they question. Clear as mud?

So.......... because of the babies being taken from their mothers, today, black women pick men over their babies. Basically hardening our hearts toward babies because we know the massa gone come take the baby away. So then generations later, we still don't love our babies and thus pick men over the babies. Is that it in a nutshell? And white women don't do this because they never had to have their babies taken away, right? White women don't have this issue with picking men over their babies....just black women. It's not a woman thing....it's a black woman thing. Right? Am I understanding the struggle of the black woman correctly?

Nope. I'm talking about possible generational effects. White people, women, men have their own--in fact I think men's generational issues were explored by you in your column this week, right?. My example was just from a conversation I was having with a person getting their PhD in AA women and the history of HIV/AIDS epidemic and how generational issues related to health (women's health in particular) affected that. I was just throwing another example out there. Feel free to explore your own.

Not to mention the generational effects of being the mistress or master, and what that would do to your own children and generations to come. We see it play out all the time if we will notice. It's so horrifying. Living in hell, indeed.