Women's Rights

"A Thousand Splendid Suns" dealt with the issue of women's rights to control their own body just as today in American Society women are having to fight to gain control of their own body.  Women in Afghanistan are sometimes forced into marriages by their family in order for their family to gain money or power.  This inevitably leads to the women losing control of their body because they are forced into having sex with a man who they did not choose to marry or sometimes even permit to touch them.  Mariam and Laila did not want Rasheed to have sex with them.  This, by american law, is considered rape.  Currently in the U.S men, workplaces, and certain political parties are trying to control what a women does with her body.  The abortion debate is over whether a women is allowed to control her reproductive rights.  The pro- life group thinks that she does not because an egg is a life; while the pro- choice says a women has the right to make that choice.  Rape is even now being fought by some to be taken away as an "accpetable" reason to get an abortion.  Abortions are slowly being pushed into the second and third trimesters by laws making women obtain internal ultrasounds and look at the sonogram and get permission from family or spouses.  Under Roe v. Wade, the govenment can not push abortions into the third trimester becuase then they are considered live abortions.  Birth control is also up to debate over if it should be covered by insurance. Taking away this insurance coverage would for some people, take away their right to control their reproductive rights.  Men and the government do not have the right to tell a woman what she is allowed to do with her body.  Nobody questions whether viagra should be covered by insurance becuase viagra is for a man.  Since when is an egg, that has no brain, heart, or any reason to be considered alive, more important than the life of the woman who is bearing that egg? The minute we take away these rights we are at the same level as the islamic countries that force a woman to get married, beat or execute them for being raped, and shun them for not being a virgin on their wedding night.  The more rights we take away from women, the closer we get to this point.  The U.S is a secular country where religion is not allowed to have any bearing on laws made, however religion is being used as one of the main reasons why abortion and birth control should not be allowed or covered by insurance.  In order to advance as a country we have to allow women to have control over what happens with their body.