Stimulize this!

Today, the Senate voted to approve Obama's $838 billion stimulus plan. With the Dow tanking, and more and more folks are losing their jobs, this Democrat should be cheering.

And I am, somewhat.

But I'd be cheering a heck of a lot louder if the provision for increased family planning funds -- which would have given low-income women better access to costly contraceptives and other health care procedures -- had not been removed from the bill in an attempt to compromise with conservatives.

To me, this one's a no-brainer. You want to help the economy? Allow a working mother with several kids at home to purchase contraceptives at an affordable price so that she can feed, clothe, and house the children she already has without worrying that there will be yet another mouth to feed in 9 months. Want to create more jobs? Provide a healthcare option that leads to more opportunities for careers in the medical field, better care for patients, and safer pregnancies.

In my opinion, what this all comes down to is a nationwide fear of women's bodies. For some reason, many in our culture appear to be absolutely frightened at the mention of anything involving a vagina. For instance, in my College Writing courses, when I ask students to analyze an advertisement for its negative portrayal of gender roles, they are consistently able to articulate male genitalia but twist themselves in ridiculous knots in trying to avoid saying any word, synonym, or descriptor for female genitalia.

We have some kind of switch in our brains that flips on and causes a light to blink "controversy" whenever we talk about women's reproductive systems. But it doesn't have to be an uncomfortable or controversial issue. It's our bodies, after all. It's our health and our lives.

In addition, it's important to recognize that family planning does not construe a pro-abortion mentality. If both sides of the pro-life and pro-choice aisles are beginning to dialogue on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, we must first recognize that the first and best way to do so is to give women access to contraceptives, regardless of their income level.

This should have been a non-partisan issue, one that left us stimulized to do the right thing and allowed us to envision a plan that would empower women to make responsible choices instead of taking those choices very away from them.