The Heart of the Matter

Recently, I was reading over Pope John Paul’s “Letter to Women” and I started thinking, “Hey, there is a woman currently running for President. I wonder what Mrs. Clinton has to say to women in America.” So I began to search around the web looking for different articles and what I found surprised me.

While looking at several different blogs, I realized that many women were speaking out against Hillary, holding the view that she does not represent all women. The NPR News Blog began with a blog entitled, “Why does Clinton Turn Some Women Voters Off?” The first blogger quotes a woman name Susan Reynolds who stated that “Hillary holds no appeal to me”. Various other women bloggers agreed. Why would women not want to vote for this woman to be president?

Appeal. I want to argue that Hillary does not appeal to the heart of women. Yes, one can go to her website and click on “A Champion for Women” and one will even find a video of Hillary speaking to women. But what is she saying to women in America? She ensures women that she will fight for higher wages and equal pay with men. She even comments on how the Wimbledon women winners do not make as much as the Wimbledon men winners. However, she is trying to take a stance for “low-income women”.

In her campaign, Hillary takes the stance against “governments that try to control a woman’s reproductive health decisions”. Wow, that sounds great! I don’t want the government to do that either! However, what does that really mean? It means she is advocating that the government should allow abortions if women choose it the best option. This is a big topic, and I do not necessarily want this discussion to be about abortion. However, her website states that “she believes the right to privacy is a fundamental right, and that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare”, taking her husband’s stance when he was in office. I would like to contend she is making a very strong argument here. If you believe that man (and woman) is made for the government, than Hillary’s statement would seem reasonable. On the flipside, since the government is actually made for man (and woman), Hillary seems to be addressing an issue concerning the right to life with little concern for the inherent dignity of man (and woman).

When Hillary was specifically questioned about abortion during the summer of 2007, she argued that she would like to see the pro-life and pro-choice movements reach a “common ground”. That’s a great idea. However, there needs to be dialogue about what human life actually is. Without this agreement, the two worldviews will clash because they have different definitions. This is a moral issue that directly affects women and without knowing what life really is, how can you represent the women that give life?

Here is another statement Hillary makes to women, this time college women. One interesting proposal that Senator Clinton gives for unintended pregnancies which affects college women and students would be to restore the discount for birth control on college campuses and community health centers. She argues that college students are now spending more money on contraceptives and therefore “cutting down their budget for food”. This idea seems to give me the idea that college women are not smart enough to choose between food and sex that we need some sort of bill to cut down the price of birth control so that we can eat. Yikes!

Maybe these different issues turn women off from voting for Hillary. Maybe there are other reasons. At the same conference in 1995 where Hillary declared her famous line that “women’s rights are human rights”, another figure was promoting another view of femininity which speaks more to the heart of every woman. The Pope urges:

“You can see then, dear sisters, that the Church has many reasons for hoping that the forthcoming United Nations Conference in Beijing will bring out the full truth about women. Necessary emphasis should be placed on the "genius of women", not only by considering great and famous women of the past or present, but also those ordinary women who reveal the gift of their womanhood by placing themselves at the service of others in their everyday lives. For in giving themselves to others each day women fulfill their deepest vocation. Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts. They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and limitations; they try to go out to them and help them. In this way the basic plan of the Creator takes flesh in the history of humanity and there is constantly revealed, in the variety of vocations, that beauty-not merely physical, but above all spiritual-which God bestowed from the very beginning on all, and in a particular way on women.”

I know that I have brought up several different issues here. Equally, I do not mean to criticize Mrs. Clinton. However, if she is running as a “Champion for Women”, I hope she will address more than just unequal pay and women’s “reproductive health”. I want someone who speaks to my heart.