Breast cancer not only affects a woman, it affects her spouse, family, friends and most especially her children.  What better way to conquer fear than the grace of hope.  Hope in a cure.  Hope in prevention.  Hope that whatever it is they will be challenged with, that they will be able to surmount it and live their lives to fullest each day into their survivorship. 

This is part 1 of a two part post on breast cancer.  Today, I focus on the hope in a cure.   

We all hear that 1 in 8 women, or 12.5% of women, will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. That is the cumulative lifetime risk for breast cancer. It is a statistically derived number that assumes all women will live to be the age of 82 and not die of something else first. Many times, women hear that number 1 in 8 and they look about the room and start counting off: “1, 2, 3” and they believe that someone in that room will get breast cancer if there are more than 8 of them. 

But we also need to know that if a women has no risks for breast cancer (other than that she is a woman, living in this country and getting older) her risk of getting breast cancer is only 3.3%.

Unfortunately few women have no risk factors.  But even if she has a risk factor that increases her risk 100%, or doubles her breast cancer risk, her risk is now only 6.6%.  That’s a lot different from one in eight. 

We also need to hear that a woman’s chance of dying from breast cancer in this country is 1 in 35, or less than 3%. 

So can we really hope for a cure?

 Most women are unaware that it’s already happening.  Lots of women are being cured without great fanfare. You see, one is only officially cured of breast cancer when one dies of something else first, like a heart attack in old age. That’s just how statistics are done and reported.  We hear about 5 and 10 year survival rates.  Maybe some 10 year survivors will have a relapse of cancer.  So we have to wait until they die of something else first before we say they were cured.

But what about women who have stage 0 breast cancer, also known as ductal carcinoma in situ or DCIS? With a partial mastectomy and radiation, they have a 97% cure rate.  With mastectomy they have a 99.9% cure rate.  No chemotherapy is needed to cure them. According to the American Cancer Society, there were 62,280 women diagnosed with in-situ breast cancer in 2009. We can expect that a minimum of 60,411 to be cured!  We just can’t know who they are until they die of something else first.

What about women with Stage 1 invasive breast cancers? Those are the women with small tumors, less than ¾ of an inch, which have not spread to the lymph nodes under the arm. Those women have a 95% cure rate. Since there are many patients with Stage 1 breast cancer treated at my clinic, I would expect the vast majority to be cured with present treatment regimens.

At the Steeplechase Cancer Center where I work, 53% of all patients who are found to have cancer were detected just because they went for a screening mammogram – nobody thought they had cancer when they were screened.  Slightly over half, 53%, were Stage 0 and Stage 1.  That’s why mammograms are so important.  They give women excellent odds for a cure and no bookie would take a bet against them. 

Based upon data when treatment wasn’t as sophisticated and effective as it is now, the 5 year survival rate for tumors up to 2 inches and which had already spread to local lymph nodes, or Stage 2 breast cancers, is 86%.  So I do believe there will be even higher cure rates in the future. 

Tomorrow, we will take a look at the hope in prevention of breast cancer.

Stand Up for Religious Freedom San Francisco rally took place on Friday, March 23 at the Federal Building Plaza.  It was one of the 140 rallies held on Friday across the country, coast to coast.  Armed with copies of the Women Speak for Themselves open letter to President Obama, Michele Coldiron and her fellow New Feminists gathered over 250 signatures.  I spoke at the rally and offered the New Feminist perspective on the HHS mandate.

Good afternoon everyone! I am here to talk to you as a FEMINIST.

I am a lawyer and a feminist:  a New Feminist.  I come from a long line of authentic feminists who caused change in this country: ending slavery and child labor, treating the poor with compassion, securing the right to vote for women. 

These authentic feminists caused change because of their religious convictions.  Susan B. Anthony fought for the right of women to vote from her religious conviction that God gave women the same dignity as men. Katharine Drexel fought racism and the Ku Klux Klan from a religious conviction that God made all persons with equal dignity. 

I could stand here all day and go through long list of women who changed this country because they acted upon their religious convictions.  These are women – like all of the women here today – who say, “I cannot just sit around and talk about my religious convictions.  That’s ridiculous.”  Religious conviction without action, without the right to act upon it, is hot air.

President Obama wants to take away the right to act, the right of Catholics and people of faith to act upon their religious convictions regarding abortion and contraception.  He wants the Catholics to go to the back of the bus and stay there.  He wants them to stay in the back of the bus and chat among themselves.     

I am a Catholic and I do not want to go to the back of the bus.  I don’t want my bus fare to pay for abortions and contraception that I know are bad for women, men, children and families.  I know these are wrong through my religious convictions. 

You may not agree with me about my religious convictions, but I think you will agree that I have a right to say so and to act upon my religious convictions.

President Obama and Secretary Sebelius think my religious convictions on these issues are nothing but hot air.  They should know better.  They should remember Rosa Parks.  In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to stay in the back of the bus.  She was a woman of religious conviction and action.

One day Rosa Parks said, “No, I will not go to the back of the bus today.  I will never go to the back of the bus again.” 

Every woman here today, every single one of you is just like Rosa Parks.  We are women like Rosa Parks and we are sitting down in the front of the bus today. We are demanding our right to act upon our religious convictions. 

Being here today means you are a woman of action and a woman of faith. Nearly 25,000 women of action and women of faith have signed a letter to President Obama demanding our rights to practice our faith in public.  We want you to join us and sign the letter.  There are women in the crowd who can give you a copy of the letter and take your signature.  Or you can go to www.WomenSpeakForThemselves.org and sign the letter.

It’s short and sweet and to the point. 

We are women who support the competing voice offered by Catholic institutions on matters of sex, marriage and family life. Most of us are Catholic, but some are not. We are Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Many, at some point in our careers, have worked for a Catholic institution. We are proud to have been part of the religious mission of that school, or hospital, or social service organization. We are proud to have been associated not only with the work Catholic institutions perform in the community – particularly for the most vulnerable — but also with the shared sense of purpose found among colleagues who chose their job because, in a religious institution, a job is always also a vocation.

Those currently invoking “women’s health” in an attempt to shout down anyone who disagrees with forcing religious institutions or individuals to violate deeply held beliefs are more than a little mistaken, and more than a little dishonest. Even setting aside their simplistic equation of “costless” birth control with “equality,” note that they have never responded to the large body of scholarly research indicating that many forms of contraception have serious side effects, or that some forms act at some times to destroy embryos, or that government contraceptive programs inevitably change the sex, dating and marriage markets in ways that lead to more empty sex, more non-marital births and more abortions. It is women who suffer disproportionately when these things happen.

No one speaks for all women on these issues. Those who purport to do so are simply attempting to deflect attention from the serious religious liberty issues currently at stake. Each of us, Catholic or not, is proud to stand with the Catholic Church and its rich, life-affirming teachings on sex, marriage and family life. We call on President Obama and our Representatives in Congress to allow religious institutions and individuals to continue to witness to their faiths in all their fullness.

Please join us.  Please sign this letter.  Refuse to take your religious convictions to the back of President Obama’s bus.

What does it say about a society which permits, no, which condones the use of medicine and technology for the sole purpose of creating human life just to destroy it? It says we are a culture that has morally lost its way.

My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult’s novel turned film takes on an important and real-life issue known as “savior sibling.”

A “savior sibling” refers to the creation of a genetically matched human being, in order to be the savior of a sick child in need of a donor. This requires creating human embryos in vitro, then, using pre-implantation technology, the embryos are tested, and the one deemed genetically compatible is implanted into the mother’s womb. Once that baby is delivered, the cord blood is collected because it provides a perfect match for the sick sibling. Later on, bone marrow, blood, or even organs, can also be taken and used for transplantation for the sick sibling.

Savior siblings are already a reality, and the use of such practices in the United States is not prohibited. Adam Nash is a well-known savior sibling in the U.S. Adam was born in 2000 to rescue his sister Mollie, who was diagnosed with Fanconi’s anemia. Mollie would have otherwise succumbed to death if not for a matched donor. The Nashes created 30 embryos and went through four rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF) to finally produce Adam. Of course, the ethics of the disposition of the 29 other embryos is quite problematic. Adam was chosen, 29 other human lives were not, simply because their DNA was not able to rescue Mollie from a deadly diagnosis.

In Picoult’s story, the film opens with a voice-over narration of Anna Fitzgerald, the savior sibling. Anna describes herself as a “designer baby.” Note to self: Beware of euphemisms. Euphemisms are rampant in the world of IVF. Selective reduction refers to a situation in which many embryos are transferred into a mother’s womb, and then if too many of them implant, the physician, (with the parents’ consent), removes the “extra” embryos. Family balancing, social sex-selection and gender selection are terms used to discuss the use of these technologies to intentionally select your children based on their sex and your preference for a boy or a girl. The practice of social sex-selection is banned in Canada, so Canadians who wish to order the sex of their children come to the U.S. Surely these are symptoms of a culture in decline!

Anna Fitzgerald, the self-described designer baby — designer not as in Prada, or Gucci — was designed for the purpose of being the donor for her sick sister, Kate. Anna suggests that the doctors took the best part of her mom’s DNA and the best part of her dad’s DNA and voila — the perfect match was made. If we as a society are going to be able to have an earnest conversation on the ethics of creating savior siblings, we must be intellectually honest with the facts. Embryos — as in multiple embryos, were created, and then tested, and only the one that would provide the genetic match was brought to term. The other embryos were discarded.

And here is the heart of the ethical matter. Technology, apart from any ethics, has progressed to the point where, for the first time in history, we are able to intentionally create human life and allow it to fully develop solely because we need that life to save another. And perhaps even more worrisome is the reality that other lives were created and destroyed because they did not meet the need of another. In our desire to relieve suffering, seek healing, and avoid death, we have crossed a bright ethical line by seeking to use one human life for the good of another.

Whether we look for moral guidance from our religious texts or to secular historical documents, it is important that we as a society remain rooted in the belief in the inherent dignity of all persons. The U.N. Declaration on Human Rights warns that wherever there is “disregard and contempt for human rights,” “barbarous acts” are sure to follow. Surely, the rights of the savior sibling have been denied when from their first breath they are being used as a means to an end.

Early in the film, Anna hires an attorney and announces, “I want to sue my parents for the rights to my own body.” From the moment of birth, she has been denied the full rights to her own body, and to willingly and freely be her sister’s keeper.

So what is holistic health, and how can women on all sides of the issue come to practice it?

Holistic health is not just eating organically or not eating organically. For if holistic health only accounts for the food we put into our bodies, it is not truly holistic. To be holistic, we must view the human being as a whole—not as many parts. We must see all of that whole—mind, body, soul—as valuable, and perhaps even sacred. Holistic health takes into account consequences to any part of the self or to those outside of the self. It only allows for harm if harm is an unintended consequence of a good action. It never allows for harm for the sake of some good outcome.

To treat the body holistically is to constantly pursue that which is good for the human being with regard for that human being’s total self. If we are splitting the self into parts—seeking the good for only the body, only the mind, or only the soul—then we are not fulfilling the duty we have to our loved ones and to ourselves.

And so I challenge those who fall into the category of the stereotypical holistic health promoters: be more holistic. To those mothers concerned with their children’s fruit and vegetable intake versus their sugar intake—be concerned also with their good intake versus their evil intake and admit that such a distinction exists just as clearly, if not more. For I can guarantee you, from a holistic health perspective, the evil will actually cause more harm than the sugar. To those women (and men) who avidly practice yoga and meditation to bring balance to their bodies and spirits: learn and master the practice of virtue to bring balance to everything. Although I’m pretty sure yoga is helpful, I know with full certainty that virtue is.

The other day I was talking with my friend on the phone about green smoothies. We were sharing tips and various health advice and after getting off the phone with her I thought about how nice it is that we can encourage and even challenge each other in our pursuit of bodily health. But then I immediately thought of how much luckier I am for the conversations I’ve had with her and other friends about our pursuits of moral health. Because this type of conversation is all too rare.  In fact, such conversations among friends have become fairly taboo. We figure that moral decisions should be completely up to the individual and that we shouldn’t meddle. And yet, we find it entirely appropriate to meddle in peoples’ health decisions. Most mothers haven’t stopped taking their kids to the doctor. But many mothers have stopped taking their kids to church. Most girlfriends work out together and give each other tips on staying in shape, but most girlfriends don’t give each other substantial tips about how to stay married or how to find deep fulfillment in life. Something seems to be terribly out of balance! (And anything out of balance should not be allowed within the ideology of holistic health.)

And on the other side of the spectrum—those who see the hypocrisy of the stereotypical natural health gurus and therefore completely dismiss such ideologies—I challenge you as well to be truly holistic in your thinking. I speak to the moms who do mind what comes out of their kids’ mouths… but don’t mind so much about what goes into them. Or those who take their children to church, but don’t take their children to see different doctors when maybe the mainstream one isn’t taking into consideration the child’s whole body perspective. To this group (and I used to be part of it)—you know the body is a temple. And that’s not just a quote to encourage fifteen-year- old girls to be modest. It means that God gave you something very precious to take care of and it is your solemn duty to do so. Do whatever research, get whatever second opinions you need—find out how it is best to take care of that temple and do it well. Be open minded because we don’t fully understand the body yet and there are always new ideas coming out about how we can better take care of it. Don’t be stubborn and lazy. Don’t snicker at the juice-drinking, bra-less yoga teacher when she stands on her head. She may have a virtue that you don’t have. Sure, you may have some she doesn’t have. But both the body and soul are important, and as one who understands the soul you should know well the duty you have to your body.

Unfortunately, I cannot find the speaker of this quote, nor the quote in its correct form. But I once read a quote on a tea bag said by an Asian philosopher and it went something like this: Your body is the only house your soul will ever have. If you destroy your body, where will you go? I think it makes a good point to those who like to think they can eat, drink, and exercise or not exercise however they like as long as they go to church on Sunday. Conversely, I know of a Jewish philosopher who once said: What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? I also think that this quote makes a wonderful point to those who like to think they can act however they feel according to their changing and relative morality, as long as they attend their yoga classes, drink their juice, and recycle their plastics.

Being holistic isn’t easy. I’m always finding glitches in my program and gaps in my life where I’m not reaching the good for my whole self. Being holistic can be frustrating, and sometimes it may not seem worth it. I’m sitting here typing and my back and legs hurt from the fibromyalgia pain I can’t seem to cure. My head also hurts because I haven’t developed the discipline to go to bed earlier and get the sleep I need. And my soul? What about the courage and patience I wish I had more of? Sometimes I wonder if any of it is progressing at all. But I am ever reminded that holistic health is not a result, but instead, a way of life. Holistic health won’t always “cure” everything. In fact, it may not seem to “cure” anything—and that is in no way our fault. As soon as we worry about the specific results, we become compartmentalized in our thinking and miss the point. And what is that point? That we do the best we can. Because in the end holistic health is about love. About sacrificially loving everyone and everything who has been entrusted to us completely and entirely. And that love has the potential to lift the human person above and beyond the sickness, (even if the sickness remains). The attitude of holistic health won’t always cure, but it will bring about true peace for the whole self, even when the parts may be disjointed, stubborn, or falling apart. It is an attitude that actually sees beyond death—and into a time when everything will be made whole again.

So let us, for the sake of ourselves and all who depend on us, think and act holistically.

About eight years ago my mom tried acupuncture – and it changed my life.

At first, I protested, NOOOO YOU CAN’T!! THAT’S NEW AGE! But one of her doctors had highly recommended acupuncture and pointed to some science to back it up. My mom wasn’t selling her soul to anything, and it was worth trying if it could help her feel better.  But I remained as skeptical of acupuncture as I was about all the environmental/health issues which we often associate with liberalism, new age-ism, and/or radical feminism.

Now, just a few years later, I am a pescatarian, gluten-free eater, acupuncture client, whole foods-shopper, seasonal eater, backyard garden grower, almost completely raw diet eater, herb user, and in the process, have almost cured my Crohn’s disease and many other bodily ailments.  Perhaps more important than any of these cures is the realization I came to during these past years.

I already knew that women tend to be the ones most concerned with our health. (Yes, sometimes it’s the men who are the health conscience ones in the family—but not usually.) We are the mothers, the wives, the sisters; the ones who make sure we eat our greens and brush our teeth and go for our yearly physicals. As my fiancé remarked the other day, “I see now why men get so unhealthy when they’re single… I can’t wait till we’re married and you’ll make me eat healthy.” And it’s true. My fiancé completely supports my pursuit of holistic health, but on many occasions, when left to his own devices, his meal may consist of string cheese and gummy worms.

My realization instead was this:  Holistic health has been associated with the wrong group of women. It is actually not in line with the manifestos of those who preach relativism, new age religion, or those who demand birth control insured by their employer.

In fact, if you use birth control to control birth, you are not thinking about health in a holistic way. You are thinking about health in a compartmentalized and short-term way. To take the morning after pill, to preach that abortion, premarital sex, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, and the like are relative issues, and then to insist that parabens in shampoo are bad for you or that it is best to eat locally is very contradictory.

Conversly, while there is hypocrisy among the stereotypical holistic health promoters, there is hypocrisy also among those on the other side. There are those Catholics, Christians, conservatives, etc who have no interest in or may be close minded toward the holistic health movement or health in general. As I will later address, these are the people who, according to their doctrine, ought to be most in favor of holistic health.

As women, we are born nurturers. It is a biological fact. And for the rest of our lives, people, including ourselves, will depend on us and come to us for care and healing—whether it be our children, our husbands, our boyfriends, our friends, our mothers, our fathers. Thus it is our responsibility to open our minds, whichever side we are already on, and consider what is best for the total well being of those we love.

To be continued in my next post.

I continue my post whether Feminists can dialogue from yesterday, when I described, I hope fairly, Trend One, Progressive Feminists. 

Trend Two, New Feminists.  Here fall many women who have taken birth control pills, had abortions, practiced promiscuity, marched, screamed and shouted at sexist, porker pigs – and then changed their minds, reemerging as New Feminists.  Many of us are so similar to Trend One women in education, background, experience and privilege that no demographic can sort us neatly.  Trend Two includes women who did not go the route of Progressive Feminist but who have appreciated and defended many of the legal and cultural achievements of the original American feminists, and who were not side tracked by agendas to neutralize, denigrate or, now, commoditize women’s fertility and the mother-child relationship.

Some Trend Two women have reported religious conversions or experiences that resolved anger or dissonance.  Others have concluded that Mother Nature had a far greater hand in creating differences between the sexes than could fairly be blamed upon sexist, porker pigs and that the progressive feminist movement had become oddly determined to make women into better men than men.  Many Trend Two women object that girls and young women are being encouraged in lifestyles and choices that lead to emotional and physical illnesses later in life.  Trend Two women often say that they could no longer pretend that a tiny fetus with a beating heart was not a child; and that being a mother and wife brought out very powerful feminine attributes that benefit all of humanity.  

Some Trend Two women parted company with Trend One thinking to resolve a nagging discomfort with moral relativism – a relativism that seems to threaten humanity with a pre-modern domination by a superior, worthier class. This blog, www.NewFeminism.co, for example, is dedicated to such a Trend Two woman, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.  Professor Fox-Genovese wrote of her own taking leave with her Trend One senses,

[M]y commitment to women’s right to develop their talents predisposed me to support the legality of abortion, at least up to a certain point. Even then, I found it impossible not to take seriously the life of the fetus that was being so casually cast aside. The emerging discussions of assisted suicide only intensified my discomfort, as I found myself worrying about one human being deciding whether another’s life is worth living. “How do we know?” I kept asking myself. “How ever can we know?”

An interesting example of a Trend Two woman is the wife of Kelly’s “Mad Man”, jerk and dinosaur, Rick Santorum.  That “wife” is actually a well educated woman whose life and background speak volumes about the assumptions still driving Trend One passions.  Subject of a recent Trend One hit piece by Nancy Hass, it turns out the Karen Garvey Santorum was once pro-choice and progressive, the live-in girlfriend of a Pittsburgh abortionist.  In a more thoughtful consideration of her rejection of both abortion and the abortionist she lived with, and her decision to embrace an orthodox Catholic lifestyle, the New York Times set Ms. Garvey’s transformation in the complex relational context that have lead many Trend One women to question, and even abandon, the basic Trend One assumption that unrestricted individualism offers the primary path of female fulfillment.  That context included meeting and falling in love with Rick Santorum who, himself, was not practicing religion at the time or asserting the conservative positions that would emerge from his partnership and marriage with Ms. Garvey.

> > > > > >

I can count among prominent women leadership in America today dozens of Trend Two women, running nonprofits, winning political office, writing and speaking on social issues facing women.  Steadily the voices of Trend Two women are being raised in search of policies that preserve feminine qualities, protect the unique role of women within families and regard female fertlity – and the female body – as worthy of protection as the environment itself.  

It is unsettling that the greatest opposition and scorn to women’s “new” feminism voices come from other women.

The lack of nuance and basic respect by Trend One commentators toward “Beatrices” (see yesterday’s post), non-Western (often religious) women and women who question Trend One assumptions, brings to mind a note our daughter once received from the “most popular” girl in the 6^th grade class of her new school.  The note read:

You’ve been here 2 months.  It’s almost Christmas break.  You need to know that me and my friends do not like you.

The prevailing Trend One message is equally transparent:  the “Beatrices” of the world – no matter how faithful and loyal in their work and families – as well as Trend Two women – no matter how educated or accomplished – know that Trend One women do not “like” any us.  Trend Two women have been criticized, snubbed, yelled at and called rather vicious names, often on the Internet and in public – often by people who we thought once were friends.  It’s a stark fact that Trend Two women, New Feminists, often raise their questions and concerns at the cost of friendships and professional relationships they held dear. 

That, however, does not change our experiences and our wish that Trend One women would stop blaming a vast right wing conspiracy of Alpha males for opinions that are originating and resonating with other women.  Trend Two women invite Trend One women to step up to the pressing need for dialogue among women, about women.  We could start, for example, with the elimination of girls through abortion worldwide.  

So I ask again, can women with deep differences dialogue respectfully?

To what do we attribute the public bickering of the women of Planned Parenthood and the women of Susan G. Komen over effective breast cancer funding?  Why did the women involved come across as emotional and unable to dialogue over differences?  I suggest that two trends are clashing and I ask, 

“Can women with deep differences in

perspective dialogue respectfully?” 

In today’s post, I offer:  Trend One, Progressive Feminists.  Tomorrow, I’ll post Trend Two, New Feminists.  I invite you to consider both descriptions, call me out (nicely please) and consider whether these two groups of feminists can dialogue. 

Trend One, Progressive Feminists.  Often demanders of free contraception and morning after pills for all menstruating females and unrestricted abortion without parental consent (including late term and for sex selection), these women are intensely earnest and often privileged.  They fight along the same battle lines drawn by Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan.  Trend One women favor terms like “inner raging feminist,” “pissed off” and “outraged.” 

Trend One is well represented by “Kelly” who blogged recently in response to opposition to the HHS contraception mandate: 

“You all can kiss my healthy, birth-controlled, educated, middle-class, well-traveled ass.” 

To explain, this blogger – a veteran Foreign Service spouse – featured her maid, an African woman who cared for her children and cleaned her house during her husband’s 1990s post in Zambia. Kelly offered her employee “Beatrice” as a poster child for her personal opinions on contraception which, Kelly passionately believes, is a woman’s entitlement in order to avoid the nightmarish existence of the “Beatrices” of the world.  Kelly posted a photograph of Beatrice embracing a little, blond haired white child (presumably Kelly’s child) and described Beatrice to her worldwide audience as follows.

Beatrice was about 35 at the time she worked for me, and had eight children, which was actually below the average per woman for Zambia at that time. But hey, she still had a good ten years to work on that. She was always tired, slightly stooped, and walked like a woman twenty years older than she was. Her breasts were long, wrinkled tubes that she pulled out of her blouse and literally unrolled when her youngest needed to nurse.

According to Kelly, it was Beatrice’s uncontracepted brood that brought Beatrice to this state, not caring for Kelly’s children or cleaning house for United States Foreign Service spouses.  Like many Trend One women, Kelly earnestly believes that she represents all women.   As Kelly put it, “we have just about all known at least one “Beatrice.” and “I have not yet heard one woman of my acquaintance express [a point of view that opposes the HHS mandate or agrees that the HHS mandate implicates religious freedom.]   Not one.  Because we know that contraception is as basic to health care as childhood immunizations.”

From Kelly’s perspective, the push back on the HHS mandate reflects the “plot” of a persistent men’s collective of “jerks and dinosaurs” and “Sexist Porkers” who are “probably terrified of women. . . . All I can say,“ Kelly wrote on behalf of her and her friends, “is I KNOW these guys.  As women, we’ve all met a few.“  Kelly points to Rick Santorum as an example of this male collective of “Mad Men,” mentioning only in passing, and unnamed, his wife and mother of seven children.  Kelly summarized, “I am deeply suspicious when a sanctimonious twerp like him starts talking about birth control being “unhealthy.”  

I want to say two things about Trend One women here, and then continue to Trend Two, New Feminists tomorrow.  First, I understand Kelly’s pointed point of view.  We educated, privileged American women have all  interacted with women who we conclude have not enjoyed an education, range of choice and options that allow them to hold primary what most women hold dear.  Second, I do not understand the judgmental exposure of personal detail to the entire world of a woman who has served so personally in order to make a political point – has any male ever publicized the state of his male employee’s penis to make a political point?  Are we as women to sacrifice compassion, sisterhood, dialogue and context upon the altar of our own political opinion?  What is more important?  ~our personal political opinion or our sisterhood? 

More tomorrow . . .  

The Augusta Pulcheria, accustomed to receiving communion in the sanctuary of the cathedral, was shocked when the newly appointed Patriarch, Nestorius, forbade her entry to receive as she normally did. It was Easter and the doors in front of the sanctuary were shut in front of her. What did this new upstart think he was doing? Who did he think he was to say that she, the sister of the Emperor and a major benefactor of the church, was forbidden entry to the sanctuary?

Nestorius wanted his notions of piety to be enforced. Just like in the temple, he believed that the sanctuary was to be only for clergy and men of rank like the emperor. Pulcheria thought too highly of herself. She had given gifts to the church, but many of them were not proper for a church to have. Why did she think her own robe should be used as an altar cloth? Why was her image put up for all to see? She should know her place. He thought the authority given to him by God was to be used to make sure the church was purified. All heretics were to be denounced. All those who were acting out of fashion would be corrected.

Pulcheria was not one to be trifled with. Instead of just going back and obeying the patriarch, she gave a response which she believed was backed by tradition: “Why? Haven’t I given birth to God?” Pulcheria, at this point a dedicated virgin, saw a link between herself and Christ’s mother. If a woman, if Mary, could give birth to God, why could women not enter the sanctuary? Pulcheria’s acclamation was to point to Mary, the Theotokos, the Birth-Giver of God, and to show that God had elevated women through her. If God elevated women, who was Nestorius to act as he did?

This was a foundation for one of the early doctrinal debate in Christian history. Nestorius rejected the term Theotokos, believing it was heresy to say God had been given birth by a woman. It is difficult to know whether or not he would have been so insistent on this point if he did not face the practical ramifications of the term in the person of Pulcheria. But the Augusta had made the point and a contest of wills ensued. Pulcheria was to have Nestorius’s teachings condemned at the Council of Ephesus (431 CE).

Christian theology, however strange the debates might be for outsiders, often developed out of the practices of the people. Here we see the vindication of the dignity of women as being a reason for and an end product of a doctrinal debate. The promotion of women in the church faced a great challenge, and if the Nestorian contention had succeeded, could have found itself lost in history. Pulcheria spoke of herself in the place of Mary, and through Mary, as everywoman. Jesus was born of a woman, and so motherhood was dignified and blessed by God. Because Mary was believed to be both virgin and mother, God not only blessed motherhood, raising the feminine principle, God also raised and dignified women who wanted to live in the world free from the burdens of marriage. One did not have to be married to be dignified, though marriage and motherhood had to be understood as goods one could accept. In the ancient world, where women often were dependent upon others for status, this was something new. The virgins, those who planned to live apart from marriage, needed help and were given it from fellow Christians. But that demonstrates how Christianity freed women from the burdens society had placed upon them.

For any humanistic enterprise to be promoted, the human condition must be accepted. This means gender is important. A rejection of the uniqueness of the masculine or the feminine is a rejection of what it means to be human. Nestorius would have turned Christianity way from its humanistic background. We see, in the present age, a similar denial by “radical feminists” who fear or hate motherhood. If we do not appreciate the gift of motherhood, how can we continue to exist? Can we really say we are respecting humanity when we deny the good of motherhood? Are we not telling women to hate themselves? How is that good? Let us, like Pulcheria, point to the universal feminine and say, “Who is to deny this?” If one is to promote women, the answer cannot be “me.”

Speaking for myself, I was thrilled to receive an email last Friday morning asking me to consider signing:

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, SECRETARY SEBELIUS 

AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

I read the short text in support of the Catholic Church’s position in its recent controversy over government-mandated contraception coverage.  Then, like 750 other women over the next 72 hours, I authorized my signature.  In this post, I address “Why?” Why was this letter written in the first place?  Why did I sign it?  And why might you consider signing it and/or asking the women in your life to consider both the viewpoint of the letter and signing this unique letter on matters at the heart of femaleness and religious beliefs.

The letter was drafted by Helen Alvare, a lawyer and an associate professor of law at George Mason University.  I asked Professor Alvare – an already overloaded full-time professor and mother – why she launched this effort.  Here is what she told me:

[I had this] idea while cooking dinner.  [There are] too many smart women, of too many faiths, happy that the Catholic Church refuses to stand down against the contraception and abortion lobbies and the “received wisdom” that sex divorced from children and even from a relationship with a person of the opposite sex is an unmitigated good.  You would have to be willfully blind to ignore the scholarly evidence pointing to difficulties for women in the current environment made possible in some part by the government’s large scale contraception and abortion promotion.

Professor Alvare decided to give voice so that the experiences, concerns and perspective of all women might be heard in this controversy.  Working with attorney Kim Daniels, the Open Letter circulated to broad support and is now posted for review and further signatures at www.womenspeakforthemselves.org.

Who has and is signing this letter?  Who are these women who are taking the time and braving backlash in their personal and professional lives? They are:  “Doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, mothers, business owners, community volunteers, scholars — women from all walks of life [who] are proud to stand together with the Catholic Church and its invaluable witness.”

I am one of the lawyers.  I signed the letter for three reasons.

1. No matter whether you agree or not with the widespread use and subsidies of contraception, there are serious – very serious – downsides to the female-targeted, commercially lucrative practice of hormonal birth control.  It has hurt and will continue to hurt MANY women, in their bodies, in their relationships, in their fertility and in their emotional well-being.  The fact that some women support it, use it, profit by it, live off its financial proceeds even – does not change one iota the harm that is occurring within our gender.
2. The voices of those harmed are often invalidated, shamed, ignored, ridiculed and even targeted for personal attack.  If they are people of faith, trying to voice faith based objections to being involved in contraceptive practices, they are additionally barraged with scorn toward their personal beliefs.
3. The Roman Catholic Church – and the collective voice of the Bishops in the United States – remains the last standing, large, institution giving voice to the women who are being silenced, even by others of their own gender.  It is legally wrong and practically dangerous to allow the Roman Catholic Church to be silenced on these critical issues of conscience, belief and fact.

Professor Alvare, myself and, no doubt, every signatory to this letter asks that you share read it, share it on your blog, your Facebook page, your social networks – if it speaks for you, please sign it.  We must work “WOMAN TO WOMAN” through every outlet we have so that our voices can be heard and the Roman Catholic Church is supported in voicing a perspective and teachings which the contraceptive industries desperately seek to silence.

For the past three and a half years I spent at the University of Georgia I came home almost every weekend. I moved back home after graduation, started working at the high school I attended which is five minutes away, and my fiancé and I will be living on the same street as my family when we get married in May. We will also be visiting his family, an hour away, as much as we can.

There are many people who would consider us crazy for our decisions. Staying close to home is definitely not the norm among “college-educated” young adults (neither is getting married at twenty-one.)

It is true that there are unhealthy ways to stay at or close to home, especially when such a decision is based out of fear or laziness. Sometimes staying close to home restricts the exercise of one’s own talents and purpose in life. Many must leave home to find this purpose. Some must leave home because of dangerous or detrimental situations. Many value being close to family, but don’t have that luxury, or have other priorities that justifiably outweigh being close to home.

But aside from these specific situations, in our culture there is a fundamental belief that staying close to home is inherently immature and detrimental. And they can’t understand why, if not out of an unhealthy attachment, one would choose to do so.

But the reason is simple—love—and that should be obvious. But it’s not anymore. Because nowadays many people think of home in a very different way. More importantly, they think of love in a very different way. They want love to be simple and easy. They don’t want the entanglements of longterm commitment because commitment is difficult. So they choose not to make such longterm commitments. The problem is, love requires commitment and so love is necessarily difficult. And we don’t like things that are difficult.

What we often forget is that it is the difficult things that usually bring about the most joy. It is commitment through even the hard times that bring about the fruits of true love. And this commitment is so worth it. It is the only truly worth it thing in the world.

And while we may know this, we fear it. Women especially have a tendency to believe that commitment is the end of something, a kind of death. There are so many negative connotations associated with being a stay at home mom or getting– rather, staying married. And of course there are such connotations because the truth is, well, commitment does require death. It is the death of selfishness. And it is often a slow and laborious death.  Usually the little vermin continues to revitalize himself throughout the course of our lives. But the smaller and smaller he gets– the more we submit to such a death– the more room is opened up inside of us. And then– what would be seen as a restriction of freedom becomes the gateway to a lifted and joyful soul, truly free and full of life.

We need not fear home. Perhaps it is not four walls we are avoiding– perhaps those four walls or family members don’t even exist or don’t even want us there– but even if we may feel homeless, somewhere, someone is asking for our commitment, asking for our love, asking for us to come home. Coming home does not necessarily demand that we “settle down” in a particular town or house. Neither does it necessarily mean we must “settle down” with a particular person or group of people. Each of us knows deep down the path home. We know what we run from that pulls at our heartstrings and we know whose voice we drown out with each heavy stomp of our frightened feet. As J.R.R. Tolkien says, “not all who wander are lost.” How true this is. Many of us must wander to find our home. But let us not wander so much that we wander aimlessly. For if we do this for too long, no matter how many parties we may attend, no matter how many Facebook friends we may have or how many dates we go on or how ever many places we may travel– we will end up very lonely. And we were not made to be lonely. We were made for Home. And home can be a lovely place, and it can be full of adventure– even if that adventure is only to the mailbox and back.