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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review March 16, 2009 / 21 Adar 5769

The feminine mistake

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It was hard to overlook the not-so-subtle irony. During the same week: (1.) President Obama signed an executive order reversing former president Bush's embryonic stem-cell research policy. (2) The Vatican was blasted for (supposedly) saying that the washing machine had more to do with liberating women than the pill. (3) President Obama created a Presidential Council for Women and Girls.


Clearly, conventional wisdom has it that, between Pope Benedict XVI and President Obama, the latter is the feminist and the former is a lingering, oppressive, patriarchal figure. And if you had any doubts about it, look at the president's new council! He may not have his Treasury department staffed in this time of economic crisis, but at least the sisterhood is happy.


President Obama, no doubt about it, is a loyal follower of the liberal feminist agenda. Despite commentators suggesting that he has not delved into the culture wars, he has, in fact, already started to make an indelible mark. The same week — Obama's first in office — of the annual March for Life, commemorating the tragedy that has been Roe v. Wade, he made sure that U.S. taxpayer money could be spent on abortions overseas. Now, he has rejected another one of his predecessor's wise moves: the careful balance Bush struck between scientific innovation and moral responsibility.


I'm reminded of something my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his life-preserving resource "The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life" (Regnery, 2006). At the time, thinking Hillary Clinton might be the next Democratic presidential nominee, he imagined a landslide for her if, while touting her "advocate for women and children" bona fides, she were to say that abortion is "distressing and difficult." She (fictionally) continues: "But that doesn't mean we're for abortion. Don't let anyone pretend that's what we stand for! Abortion is a tragic choice. We want to liberate women. Abortion is a sign that our society is pitting them against their children."


President Obama does not share the wisdom of our imaginary Hillary, who looked for common ground and reached out to the majority of the public that favors waiting periods, consent and notification requirements, and other restrictions. Instead, he's looking to obfuscate and muddy the matter with rhetoric and wily hypotheticals. He is following the disingenuous lead that others have set out before him. This is in spite of science that would very easily make common ground viable. Just ask former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who managed to get his colleague from the state, pro-choice Sen. Arlen Specter, to co-sponsor legislation that would support non-embryonic stem-cell research — promising alternatives that are ethical and not giant, federally funded leaps into a Brave New World.


The Vatican, needless to say, opposed the Obama administration's embryo-destroying move. And as at least one member of Congress correctly noted, the Vatican holds the more authentically feminist position. Besides the lives we weren't ending under the Bush policy, there are the women we were working not to exploit. Embryonic stem-cell research requires the creation of embryos for the purpose of research. This requires women's eggs. And, like the egg-donor-wanted ads I see on New York commuter trains, that opens a whole new can of ethical concerns (not to mention fertility dangers) we've not openly debated.


But back from the eggs to the washing machines — a story in which the hot-button hyperbole has almost totally obscured the facts. The mass media has accused the Vatican of asserting that washing machines have done more for women's lib than affordable birth control. In truth, the ruckus arose from an opinion piece (written by a woman) in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. The title, in the most-cited English translation, was: "The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women — Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax." Addressing the question of what 20th century phenomenon did the most for the female sex, the author wrote, "The debate is heated. Some say the pill, some say abortion rights and some the right to work outside the home. Some, however, dare to go further: the washing machine."


If you think she is crazy, you should know there're a lot of us who believe the same. I wrote a piece years ago titled "How Birth Control Changed America for the Worst." And with every Yaz commercial, I become more convinced. As it happens, it was the Vatican — this time, the pope himself speaking ex officio, in 1968 — that warned in "Humanae Vitae" that artificial methods of birth control would do our culture a disservice. Humans being humans, Pope Paul VI said that the availability of the pill could "could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards" and that "a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection."


The word "feminist" is too loaded to be recovered by the true protectors of the feminine in the 21st century. But had someone set up a Council on Women and Girls in 1968 based on those papal warnings, the phrase "hook-up culture" might not even exist and the sad stories of "He's Just Not That Into You" would be anomalies instead of pathetic realities.

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