I think I heard what might have been one of the most offensive talks I've heard in a long time. The topic was disparities in healthcare for women, a very noble cause, which the speaker managed to drag through the mud. What the speaker was tying to educate us about was very useful. There are indeed glaring disparities in healthcare for gender, class and race and nothing is being done about it. So one would think that her case would make itself.
Instead the speaker went out of her way to highlight exactly why there are health disparities in this country: ignorance.
At one point in her speech she declared that people who get pregnant as teens, if they don't have abortions, couldn’t receive higher education; in her works "they can't become doctors." Now I've said it before and I'll say it again, how exactly does teenage pregnancy exclude you from education if you really want it? Perhaps a better phrasing would have been, "it is much more difficult for a single mother to attend college or medical." But setting up this cause and effect relationship of child=no education isn't true.
Second, and probably more offensive was her statement that people who don't believe in abortions or who don't prescribe birth control shouldn't be doctors. Wait, seriously? I have trouble even knowing where to begin with this one. Mainly, if a doctor is unwilling to work with a patient, they have every right not to, as long as they refer them to a doc that can help them. This is their right, by law. Moreover, doctors can have their own morals. But I guess this is when the ignorance thing comes into play. This speaker only wants doctors that think like her. Suddenly it makes sense.
I strongly believe that the majority of problems people have is due to their unwillingness to accept opposing viewpoints, or possibly even to concede that some of their beliefs are misguided. And this goes for everyone, republican, democrat, male, female, black, white, whatever. We all get caught up in an issue to the point where unless people see it exactly as we do they are wrong. I have a hard time believing that this speaker thinks she will sway minds by telling people, "if you don't believe in abortion like me then you shouldn't be allowed to be a doctor." But the truth is that she probably isn't even aware of the polarizing effect she has.
She brought up Iraq during her speech as a reason why we lack funding for healthcare and I can't help but draw a parallel between the strategy in Iraq and her speech. Both are concerned with brute force...It's my way or the highway. And guess what, that strategy doesn't work. Republicans won't stop abstinence only classes because you tell them they are stupid. Nor will anyone ever really change their mind because you tell them they are stupid; hell that strategy didn't even work in elementary school.
The bottom line is this. Ignorance is the root of hate, prejudice, racism, war, you name it. Regardless of what guise you try to put it in, be it conservatism or liberalism, it's all the same. Until people are willing to put their ego and temper aside, we will always have disparities in this country.
