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Show 4 Friday November 2, 2012 OPINION www.dailyutahchronicle.com CHOICE 2012: WOMEN'S RIGHTS ERA would bestow the equality women deserve Federalist PapersX1 A look back at our founding The necessity of raising revenue No. 3o IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces. ... But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation. COURTNEY S TANNER Opinion Columnist T his is not the 1920s. Flappers are not the style, prohibition is not law and women are not treated as if they are inferior to men. However, women and men still do not have pay equality in the United States, an issue that is an essential component of the 2012 presidential race — as it should be. For every dollar a man makes in this fine and free country, women make 77 cents — resulting in a difference of more than $11,000 a year, according to the National Committee of Pay Equity. A prominent example of this is in the medical field, which is a place of high gender wage disparity. A female doctor on average makes $168,000 a year, whereas male doctors make and average of $200,000 a year. Regardless of gender, it is unfair in any circumstance to be paid less for the same amount and type of work. The United States needs an assured equal-work-equal-pay system. The Equal Pay Act is currently in place, implemented in 1963 in order to avoid gender discrimination in the workplace. Forty-nine years later, the effort seems futile, as pay inequality is still prevalent in workplaces across the United States. With a revival of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would not only ensure equal pay for women but also equal rights, women could once and for all receive equal treatment under the law. The Equal Rights Amendment was first drafted in 1923. It failed the ratification process, falling just three states short. The revival of the ERA No one cares about gender pay equality or the Equal Rights Amendment nowadays... ISAAC J. BROMLEY/The Daily Utah Chronicle would solidify the ideas behind the Equal Pay Act — that treating people similarly situated in different ways is unconstitutional. Because it would be part of our Constitution, it could be easily followed or noncompliance could be strictly resolved through federal indictment. This is not just a women's issue — it's a family issue. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 84 percent of single parents are mothers in the United States. These single mothers are making less money than working men and trying to sustain children on it. The Equal Rights Amendment revival would directly impact these women and their families for the better. The United States currently ranks 22 out of 135 countries for gender equality, according to the Global Gender Gap Report for 2012. Receiving a score of .7373 on a one-point scale, the United States dropped five places from last year. Countries ranking before the United States include Cuba, Canada, the U.K., South Africa and Iceland. President Barack Obama has strongly supported equal rights in the workplace. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act early in his presidential term, which gives women greater opportunities to challenge gender discrimination. Also, if re-elected, Obama plans to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. Although neither of these are the Equal Rights Amendment, they are both a step in the right direction. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, on the other hand, indicated in the first debate he's concerned that women are home to cook dinner at night — that is, he supports "flex time" for women in the workplace. His views are clearly outdated. The Equal Rights Amendment is not about women getting special privileges, such as leaving work early — an archaic principle in today's modern society that reinforces gender stereotypes. The ERA is to ensure equality in the workplace through pay and job security. Romney also said he has been handed "binders full of women" in choosing his cabinet as governor of Massachusetts. Again, singling out women is unfair. Equality is treating everybody the same regardless of their differences. Having "binders full of women" is not only inappropriate — it's degrading. Gender inequality is raging throughout the United States and specifically in Republican circles. It's time to change this because I, as a woman, don't want to be another statistic. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu Abortion should stay legal to hold strong in issues of women's rights Opinion Columnist T he debate about wornen's rights — specifically concerning contraceptive use and abortion — is somehow still an issue in today's progressive world. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other Republican officials continue to make abortion an issue — namely, the relationship between abortion and rape. The underlying issue is women have a right to make choices about their bodies. However, this issue is left out of public dialogue. The historic Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade (1972) granted women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies when it comes to abortion. Repealing prochoice laws ensued because of Roe v. Wade would be a blow to the progress of the women's movement and to freedom itself. Romney said he is against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's landmark health care bill, because he LUIGI GHERS I/The Daily Utah Chronicle doesn't want the government controlling people's health care options. But the fact is, government control of health care is exactly what will happen if women lose the right to choose whether to have an abortion. Romney's idea of health care will severely limit the options women have. If new, conservative Supreme Court justices are nominated — which will likely be the case under a Romney administration since several justices are well into their seventies — the govern- ment will mandate and control women's health care options. Hypothetically, if Roe v. Wade was overturned, it doesn't mean abortions would no longer be performed. Back-door abortions would return, as women would have no other choice but to go around the law. Before the Roe v. Wade decision, these types of abortions were much more common than anyone wants to admit and had devastating consequences for women. Because they were not medically safe, women suffered extreme health effects such as unintended sterilization. Some unsafe abortions can even result in the death of the mother. More importantly, if the United States is the "hope of the world," as Romney said in the last debate, we must continue promoting women's rights. What we are saying to the countries we wage war against — countries we try to liberate from oppression — is men's sexual freedoms matter more than women's and we won't wage a war on behalf of women's rights. Women in other countries are in desperate need of rights and freedoms, and turning back women's rights in the United States would send a dangerous signal to the international rights movement. Women's rights are not only a national concern, but a global one as well. Thirdworld countries look to us to as an example of promoting freedom, human rights and democracy. We therefore have a responsibility to be a good example. Any way one looks at it, taking away women's rights in any form is a bad idea that will have repercussions for our economy, democracy, foreign policy and the future of the women's rights movement. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu *,‘ Money is ... considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish. What substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every wellordered constitution of civil government? Ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject; but no human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective supplies of the public treasury. The more intelligent adversaries of the new Constitution admit the force of this reasoning; but they qualify their admission by a distinction between what they call INTERNAL and EXTERNAL taxation. ... This distinction, however, would violate the maxim of good sense and sound policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to its OBJECT; and would still leave the general government in a kind of tutelage to the State governments, inconsistent with every idea of vigor or efficiency.... IN THE USUAL PROGRESS OF THINGS, THE NECESSITIES OF A NATION, IN EVERY STAGE OF ITS EXISTENCE, WILL BE FOUND AT LEAST EQUAL TO ITS RESOURCES. If the opinions of those who contend for the distinction which has been mentioned were to be received as evidence of truth, one would be led to conclude that there was some known point in the economy of national affairs at which it would be safe to stop and to say: Thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or anxiety. How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth? How can it ever possess either energy or stability, dignity or credit, confidence at home or respectability abroad? How can its administration be any thing else than a succession of expedients temporizing, impotent, disgraceful? How will it be able to avoid a frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity? How can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good? The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require. Foreigners, as well as the citizens of America, could then reasonably reis pose confidence in its engagements. Publius I |