Breen passes on history to push anti abortion obsession

My state rep Peter Breen (R-48th) is obsessed over abortion. He tends to see every issue of women's rights and advancement from the prism of interference with a woman's reproductive freedom. Consider his Nay vote that failed to prevent Illinois from becoming the 37th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, passed by Congress in 1972, and now needing just one more state to become enshrined in the US Constitution. That document established America as a patriarchy, relegating women to little more than chattel for men who had exclusive control over voting, public office and property, and quite importantly, their own bodies. The arc of full citizenship and freedom for women was slow and torturous; 132 years just to get the vote; 185 years to achieve the right to control their bodies containing an unwanted pregnancy. The laws and legal decisions mean nothing to those seeking to limit that full citizenship and freedom, with 33 state legislatures pecking away at abortion access and resources like a hoard of woodpeckers in a forest. Breen, who doubles as Special Council to the extreme anti abortion Thomas More Society, has been a leader in the effort to make safe, affordable abortion less safe and less affordable; and by extension, women less free.

So at voting time, Breen ignored the historic arc that inches women closer to their rightful place in our great democratic experiment. His reasoning was chilling, calling the ERA "an alleged Constitutional Amendment" which would be "an illegal act". He called its supporters as having "no other thing to do than expand abortion rights." I, and likely the majority of Illinoisans, as reflected by the 62% bi-partisan vote to pass ERA in Illinois, prefer the profound, historic words of Breen's Republican colleague Christine Winger (R-45): "I am pro life. Again, I am pro life. I have a two year old daughter. I am for her and others to know that in the state of Illinois she should have the same opportunities as men. Vote Yes!"

Thankfully for her daughter, and every woman in Illinois, 71 other legislators did.