Natalie Portman Quotes
It's quite a stark contrast between the candidates, in how they will change things for women. Hillary Clinton wants to appoint Supreme Court Justices who will protect Roe v Wade. [Donald] Trump wants to punish women for getting abortions and defund Planned Parenthood.
Portman, Natalie. Interview. People, Time Inc., 11 Oct. 2016.
History has shown that as girls and women get educated and learn about family planning, their children are healthier and have better chances of survival and despite the lower death rate the population trend slows as a result of family planning.
Describing Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision protecting a woman’s right to an abortion:
Actually it was as late as 1963, that the Supreme Court ruled that States could not make the sale of birth control devices or drugs illegal. In many jurisdictions in the United States, women who do not have insurance and cannot afford birth control, there are state and private organizations, like Planned Parenthood, who will provide them. However, some conservative forces are trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business. A few doctors and nurses who perform abortions and proscribe birth control have been murdered by the fanatics. Almost of the so called “pro life” forces not only oppose abortion but contraception and family planning as well. They tactically tend to concentrate first on abortion, but most also believe that the life and death issues are for them the same, as opposed to most American feelings. The literal prohibiting Biblical injunctions are even more specific about birth control than abortion.
This quotation is a good example of the conflation (confusing) of different issues. West’s is concerned that men are becoming subservient to women. He uses the word “neutering”—men are being behaviorally castrated. There are men who see power as a zero sum game. If one person gains it, someone else must be losing it. Since more and more women are reaching equality and therefore gaining more power over their own and their family life, they reason that somehow the men must be losing their power. In a sense, from the era where men had control of all family money even if earned by the wife, equality has meant less power for men. When men could legally beat (chastise) their wives, they in some sense had more power and some see it as more masculinity. However, most secure men do not feel this way. They do not have to dominate others to feel masculine. Then West refers to Planned Parenthood and Code Pink organizations. The latter is a very left wing women’s’ peace organization that does not deal much with the other issues between men and women. And Planned Parenthood is America’s oldest main line family planning organization. West was talking to a right wing audience and is of that wing himself. They oppose code pink for their war stand; they oppose Planned Parenthood because they support the right of a woman to choose abortion and birth control devices if she wishes. So somehow, peace now, abortion / birth control have been conflated with rights and powers of men and women.
Natalie Portman is an Israeli-born American actress, director and producer. Prolific in film since a teenager, she has starred in blockbusters and also played psychologically troubled women in independent films, for which she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
