Is there a way to talk about the health of women and children that is about women and children’s health, and not about politics Part of the issue is abortion, of course, as when the House voted today to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even for other services. (It still has to pass the Senate. ) In the debate over that measure, right after Chris Smith, of New Jersey, made a graphic anti-choice speech, Jackie Speier, a California congresswoman, had her turn: "You know, I had really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey has just put my stomach in knots. " She said that she had had an abortion, years ago, because of complications in a pregnancy: I’m one of those women he spoke about just now... That procedure that you talked about was a procedure I endured. I lost a baby. But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous. That was brave of her. That is also why it would be helpful to have more women in Congress: to make these discussions normal. (She also said that there was "a vendetta against Planned Parenthood", and suggested that, in terms of bad behavior, there might be better reason to go after Halliburton—though she added that it would be more responsible if Congress first dealt with issues like job creation. ) Meanwhile, as Politico notes, after Michelle Obama talked about the health benefits of breastfeeding (and there are many) and new measures to make nursing easier, she was attacked by Michele Bachmann ("You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition") and Sarah Palin, whose position on the matter wasn’t really clear ("Michelle Obama is telling everybody, ’You’d better breast-feed your baby’—I’m looking like, yeah, you’d better, because the price of milk is so high right now. " What is the funny part there). But perhaps issues of women’s health, and women’s safety, are political in a different sense— not because they ought to be invoked to make any possible political point, but because they are issues that require us to think politically. This takes many forms: thoughts about privacy, thoughts about our obligations to each other. This week, seventeen women who are serving in the military or have served filed a class-action lawsuit about sexual assault in our armed forces, and the failure of commanders and Pentagon officials to really deal with the problem. The numbers they cite are pretty appalling. (Other numbers to keep in mind are those showing that an all-volunteer force at the level and quality of ours isn’t possible without women. ) These are women whom we are asking to risk their lives for us. In some circumstances, what happens to women’s bodies is also a matter of national security. What might best serve the title of the passage