Lesbian Pop Culture Reviews

The Whole 9 Yards: Year in Review

We associate the number nine with extremes: highs (cloud nine), lows (the ninth Psalm, predicting the coming of the Antichrist), good luck and bad. Considering the spectrum of events we lived through in 2010-2011—from the greatest victories to the worst tragedies—the number nine seems a particularly apt symbol for the past twelve months’ happenings. On the plus side, DADT was repealed; on the minus side, a near-apocalyptic disaster devastated Japan. Last year, we opened our Annual Year in Review with the crisis in Haiti, which proves again that life is fragile.

5. UNPLANNED PARENTHOOD: WAVE OF THE FUTURE?

Women’s health care appeared to be the first target of the Republican majority following November’s midterm elections. By January, Republicans had sponsored a measure seeking to abolish federal funding of Planned Parenthood, which has served as the major provider of gynecological and other health services to American women since 1916. As of this writing Planned Parenthood is in the midst of a fight for its life to maintain support for all its vital services, which are under fierce political attack by Republicans. When the majority of Republican Congressmen obtain female reproductive systems, then we’ll talk.

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