Memo to Bill O'Reilly: MYOB

Sad news this week: Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, who gave birth to twin boys at the age of 66 has passed away. The boys are in the care of Maria's brother, their uncle, the last I heard, and they will be doing fine.

Unfortunately, men who seem to have a need to control women, and/or misogynists, have taken this story to use to push their own agendas. Last night, Bill O'Reilly went on a tirade, saying among other things that menopause is nature's way of telling women that they can no longer have children. He also said that to have children after menopause was "unnatural", and that there should be a law that makes it illegal for a woman to have children after she has entered menopause.

There are so many things wrong with Bill's rant, it's difficult to know where to start. Let's start with the law, shall we? Thanks to Roe v. Wade, the government, if not Bill O'Reilly, acknowledges a right to privacy, and a right for a woman to have control over her own body. So, if a woman has a right to choose to kill the baby growing inside of her, why doesn't she have a right to decide to conceive a baby? One would think Bill would be all for this proposition.

Who will be in charge of enforcing Bill's law? Will there be menopause police? If so, Bill, I can tell you that if you or any of your menopause police come by my home to "certify" my uterus as menopausal, you and the boys will be leaving without two or three of your accoutrements that you hold most near and dear.

Just because a woman is young is no guarantee she will be around to raise her children. A 28 year old mom of four can get hit by a bus, be severely beaten or killed by her boyfriend or husband (just look into the headlines every year), die in a car accidents, or, as what happened to a woman I know, contract breast cancer. Just because a woman is young and is capable of giving birth does not mean that she will be around to raise her kids or that she will be a good mother either. Bill's law would also prevent those cases in close, loving families where the grandmother is able to carry her grandchild(ren) for the parents who can't.

Where was all this outrage, Bill, when Tony Randall was fathering children (he was 75 years old when he married a 25 year old) when he was 77 and 78? Tony died when his children were only about 5 and 6. Where was all this outrage, Bill, when James Doohan (Scotty of the Star Trek series) fathered a child at age 80, who, when her father died at 85, was only 4-5 years old? Where was Bill's outrage about elderly fathers leaving children fatherless? Why is it OK, in O'Reilly's book, for geriatric men to father children and die without raising them? Is it because they have much younger wives to raise the child? Women don't have the luxury of being able to marry much younger women; the woman in question, though, does have a family with whom she could and did entrust the care of her children.

Finally, Bill, if you think menopause is nature's way of telling women something, then why isn't Erectile Dysfunction nature's way of telling men to put "it" into mothballs and to retire "it"? Applying your own words to ED, isn't it unnatural for men to be taking Levit ra (purposeful misspellings - I don't want ads for these products to show up on this webpage) Vi agra and Cia lis? So, let's legislate that men going through ED cannot take any medicines to help them "stand and salute" because it's nature's way of telling them their time is done. And, think of how much money it would save the health care system - it's ironic that ED meds are covered for men, but birth control pills for women are, more often than not, not covered by insurance .

My condolences to the family of Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara. Take excellent care of those little boys. And ignore the fools who wish to make Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara's decision into political hay. What she chose to do was her choice and it was a private decision.

Women should be very concerned about men who want to try to legislate about their reproductive rights, whether you agree with the age issue or not. It's a slippery slope.