President Jimmy Carter's Call to Action to Women

President Jimmy Carter

Over in our neighbor state, Georgia, former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn Carter, direct  a foundation, The Carter Center, which  is  dedicated to advocating for human rights. Since his presidency, Carter has won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and has championed many causes. He, courageously, left his church in 2000, due to its unequal, oppressive  policy toward women.

In a HuffPost Live interview on Jan. 13, 2015 Carter said, "I think the worst human rights abuse on Earth is the horrible persecution and deprivation of equal rights of women and girls,"  Carter's book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power, published in 2014, "describes the horrendous abuse that women do suffer in this country and around the world," he told HuffPost Live Jan. 13, 2015 interview here.

Carter on Women Leaders

In this interview Carter mentioned the  trafficking of young women and girls as an unprecedented and unaddressed human rights abuse and the escalation of sexual assault on college campuses and in the military as among the worse human rights abuses of women and girls. He also discussed the wage gap between men and women in this country and the low percentage (18%) of women in Congress. Carter has launched the Mobilizing Faith for Women and Girls Initiative, which hosts an annual forum of world political and religious leaders to promote the protection of equal rights for women and girls across the globe. Mar., 2014 Interview.

I am really inspired by President Carter, who stands up for his values and who provides an astute analysis of the condition of women in this country and around the world. Carter's enlightened stand for women is in distinct contrast with the backlash against women in congress. Conservative legislators are pushing to cut funding for women's health care and proposing laws that make some forms of birth control illegal.  The Blunt Amendment, narrowly rejected in the Senate,  would have allowed employers to withhold health insurance coverage not only for contraception, but for any treatment they disapproved of.

Jan., 2012 Washington Post

Carter Center African Service Project

The Carter Center has several service projects in Africa; including a recent successful health campaign to eradicate the Guinea Worm which afflicts people in 21 African countries. 

When I consider who might be a choice for the next U. S. President, I cannot help but wish it were possible to elect someone just like former President Carter. Perhaps, his hands would be tied in getting human rights legislation passed; however, if anyone could cut through the corruption, lobbying, and vested interests in our capitalist country, it would be someone with the moral fiber of Jimmy Carter.