Goodybye Betty and Thank You

1918 - 2011,  Born the same year as my mother, before women had the right to vote, you always spoke out for women's rights. 

Thank you for your work for women's rights; the ERA and pro choice legislation.  The ERA and Abortion Rights.  You understood that one without the other canceled out any gain.  There are no equal rights for women without the power to control our own body and the means of reproduction. 

The women in your economic class are "so over" those issues now.  But I know what you did and also that it is the most important work ever done for us, your sisters in the war.  They will go on now with their platitudes while they spit on your work and politics. 

But there are many of us who will light a candle tonight, for you, for the gains you won for our gender and for your still relevant politics.

*In this Dec. 30, 2006 file photo, former first lady Betty Ford pauses at former President Gerald R. Ford's casket during the State Funeral service on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Here is one article on her life at CNN