South Dakota's just admitting openly, like they do in, say, Iran,
that the legal and social status of women is equivalent to that of
livestock. And everybody’s cheering, because this returns control of
reproduction, from the dirty ignorant sluts who arrogantly aspire to
human status, to the male-led state. The natural order is preserved.
White "babies" will not be aborted. Praise Jesus.
Jane
is asking people to contact Naral and Planned Parenthood to ask them to
support Ned Lamont in the Connecticut senate race against Lieberman,
whose loyalty to the Gang of 14 Milquetoasts was stronger than his
loyalty to women. This is getting very serious now and it's long past
time for the anti-forced childbirth groups to play hardball.
Susan from Iowa comments on Digby's Innocent Life "Likewise, comments about a late-term abortion performed "at whim"
show ignorance about how many of these abortions are performed and how
difficult it is to obtain one."
The reference above to "whims" is so depressing. It takes a man, who
has never experienced ANYTHING that women experience in connection with
their fertility, to use a loaded word like that.
Before Roe,
thousands of women died every year from illegal abortions. They knew
the risks, yet subjected themselves to the most horrific experiences
you can imagine. Why? Because for some women, the fact of pregnancy
makes them desperate to end it, for all sorts of tragic and terrible
reasons.
If abortion becomes illegal again, it will not be
unavailable. There are always going to be desperate women, and illegal
abortionists, and deaths in the back alleys from infection, perforated
uteruses, and loss of blood. Those who want to outlaw abortion are
conceding that these deaths are an acceptable consequence, which
underscores Digby's point about punishment.
Men cannot fully comprehend how emotionally powerful
and physically overwhelming pregnancy is. Your health can be profoundly
affected, both during and after, especially if the mother is very young
or over 30. For nine months it takes over your life, your hormones are
roaring, your body swells until you can't see your feet, which are also
swollen. The hoped-for end to it all is that you are finally able to
push that grapefruit-sized head through an opening that is definitely
smaller, and a live, healthy baby is eventually handed to you by the
people who have been listening to you scream and grunt for hours, while
someone sews you up. All that is followed by decades of doing your best
to help that baby grow up into a decent human being.
Pregnancy
can be exhilarating and joyful, terrifying and depressing, all of the
above, but even if you desperately want to be pregnant, it is a an
unbelievably difficult physical and emotional experience. And for women
who work, who are trying to get a job, who are caring for other
children or elderly parents, no one gives you extra energy to meet all
these demands in addition to the physical ones, like morning sickness,
gestational diabetes, insomnia, and feeling like you can't get a breath
or your balance. And you haven't really lived until you've waddled into
a job interview in a dress the size of a circus tent.
The
decision to end a pregnancy is also an overwhelming one, and the
experience itself is painful and traumatic, even in the first
trimester. Because abortion is so stigmatized, most women do not want
to come forward to explain why they did it. This gives the anti-choice
camp more leeway to fling phrases like "abortion on demand" and "on a
whim," as if women are flighty creatures incapable of making such a
profound decision.
The decision whether to undertake the
life-changing experience of bearing a child should be personal, between
women and their doctors, and whoever else women themselves choose to
involve.
I believe that every child has the right to be wanted, loved and cared for.
I
am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. I think that Bill Clinton's
formulation of "safe, legal and rare" is where we should focus. I think
that those who oppose abortion should be able to agree that sex
education and contraception are important tools to prevent it. Unfortunately,
many of the same people who claim to be pro-life, are the ones who
oppose information and contraception. We have all seen those male
pharmacists on TV who just can't distribute birth control pills because
it bothers their conscience, or what passes for it.
We are
also eliminating basic health care for poor women all over the world,
in order to make sure that our religious beliefs are not violated
somewhere in Africa by a poor woman receiving contraception at the
expense of the United Nations. It's immoral and despicable.
"The legislation, which states that "life begins at the time of
conception," would prohibit abortion except in cases where the pregnant
woman's life was at risk. Felony charges could be placed against doctors,
but not against those seeking abortions, the measure says."
The egg is alive as is the sperm. The cells that make up both are alive.
So why don't they outlaw tattoos or scarification, or taking blood as all
these actions kill live cells. Damn, then you'd have to outlaw the death
penalty because that kills even more. What they really care about is punishing women for having sex. Because
you never see them picketing outside in vitro fertilization clincs do
you? And yet the end result is the same -- creation of embryos that
will only die. If life begins at conception, then in vitro
fertilization is murder too. Period.
Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, also a member of the Bioethics council, noted that "If
the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral
equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as
a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural
embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro
fertilization, and stem-cell research combined."
APPARENTLY BIBLE-GOD devalues these same eggs n' embryos, as this sort of
non-sentient life is almost as cheap as menstrual blood... since pregnancy
ends in "taking of life" (presumably by bible-god) in approximately 30% of
all conceptions, 15% of which are recognized clinically as
"miscarriages"!
WE CAN only conclude the Intelligent Designer really had a major "brain
cramp" when it came to the most basic and fundamental act of reproduction!
DAMN, WHEN you throw in ectopic pregnancies, multiples, congential
anomalies, genetic illness, fetal demise... not to mention operative
deliveries, maternal morbidity and death, it seems that the "Almighty"
either is extremely inept or twisted and nefarious.
Save the unborn, screw the born. That's how this Administration, driven by its fundie base, sees the abortion issue.
IT IS not only illogical, but extremely demeaning to OPPRESSIVELY force
women to bear children, against their will. THIS REPRESENTS the worst
sort of misogynistic bigotry. TO PURPOSEFULLY ignore cases of rape and
incest, or grossly malformed fetuses, reveals the utter maliciousness and
contempt of these pandering political, morally bankrupt, evangelical
fanatics.
The new SD legislation proposes that life begins at fertilization, so a
miscarriage at, say, week 7 clearly would be the death of a bona-fide
fully recognized by the law human being. What's the reporting
requirements for deaths in SD? People having gone through a miscarriages, would be stressed out if they had to fill out a death certificate at
that point. Personally, I'm not going to be happy until we create little cemetaries
for all the sanitary napkins carrying what's left of all those
fertalized eggs. We'll call the cemetaries Kotex
Necroblastocropoli and they'll have teeny-tiny angel statuary which we
make out of match sticks and pipecleaners and hangers. I can hardly
wait!
Once the honky dudes control access to abortion, the Sanctity of
Motherhood, already one of the most pervasive patriarchal lies, will
once again assume its place as the centerpiece of female existence.
Of course, not every
woman will be allowed to revel in the sanctity of motherhood.
Controlling reproduction is not limited to restricting abortion. It's
only a short hop from telling a victim of incest, as they may now do in
South Dakota, "Tough shit, you sick little Lolita" to the flipside:
court-ordered sterilization of undesirables: junkies, loonies,
cripples, women with genetic abnormalities, "welfare mothers" who just
can't say no.
It's already happening. If you're a lesbian trying to get turkey-basted in a fertility clinic, good fucking luck.
This
shit comes directly from godbaggery. The religious right have
successfully transplanted the moral authority of their deity to an unthinking police state
incapable of moral insight.