Forcing Women to Bear Children Against Their Will
What’s the real reason Republicans care about abortion?
No one believes Donald Trump really cares about a fertilized egg. Or ponders the philosophical question of when life begins. Or even thinks life is sacred. If he did, he wouldn’t be putting children in cages at the border, or calling Neo-Nazis “very fine people,” or encouraging violence against the media and BLM protestors and anyone else who criticizes him.
So why is he rushing to put a “pro-life” (i.e. pro-fertilized egg) woman on the Supreme Court and gleefully telling followers that overturning Roe v. Wade will be the probable outcome?
Because it fires up the right-wing vote. That’s the only reason.
It’s the same reason Mitch McConnell cares. And Ted Cruz. And Lindsey Graham. No one honestly thinks these men have a shred of love in their hearts for newborn babies, or anyone else, for that matter. I still remember seeing Ted Cruz on the stage when he was running for president and bragging that he spanks his children. Mitch McConnell’s three daughters will have nothing to do with him. Lindsey Graham isn’t married, another dishonest pose for the sake of power grabbing, since he appears to anyone paying attention to be gay.
How is a fertilized egg more precious than a living person?
So who DOES care about fertilized eggs? A lot of people…I guess? I mean, I read about them and see them on TV and once a year they come and parade around San Francisco. That’s when I ask myself, why do these people care more about fertilized eggs than adult women? Or living children?
Because forcing a woman to bear a child against her will is a life sentence, for both the mother and the child. Some of these children will be neglected. Some will be abandoned. Some will be abused. Many will grow up in poverty. If their mothers are unmarried, which is sometimes why a woman chooses to have an abortion, close to 40 percent of them will be poor. And their mothers will be stuck in a frustrating cycle of poverty, always trying but never succeeding in caring for their families.
Where are the pro-fertilized egg people then? How are they protecting the sanctity of life for hungry children? Homeless children? Unsupervised children forced to raise themselves while their mother works until midnight delivering food to rich people too lazy to leave their penthouse because she needs a second job just to pay the rent?
The Christian Right is a scam-laden con job
When I see Amy Coney Barrett I have to pity her. She must be smart. How else could she graduate top of her class from Notre Dame Law School? She must be capable. How else could she be chosen as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia? I’m guessing her heart is in the right place, too, since she’s adopted two children and kept another after finding out during pregnancy that he had Down Syndrome.
So how does a smart, capable, goodhearted woman become a member of the People of Praise, a charismatic (e.g. speaking in tongues) Christian group that teaches “husbands are the head of the household as well as the spiritual head of their wives?”
God knows. Or maybe She doesn’t. But ever since the Bible was written down by a ragtag array of fanatics over hundreds of years, it’s been the biggest justification for systemic oppression of women ever devised.
I’m not a biblical scholar — although I took a class in college which is when I first learned that the Bible wasn’t written by God or even one person, or even over the course of one century — but I can spot a pile of malarkey when I see one. It starts with the story of Eve and never lets up thereafter.
I’m not saying the Bible has no value. There are some pretty passages in there, and a few good lessons. But when a smart woman like Barrett embraces this particular pile of malarkey — the pile that labels her inferior at birth through no fault of her own and with no chance of redemption — I have to pity her. Because she’s been brainwashed.
It’s like the feeling I got when I saw a picture of a black man standing up on the stage at a (much smaller than expected) Proud Boys rally in Portland on Sept. 26. Someone get that man an intervention!
Barrett and women like her have been living in a patriarchal society that devalues and disrespects their gender for so long, they don’t even notice it. Like when you ask a fish, how’s the water? And it replies, what’s water?
So why does the Bible in the first place and the Christian Right in the gazillionth place devalue women anyway? Male supremacy, of course. Or as a character in Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami puts it, “free labor with a p****.”
And what about the “scam-laden” reference in the subhead? Just thinking about the latest in a long-line of hypocritical misadventures of the preaching class — Falwell watching his wife get it on with the pool boy while running a university that discourages “long” hugs (more than 3 seconds) and donating lots of money to Trump.
My own abortion story
One in four women will have an abortion before she’s 45. Before I had mine, I believed in other women’s right to choose but thought I’d never make that choice myself. Then I accidentally got pregnant (bad diaphragm placement) in college with a man I’d just met. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a husband. I didn’t have a college degree. I lived in an apartment with three roommates. And I knew if I had the baby I would be consigning us both to a life of barely getting by. So I made the hard choice.
A few years later, when I had a job, a degree, a husband, and an apartment of our own, we had a beautiful baby girl.
I felt guilty about the abortion, but I don’t buy the patronizing line that women should be denied the right to choose because they don’t know what’s best for them. That’s just more patriarchal malarkey, spreading the propaganda that women are less than fully adult.
And in my own case, one day someone said something that assuaged my guilt. We were sitting on the beach together. My precious baby girl was there too. I wistfully confessed that I had had an abortion and asked, “Why does this baby get to live and the other one didn’t?”
My companion answered, “What makes you think it’s not the same one?”
That made perfect sense! If I can believe that my baby has a soul that is separate from her body, then I can believe that when I indicated that I wasn’t ready, she simply waited until I was to come back into my life.
Most people in the U.S. support abortion access
Three quarters of people living in United States want to keep abortion rights. Why? Maybe some wonder why only the woman should face the consequences when it takes two people to make an unwanted baby.
Maybe they believe Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that access to abortion led to a huge drop in crime nationwide.
Maybe they don’t get why a fertilized egg is sacred but a cute little swimming sperm is not.
Maybe they’re humble enough to realize that they don’t have the all the answers about life and death and therefore shouldn’t be shoving them down other people’s throats — or up their vaginas.
The stats about abortion acceptance aren’t straightforward. Follow the link to see that many would like restrictions of various kinds. Personally, I have no problem with outlawing late-term abortions except when the pregnancy endangers the mother — although as it turns out, they are rarely performed. But the bottom line is, the majority doesn’t want Roe v. Wade overturned. Just like the majority didn’t elect Trump president, and the majority thinks that whomever we elect in November should fill RBG’s seat.
If fertilized eggs are your issue, just know you’re being lied to
So the upshot is, if fertilized eggs are your issue, that’s your privilege. Keep all of them you like! But please don’t force other people to adhere to your religious beliefs. It’s un-American. And please know that Trump and McConnell and the rest of the blowhards are lying to you through their tiny pointed teeth. They don’t give two figs about unborn children. They just want your vote. Do you really want to make a deal with those devils? And please also consider the possibility that you’ve been brainwashed by the patriarchal system we live in to disrespect and keep women (and all the other “special interest” groups) down, where it’s easier to scrub floors and polish shoes.
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