P.S. (that is, pre-script, post-script): I promise that if I feel compelled to become a political blogger after this election, I will subdivide and leave those thoughts accessible by link, but otherwise utterly ignorable and avoidable.
As I compose these “Donkey Tales,” it occurs to me to ask: Why am I not simply pro-Obama, instead of also being anti-Romney? Why do I not present my case from a standpoint of highlighting what I find right about one, versus what I find wrong about the other? Because, sometimes that’s what it’s about. You support many of your guy’s initiatives, so you want to keep him, but it’s difficult to describe what’s right about how he’s running things without mentioning how wrongly things could go in another direction. So, forgive me. I’m not trying to be a basher of people, but I do think certain policies or attitudes are worthy of a good bashing.
Today I will be bashing the fingers, and possibly other parts, of anyone who would like to legislate whether I, my daughters, or any other woman, may control our own bodies. Because it’s none of their beeswax.
Floating around our house is a bumper sticker (not currently affixed to anyone’s car) which says “Stop the War on Women,” and, in smaller print, “rock the slut vote.” Fox News insists there is no “war on women,” and I’ll admit, it’s a little hyperbolic, just as is the larger-than-necessary deal that was made of Mitt’s “binders full of women” remark.
However, if you canvass the most vocal group of right-leaning legislators these days, you’ll come away with some conflicting contentions. One would be that your “right to choose” ended when you got pregnant. Ok. So, how about the fact that the guy hoping to be VP, along with many of his friends, won’t even extend you the right to choose pregnancy or not? Because rape, you see, is “another form of conception,” and they say you’ve gotta have the baby.
I’m the worst pro-choicer you’ll ever meet, because I absolutely, absolutely detest and decry the argument that it’s just a zygote until it’s born. Nah, it’s a person. Which makes me a pretty horrible person, maybe, for allowing women the legal right to seek abortion. But that’s where I have to stand--her body, her jurisdiction.
I’ve gone into more detail on this topic elsewhere, but I’ll keep it brutal and simple here--life is far, far too complicated for you to tell other people whether or not they have to have a baby. Maybe you are wonderfully responsible, and would never get pregnant at a terrible time. If so, you’re better than most women I know, myself included. Nope. Life is too complicated, and women have to decide for themselves what they can or cannot deal with. Personally, I have been close enough to the frayed end of my emotional rope that I could have considered ending a pregnancy, and that was without the dire economic situations faced by many. Instead, I chose an expensive, not covered by my insurance, permanent fix. Not all that accessible.
I came into this world with a hair-trigger negative response to authoritarian male behavior. I don’t know why. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I’d run off and join the Amazons rather than live under people trying to reverse women’s ease of access to (not just abortion) but birth control and low-cost healthcare services. (read: Planned Parenthood.) Sorry, buddy, that stuff’s not optional.
It will not enhance our society if we fix things so women find themselves in trouble too often. It just won’t. Ok, so maybe I can’t sway your thinking on this one (as if I could on any other point!) There’s where I stand.
Because this article expresses the main points so well, I'm appending it here.
1 comment:
It may not have been the tipping point, but I think a lot of citizens feel the same way. That cost the Republicans enough votes that they're going to have to drop this idea that they can legislate over women's right to choose what they do with their bodies if they want to be electable.
Post a Comment