I have long sought to find the argument that would encapsulate my feelings toward the extreme Christian Right in this country who would use every means possible to usurp Roe V. Wade. Not challenging it head on, but making it nearly impossible to enforce with legislative side shows and tap dances at protecting the unborn.
Thanks to the state of Pennsylvania and their governor, my argument was handed to me on a silver platter.
ultrasound before having an abortion. And Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering one of
it’s not obtrusive because women could simply close their eyes during the procedure:
That’s correct, the governor said for women just to close their eyes. They didn’t have to look.
My reply is then, “Well, Governor Corbett, if they close their eyes how can they possibly see the educational images you are trying to share with them.” Seems like your logic just went flying out the window.
Maybe, it has nothing to do with educating a young woman about what she has inside of her after all, but rather, about humiliating her at a time of a most personal decision.
And that is the crux of the entire fight. It is about humiliation of American women. It has very little to do with protecting children. If you think it is not about humiliation, what do you call the proposed Arizona law that would require women to tell their employers why they are on contraceptives? Really? Now granted that comes from Arizona where the entire state legal culture is just slightly above a rattle snake, but still that is only about humiliation. Only.
My wife’s employer has NO right whatsoever to know what medications she takes and why. That is between her and her doctor. Only. Even John McCain is trying to tell Republicans this “silly war” has got to stop. He knows what is coming. The end of the GOP as we know it. Barry Goldwater also of Arizona tried to warn us years ago about the escalating problem of the zealots of the Christian Fundamentalist Right and the ruin they would cause the conservative movement. He knew then, just as McCain knows today.
And all this legislative posturing is not about protecting children, either.
After all, state legislatures across America have slashed childcare and infant medical care to the bone. The US has the most expensive health care in the world but ranks #29 behind Slovenia, and #30 for infant mortality. (and in case you’re looking for it, that is nowhere near the top of the list. In fact, it is way, way down the list.) – the point is, legislatures don’t care about the un-born, because they don’t care about the new born. If that is a child in the uterus in the first trimester, then it is a child when it comes out. It should have as much protection after birth as it has political clout before birth. But it does not.
And that is what boils my blood. God-fearing men standing up and telling women what they should be doing with their own bodies and “Oh by the way, we’re going to cut medical care for needy children.”
It is hypocrisy. Of the worst kind.
What the state legislators and the congressmen in Washington D.C. care about is that the far right has money and votes. And that keeps them in power.
You let the far right anti-abortion foes waver, you let their funding dry up, you watch a retrenching from the polls by their voters, and you will see legislatures and our own congress vacate this stupid argument in a New York Minute.
This entire argument is about power. And it is being fought on the backs of women in America.
When Governor Tom said that women should just closed their eyes and don’t watch, he was also talking about something much larger than a transvaginal ultrasound. He was metaphorically speaking of the decay of women’s rights and the right to privacy in our land. “Just close your eyes to what we are trying to do to you and your rights.”
Having a wand thrust up inside you because Rick Perry or Tom Corbett think it is a good measure for saving lives, is nothing short of big government intervention in a person’s private life. And to think conservative froth at the mouth at this very issue every day. No more big government in my life!
Well, this is a good place to start.
No more government intrusion in the lives and the vaginas of U.S. women. How about it conservatives?
By the way Governor Tom, 64 percent of voters in your state oppose requiring transvaginal ultrasounds. Might take a long look at that before you close your eyes.
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