However, the impression that I'm getting, indeed, the impression many are getting, is that when it comes down to it, these politicians and religious leaders and other various sorts mostly want the bodies of women to be considered a public domain. They want to be able to decide what happens to a woman, what steps are taken, and what paths are opened during what are deeply emotional, personal, and private moments. They want the public to be able to dictate if a woman can prevent pregnancy, terminate pregnancy, and decide how her life and the potential lives of those she would be responsible for will happen.
I'm not going to argue abortion here because I really do not believe this is about abortion. If these law makers and others wished to stop abortion they could . . . and all without ever making it illegal. They could make pregnancy safer. They could make access to birth control easier. They could educate people about how pregnancy happens (believe me, some people have some deeply stupid ideas about this) and how it could be prevented. They could alter the adoption laws to make adoption more affordable and easy. They could promote OBGYN research to make pregnancy safer, make childbirth safer, and make it all more affordable. If they truly, truly care about the babies, they would do these things and the rate of abortions would drop.
Instead, it seems like our law makers are trying to do the opposite of all of this. The laws they propose will not stop abortions. They actually promote them.
They want to make women have ultrasounds before being allowed abortions. This will not stop abortion. In fact, if someone has to go through the humiliation and invasive hell of the ultrasound, they'll probably be even more determined to abort the baby. Why go through all that crap just to back out?
Some states want to ban birth control pills. They believe this whawha about how birth control pills kill babies. If this happens, it is very rare. What the pill mostly does prevent pregnancy. No pregnancy, no abortion. In other states, they want to allow religious employers from having to pay for their workers' birth control pills. Oh, yes, that is just awesome. Pass laws that allow religious employers to make decisions about people's health based on their beliefs. This is going to be so lovely when religious people who don't believe in medicine at all refuse to cover their employees or when they refuse to cover their employees' children because they believe medicine of any kind corrupts children.
Other states wish to pass laws that would force women to carry babies to term even if they are already dead. Yes, that's right. They want you to keep a dead, rotting thing inside you until it passes on its own....assuming it will. While this law may not promote abortion, I can certainly see where it will promote women being horrified over this they refuse to ever get pregnant at all. It certainly freaks me out to no end.
The truth is though, none of these laws are about preventing abortion. These laws are designed to control women, control their bodies, and keep them from being seen as rational, reasonable people who are able to make decisions about their own lives. In the same way that a lot of heterosexual porn is built on the concept of the woman granting (or the man simply taking) more and more access to her body, these laws seek to remove personal autonomy and replace it with public policy. Your vagina is not your own. Your vagina is controlled by the Will of the state.
Now I ask you this . . . even if you are against abortion, are you truly willing to allow the State that much power? Are you really willing to let go of your own rights to control your body and allow public opinion to decide this for you? To me, when the government decides it can have a say about your choice to have a child or not, it is getting very close to having the power to decide if you can have a child AT ALL.
No comments:
Post a Comment