Sunday, October 23, 2011

Fetus Envy

Would you like to know my opinion about abortion? That's what I thought. I don't care what you think either. And that's the way it should be with an issue so personal. Unless it involves you or a loved one, it's none of your damn business what someone else chooses to do about an unwanted or unhealthy pregnancy. And it most assuredly is not the concern of the government. Yet the moronic Tea Party Republicans, who came into office with the promise to concentrate on "jobs, jobs, jobs" have so far focused their legislative efforts on "abortion, abortion, abortion." The "smaller, less intrusive government" conservatives want to keep Washington off of your back, but all up in your uterus. Anti-abortion crusaders refer to themselves as "Pro Life;" a misnomer for sure. If you're "pro-life," you don't sit in the audience at a Republican candidates' debate and cheer about state executions, or that the Republic of Texas has an express lane running through their death chamber. If you're pro-life you don't scream "let 'em die" when discussing a terminally ill patient without health insurance. The loudest people that claim to be "pro-life" aren't really that concerned about the already living. In reality, they are merely "pro-fetus." In a critical time of economic crises, the House Republicans' obsession with abortion is extending the jobless, homeless recession that has gripped the nation since the Bush regime, like horse manure, hit the dusty trail.

The GOP zealots believe that their electoral victories in 2010 gave them a mandate to pursue their social agenda, while neglecting the country's economic turmoil, lest it give Obama a political "victory." To date, the Republican controlled House has presented 44 bills concerning abortion and 71 others regarding family relationships. With unemployment topping 9 percent, the number of jobs programs offered by Republicans? Zero, with a zed. Their medical meddling proposals vary in outrage from preventing women from purchasing private insurance that includes abortion services, to jailing doctors who fail to notify the parents of a minor seeking an abortion. This month, the House, with unanimous Republican consent, passed the "Protect Life Act," a law that would make it legal for a hospital, as a matter of collective conscience, to deny an abortion to a pregnant women with life-threatening conditions, basically allowing her to die on the floor without legal consequence. The Republican presidential candidates fell all over themselves to out-radicalize each other. Michele Bachmann would force a woman to carry her rapist's child to term, and Rick "man on dog" Santorum even came out against contraception. And these are the people who want government out of your lives.

The most violent act against women by the Tea Party cretins is a bill sponsored by N.J. Rep. Chris Smith, called the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Since the Hyde Amendment, which has been in effect since 1976, does precisely that, Smith's bill would be merely redundant if not for its unfathomable cruelty. The Hyde Amendment bans all federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the mother's life. Smith's bill attempts to further constrict a woman's rights by redefining the definition of "rape" from any form of non-consensual sex, to "forcible rape." This would eliminate date rape, statutory rape, incest, or any other such incident in which the woman failed, for whatever reason, to resist. The bill should be renamed the "Your mouth says no, but your eyes say yes" act. The backlash against narrowing the meaning of rape was severe enough for Rep. Smith to remove the language from the bill, but not the bill itself. It sits in the stack with the other 43, including proposals to ban abortion in the District of Columbia by declaring it under federal jurisdiction, and forcing abortion providers to provide mandatory sonograms and anti-abortion counselling. These bills are frivolous, however, when compared to the GOP's all-out war against Planned Parenthood.

Long demonized by the right, a congressional committee has begun an investigation into Planned Parenthood to examine their compliance with the Hyde Amendment amid accusations of being a mismanaged abortion factory awash in dirty money. The cult of the fetus cheered lustily while the president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony list said, "This is a critical step in holding accountable...a billion dollar business centered on abortion and an unapologetic partner of those who wish to exploit young girls." Meanwhile, on the Planned Parenthood website, the organization claims that last year they performed one million cervical cancer screenings, 800,000 breast exams, and 4 million STD tests and treatments. Abortion came to 3 percent of their combined services. Don't the cervix police understand that Planned Parenthood was there 100 years before Roe v. Wade?  So now the battle to defund and marginalize Planned Parenthood has come to Memphis. The Republican dominated Shelby County Commission has voted to provide state funding for family planning to Christ Community Health Services, which does not perform abortions. I'm certain the Christ Community folks are compassionate and qualified professionals, and will refer a woman wishing to terminate a pregnancy after a bit of faith-based counselling, but they also do not provide emergency contraception, which is sort of like going to the Christian Science Reading Room to fill your prescriptions.

If the rabid pro-lifers had their wildest dreams realized and the practice of abortion was once again made illegal, do they suppose that it would stop? Isn't a woman's privacy and good health preferable to returning to a time of agony and secrecy? I don't know a soul who actually "favors" abortion, either in concept or procedure. No one wants to run out and get an abortion. But unexpected things always happen and criminalizing a bunch of doctors and stigmatizing vulnerable women is not the answer. The irony is that the things that could lessen the need for abortion: sex education, dissemination of contraceptives, abandoning the idiotic "abstinence only" school curriculum, are all opposed by the social conservatives. When I told my wife that I was discussing this subject, she suggested that a female viewpoint was imperative. Melody would like to say that if a man was the one that got pregnant, we would never be having this conversation in the first place. She also wishes to emphasize that no pencil-neck fertilizer salesman from West Texas should be making medical decisions about a family's most intimate concerns, and until a man develops the ability to birth a child, sit down and shut up, Sonny. The surest way to stop this nonsense is to abort this Congress.

12 comments:

Gregg Harris Grinspan said...

My brother told me about the Planned Parenthood fiasco in Memphis when I was there last week. My sorrow over the state of affairs in my birth state will only be made worse when I read that they've passed a concealed weapon law allowing Jr. High School students to carry AK-47s in school and, just out of fiery reactionism, make those same children eat as much sugar and trans-fats as they can stuff in their unknowing little mouths. At this point, I wouldn't feel shock, just more sorrow and sadness.

Shock (at the lack of focus of the 20/400 eyes of the Tea Party and the Southern Republican party goers) is no longer an appropriate response.

How long do you hang around in North Korea before you realize that you better get out; that you realize that "things" are not going to get better; that the tide of idiocy has a 200 wave at its crest and no 5 foot 8 inch man is going to really be able to put up a hand to slow it, much less stop it? Historical waves have to crash on the beach. Good luck, Tennessee. Will be watching from Google Earth to see what your coastline looks like in about 30 years.

But, I sure won't be there to experience it. I wonder what it's like in the great Northwest?

John McLallen said...

Randy, The Tea Part/right reminds me of what happened during prohibition. When alcohol was prohibited it flowed like the Mississippi, but when Prohibition ended alcohol became regulated and it stopped flowing as much, so to speak. There were age requirements as well as late-night closing and no purchasing liquor on Sunday. My point with this is that the tea party's draconian measure would insure the same backroom operations that were prevelant during the 40's and 50's when someone's daughter or sister took their life in their hands when they went back there.

Mother Theresa said...

Randolph! You ignorant Slut!

performs said...

The way I see those who attach themselves to the antiabortion political campaign is as people attempting to enhance their ego identity. They avail themselves the opportunity to be the heroic, honorable protectors of the the MOST INNOCENT beings, fetuses. They are like knights in shining armor to the rescue. At the same time they assume the role of the one who calls out and punishes the sinfulness of women who act irresponsibly by getting themselves pregnant--shame.

What else could be the motivator this behavior? Love? Wisdom? Empathy? Certainly not tolerance or understanding.

Father Farken said...

Randy! We have all aborted life in one form or another. We have all fallen short! Lord have mercy on us all. But it use to be that our fellow neighbors were seen as our loved ones. There were Republicans & Democrats that fought together to remind others that blacks were our loved ones. That all flesh were our loved ones. That the unborn were our loved ones. Politics is best when it is rooted in the dignity of life.

What did JFK, Mother Jones, Malcolm X, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahalia Jackson, Jack Kerioac and Carl Perkins...ALL have in common? They all thought abortion was wrong. Today,we are no longer our brother's keeper! And the sad thing is, we no longer see our unborn as our loved ones. Perhaps we are aborting our soul. Love You Randy! The Peace of the Lord! FFF

Anonymous said...

Show me a man with a vagina and then I'll listen to these Right wing assholes, otherwise, shut the fuck up until you REALLY know what your talking about. And this from a woman who has a vagina.Oh and how would you feel if some thug raped your Mom or your precious daughter? Things might seem a tad bit different then. I'm so sick of men trying to tell me what to do or not do with MY body.

Mother Theresa said...

Dear Randolph! Please forgive my previous post! You are not an ignorant slut. Let's just agree to disagree. But I would like to come to FFF's defence.
Father Farken is not a right ringer but he is a left footer. No! He does not have a vagina but he did take the vow! Everyone knows that he's just a Big Pussy!That's got to count for something. His mother (Mother Farken)was raped by a thug from Dublin. Where do you think Fergus came from?
Me? I have a vagina. A very old vagina! Believe me! Elvis never slept here! There is a reason they call me a nun! Don't want none/can't have none!
Now to Lady Vag (Anon.11/24-1:31pm)! Don't make me put a yardstick to your overactive backside!
All Said in Love! Mother Theresa

Anonymous said...

Why, Randy, you've grown into quite a literate and outspoken man! I would never have guessed when we sat in your bedroom in Hedgemoor talking and picking (me tapping), that you would achieve such thoughtful and well-defended views! I'm impressed, both by your Guts to expose the moral charade of these crazy hypocritical morons. They remind me of some of drunken fraternity brothers at UT who wanted to first in line at the community vagina. "Who cares what her name is, I want to F*** her First".

Sadly, it's obvious that some of us never matured past the "Get 'em drunk and Do 'em!" moronic philosophy that marred our (OK, some of you didn't participate) "cocky" years", and I'm sure I would have been right there if I hadn't been ducking bullets for a Living. But I wasn't.... I took a trip to New York with an unnamed Memphis Belle in my first year back, and another anguished trip the next year , both from Knoxville. If anyone thinks that abortion is a "throwaway", they should have stood in my shoes. I sincerely wished someone would have. It's an awful decision (and I just had to be there}, but the world is probably better for it. We have way too many short, fat, bald men waddling around, and I would have suffered having to live with a lot of money. History shows I'm not good at that....

Alan said...

I am pro Choice, but am not narrow minded enough to think only the way I think is correct. Why in our society does it have to my way or you are an idiot, hayseed or any other negative name when we disagree. The whole abortion argument boils down to interpretation of life. If you believe life begins at conception, which is your right in this country, then abortion is murder and you have the obligation to oppose it. Doing anything else is not acceptable. Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and believed in Eugenics. Do you agree with her? She thought she could control the black population through Eugenics. Is this who you stand with or with people that truly believe abortion is murder. One stands on principle the other stands in judgment.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Father and Alan. God have mercy on all of us.

Scott Hutson said...

Whether I'm pro-this or that dosen't matter to anyone but me, obviously. So I will keep my trap shut about my opinion on that issue.

But the point you make about Repulicans claiming they want less Government involved in our personal life and so on...That's exactly what they are doing every time they open they're pie-holes(making promises to make more or change laws to infringe upon our freedom to make our own personal decisions). And even worse..insinuating that those of us that don't agree with them are sinning against God.

I heard someone ask: "What if Mary would have had an abortion?" My reply was: "If you really believe in God and think you know so much about Him, then you would know that God was the father of that child, and would not let Mary do that." ...Think about that before you judge...anyone.

CHAZ said...

I use to have a vagina before I discovered my purpose in life. Don't miss my lady parts one bit! Well....sometimes I do ....but in this world of give & take...I'd rather lead! That's why I'm dancing with the stars. My mama says that I would do anything to lose the high hills! Peace. CHAZ