A recent LTE in the Washington Missourian called for “tough” abortion language in the federal health care/insurance reform bill and read like a memo from Bart Stupak. How did we allow anti-abortion zealots to become so powerful? They can terrorize the entire Congress of the United States just by stamping their feet.
In my reply to the Missourian, I pointed out that these are often the same people who attend “freedom” rallies and spout nonsense about Obama being a socialist/fascist. (Which is like being a vegetarian and a carnivore simultaneously)
But when it comes to things they don’t want the rest of us to do, “freedom” isn’t even part of the equation. Their definition of freedom – good. Anyone else’s definition of freedom – bad.
They want to tell women who buy health insurance with their own money that they can’t be covered for reproductive health services. Can you imagine the howls of protest if someone told these jokers that they couldn’t buy something with their own money?
And now they want to change the definition of “person” by amending the Missouri Constiution.
A group called Personhood Missouri is circulating petitions that will ask us in November if we approve that
the term “person” shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.
You can see where this is going, can’t you? If it weren’t so serious, this would make a great Far Side cartoon. Remember the one where the “boneless chickens” are hanging all over the fences and barn doors at the “boneless chicken ranch?” I can see globs of menstrual discharge sitting around a courtroom demanding their rights.
If fertilized eggs have rights, the women in whose bodies they hang out are mere incubators. If I didn’t know better, and I don’t, I’d say the religious extremists who preach male dominance have a hand in this effort to return to the dark ages when wives were property and pregnant spinsters were witches.
I, for one, won’t sign this petition if asked.
Just calm down now, sarah jo. Or … don’t. In fact, definitely, don’t calm down. What’s wrong with getting pissed off at self righteous, contradictory, controlling, flat earth morons? Right?
We allowed this shift to happen when, without challenge, we permitted politicians like Hillary Clinton, under the influence of the Family (see also here), to pander to the religious right in an effort to “find common ground,” declaring something to the effect that we all want to do away with abortion, and the best way to do so would be to make it unnecessary through access to birth control. When we stopped talking abut what it means to be a “person,” we ceded the definition of personhood to those religions who are willing to define it on the basis of misogynist church dogma. Finally when we allowed disingenuous imbeciles like Cynthia Davis and Todd Akin to pretend to oppose abortion for feminist reasons, the zealots had arrived.
Willy,
I agree. The more I think about this, the more disgusted I become. I thought we had evolved beyond the tyrannical control of those who claim to be speaking for a divine power. Wasn’t the whole purpose of separation of church and state to protect us from the kind of oppressive controls that European churches had over the citizens there? It seems we’re going backward instead of forward.
BTW, DemocraticStuff.com has t-shirts that say “Politics is like driving a car. R means reverse; D means forward”
Why should anyone’s access to healthcare coverage be held hostage as a means of controlling the behavior of women and our doctors?
Saw T.R. Reid interviewed on CSPAN yesterday. Although a devout Catholic, he’s infuriated with the Church. The abortion rates in countries with universal coverage are dramatically lower. Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, those women never have to worry about their medical needs or the baby’s and chose motherhood. Our current system and obstructions by ‘Pro-Lifers” actually encourages women to terminate pregnancies