18 April 2007

"Partial-Birth" Abortion Ban Upheld by SCOTUS, Slippery Slope Predicted

This is just really fucking scary. From what I understand, through all the medical and legal jargon, is that this procedure actually doesn't exist. The anti-choicers have mangled the language of late-term abortion to appeal to those who romanticize the fetus, and the ban was written vaguely enough to create that slippery slope into a full overturn of Roe.

I was just talking to a friend the other day about how I think all anti-choicers are basically assholes. While he agrees with me and my stance on reproductive rights, he argued that some anti-choicers are good people. He was specifically talking about a woman he knows who had an abortion as a teenager, and when her family found out, they called her a murderer because they believe abortion is murder. (For the record, he is very close friends with the woman's brother, and grew up with his family and says they're otherwise good people. I've only met the brother.) My response was that, setting aside the argument about reproductive rights and when life begins, they were assholes for not being supportive of her. She made a legal decision. I'd like to stress that: LEGAL.

The anti-choice culture is not about protecting life, it's about controlling women. Rather than seeing this woman as a human being with what is possibly the most difficult choice a person makes, they simply shamed her for her "mistake". And they are assholes for it. I have an impossible time wrapping my brain around the idea that a person can deny science and not see the hypocrisy in the anti-choice rhetoric. If a blastocyst is a potential life that is morally wrong to terminate, then why aren't the morality police punishing women for flushing ova out of the womb by menstruating? After all, an ovum is a potential life, an even more solid fact considering scientists can now create sperm from bone marrow. What about women who cannot conceive because of a uterine condition? A blastocyst could form through natural fertilization and not implant because of a medical issue, and then just exit the body with the menstrual flow without a woman even knowing. By the anti-choice logic, these women should be punished for this. If you take anti-choice logic to it's conclusion, it means that non-procreative sex should be illegal. That would include the following: fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex, sex with barrier/hormonal birth control, sex during infertile times (this means you, natural family planning gurus), sex in sterile couples, sex with a post-menopausal woman, and of course, homosexual sex. (Although the anti-choicers probably wouldn't have a problem making that illegal, either.) This sort of attitude may also mean that it will be difficult for a woman to have a tubal ligation, or for a woman to have a hysterectomy during her fertile years due to an illness. (Remember, the new ban does not make an exception for a woman's health.)

It is absolutely crucial for women (and men) to retain the fullest of reproductive rights, and not feel shamed for doing what is right for them at certain life stages. This ban has more repercussions than most realize. We must fight this!

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