by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
There may be some murky middle-ground in the continuing social and political battles swirling around abortion rights, but so far no one from either side of the issue seems to be interested in seeking any type of compromise. Both groups, those favoring women having control over their own bodies and healthcare decisions, and those who want to leave some important aspects of women's healthcare to dictates from the state, seem to be cemented their positions and show no interest in ceding any ground.
As various state governments become more and more active in the political battles over abortion, laws have been passed which seem to always weaken the options that women have in controlling their own bodies. For years now, whenever a state passed a law dealing with abortion, it always seemed to place more limits on what was allowed, as well as shorten the time that women had to address the issues of whether they wanted to maintain a pregnancy or terminate it.
For awhile some politicians had shown compassion for allowing terminations in cases of rape, incest, or pregnancies which posed serious health risks to the fetus or to the mother - but, over time, those, too, began to be whittled away by right-wing political ideologues who felt they had a better handle on what was best for women than the women themselves had.
This week in Michigan a Republican candidate for governor by the name of Garrett Soldano made a flurry of headlines when he argued in favor of rape victims carrying resultant fetuses to term. Soldano, who noted that he had a friend whose mother had been gang raped, argued that "We must always, always protect that DNA and allow it to have a voice." He said that people who became pregnant by sexual assault were "put in this moment" by God, and that the DNA of the fetus should be protected.
It's all God's doing.
The rapist may walk free, but the woman will have a mandatory nine-month sentence which could possibly stretch into a life sentence, with little or no assistance from the state that imposed the sentence upon her - and that is just fine with a certain type of politician because it is obviously God's will!
That is the endgame of the forced-birther movement: If thou art pregnant, regardless of the circumstances, thou wilt give birth to that child and then either give the child away to one's betters or raise the child without being a burden to society. And if your rapist continues to sow his seeds in many gardens, well, boys will be boys.
So enjoy those pregnancies, ladies, and know that they are all gifts from God, regardless of how He chose to bless you with them. If God delivers a fetus unto you, know that you will deliver a baby unto the world - that is the anti-abortion movement's endgame - no excuses and no exceptions.
1 comment:
A Nebraska law criminalizing late term abortions was the focus of the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000). That's the case when reasonableness went out the window and the anti-abortion side said they would not compromise.
Justice Stevens said that it made no sense for Nebraska to choose one method of abortion over another. Roe v. Wade's "[h]olding–that the word “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment includes a woman’s right to make this difficult and extremely personal decision–makes it impossible for me to understand how a State has any legitimate interest in requiring a doctor to follow any procedure other than the one that he or she reasonably believes will best protect the woman in her exercise of this constitutional liberty. But one need not even approach this view today to conclude that Nebraska’s law must fall. For the notion that either of these two equally gruesome procedures performed at this late stage of gestation is more akin to infanticide than the other, or that the State furthers any legitimate interest by banning one but not the other, is simply irrational."
Justice O'Connor probably could not believe her ears when counsel for Nebraska said that the late term "procedure will not, in some circumstances, be “necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother" She said "a ban on partial-birth abortion that only proscribed the D&X method of abortion and that included an exception to preserve the life and health of the mother would be constitutional" in her view.
My bet is that a lady as mature as Justice O'Connor can recall from personal experience a number of women whose deaths were attributed to maternal mortality. I know I can, and I am nearly two decades younger than the distinguished jurist.
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