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Feb. 16th, 2011 12:04 pmReading a MeFi thread on the most recent political shenanigans in South Dakota- a bill that would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include homicide for the protection of unborn children. Debate is on as to whether this would categorize the murder of abortion providers as justifiable homicide.
One comment in particular is so good I have to share it here:
"Well, then this bill has done a tiny smidgen of good, if it woke you up. Much as I hope the astonishing number of bills targeting not only abortion, but contraception, women's health, and programs fighting violence against women wake up other liberal but sheltered types to the fact that women are being attacked, en masse, by Republicans. They have declared all out war on us, on our rights, on our freedom.
And I don't care, anymore, about people who sincerely want to save babies, because they have decided that the way to do so is not to fix things that actually kill babies (lack of healthcare, malnutrition, pollution) but to declare women's reproductive organs, and, by extension, her whole person, state property.
I don't care what people's motivations are if the end result of their actions is that women become chattel. If my every decision must be governed by the potential effects it will have on a potential fetus, in order to avoid criminal charges, then I am no longer free. A woman's reproductive years last from about age 12 to age 50; is every woman to become the property of the state for that period of her life? Because that's what's being proposed."
Sometimes it feels like we teeter way too close to the edge of A Handmaid's Tale.
One comment in particular is so good I have to share it here:
"Well, then this bill has done a tiny smidgen of good, if it woke you up. Much as I hope the astonishing number of bills targeting not only abortion, but contraception, women's health, and programs fighting violence against women wake up other liberal but sheltered types to the fact that women are being attacked, en masse, by Republicans. They have declared all out war on us, on our rights, on our freedom.
And I don't care, anymore, about people who sincerely want to save babies, because they have decided that the way to do so is not to fix things that actually kill babies (lack of healthcare, malnutrition, pollution) but to declare women's reproductive organs, and, by extension, her whole person, state property.
I don't care what people's motivations are if the end result of their actions is that women become chattel. If my every decision must be governed by the potential effects it will have on a potential fetus, in order to avoid criminal charges, then I am no longer free. A woman's reproductive years last from about age 12 to age 50; is every woman to become the property of the state for that period of her life? Because that's what's being proposed."
Sometimes it feels like we teeter way too close to the edge of A Handmaid's Tale.
