Hands-on
This has been a terrible week for the United States. The only good thing so far seems to be that Gonzales may be wrung out to dry. The rest of it? Not so good.
The only thing I want to/have time to/must for my own sanity comment upon right now is the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (the name of which still raises the hairs on the back of my neck -- if ever there was physical evidence of dirty politics, the renaming of dialation and extraction is it). Yesterday while riding home on the subway it really clicked. I've always been for reproductive rights (and I think any woman who isn't is in some way fooling herself) but for some reason I had a vision of what it must be like to sit in a doctor's office, swollen, hemorrhaging, in extreme pain, and having a doctor tell you "well, your life's not in danger, so we're not going to do anything about it." Or, as is proposed in some states, be required to show me an ultrascan of the fetus so that I can be sure to have a clear picture of the crime I'm committing, so that maybe I'll change my mind. Never mind that I could hemorrhage for weeks or months after, or have life-long health problems from that point on. Or worse: be sterile from that point forward, never to have the choice to bear a healthy child. Ever.
All because I might come to regret "killing" a fetus someday. That's what daddy Kennedy says, anyway. And he is my moral superior, so I must bend to his more highly-developed sense of what is Right and Good.
I wonder if they've even heard of Guatemala.
It's really heartbreaking in addition to maddening to read Justice Ginsburg's dissent. I know this is the kind of knock-you-over-the-head thing that everyone always mentions, but it bears mentioning again: does anyone pay ANY attention to the fact that she is the one woman on the Court? Her dissent wisely brings focus to genderless injustices like violation of privacy and ignorance of jurisprudence rather than what I think would be the most convincing argument, which is "I have a uterus AND I have equal intellectual and moral standing to sit on the bench, how do you men have the GALL to propose what decisions I am emotionally and morally capable of undertaking?" Except that would be "shrill." And "uppity." Ginsburg knows what she's doing. Everyone else? Well, they sure as hell think they do.
I know that these laws are going to affect women of lower socioeconomic standing than mine. But still, every little chip at these basic rights to privacy and self-governance is just infuriating. As more and more things become illegal, who's to say this will remain a matter of wealth and race? Does anyone want to go underground to do something illegal to save her own life, literally or otherwise?
I just feel like this is a fundamental slap in the face to women and men of true moral standing everywhere, no matter how he or she feels about abortion. It's saying that a)men have the right to determine a woman's place and b)a concept that has always been morally ambiguous except to the most hardcore of life-begins-at-conceptioners can be regulated by a handful of men who happen to sit higher up than the groups of men and women who sit lower down and who have made their readings of the Constitution quite clear.
Never has it seemed more important to instigate a regime change. Clearly Bush's choices will limit the rest of our choices for decades to come, and we cannot let him and his morally self-righteous ilk gain further control.
The only thing I want to/have time to/must for my own sanity comment upon right now is the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (the name of which still raises the hairs on the back of my neck -- if ever there was physical evidence of dirty politics, the renaming of dialation and extraction is it). Yesterday while riding home on the subway it really clicked. I've always been for reproductive rights (and I think any woman who isn't is in some way fooling herself) but for some reason I had a vision of what it must be like to sit in a doctor's office, swollen, hemorrhaging, in extreme pain, and having a doctor tell you "well, your life's not in danger, so we're not going to do anything about it." Or, as is proposed in some states, be required to show me an ultrascan of the fetus so that I can be sure to have a clear picture of the crime I'm committing, so that maybe I'll change my mind. Never mind that I could hemorrhage for weeks or months after, or have life-long health problems from that point on. Or worse: be sterile from that point forward, never to have the choice to bear a healthy child. Ever.
All because I might come to regret "killing" a fetus someday. That's what daddy Kennedy says, anyway. And he is my moral superior, so I must bend to his more highly-developed sense of what is Right and Good.
I wonder if they've even heard of Guatemala.
It's really heartbreaking in addition to maddening to read Justice Ginsburg's dissent. I know this is the kind of knock-you-over-the-head thing that everyone always mentions, but it bears mentioning again: does anyone pay ANY attention to the fact that she is the one woman on the Court? Her dissent wisely brings focus to genderless injustices like violation of privacy and ignorance of jurisprudence rather than what I think would be the most convincing argument, which is "I have a uterus AND I have equal intellectual and moral standing to sit on the bench, how do you men have the GALL to propose what decisions I am emotionally and morally capable of undertaking?" Except that would be "shrill." And "uppity." Ginsburg knows what she's doing. Everyone else? Well, they sure as hell think they do.
I know that these laws are going to affect women of lower socioeconomic standing than mine. But still, every little chip at these basic rights to privacy and self-governance is just infuriating. As more and more things become illegal, who's to say this will remain a matter of wealth and race? Does anyone want to go underground to do something illegal to save her own life, literally or otherwise?
I just feel like this is a fundamental slap in the face to women and men of true moral standing everywhere, no matter how he or she feels about abortion. It's saying that a)men have the right to determine a woman's place and b)a concept that has always been morally ambiguous except to the most hardcore of life-begins-at-conceptioners can be regulated by a handful of men who happen to sit higher up than the groups of men and women who sit lower down and who have made their readings of the Constitution quite clear.
Never has it seemed more important to instigate a regime change. Clearly Bush's choices will limit the rest of our choices for decades to come, and we cannot let him and his morally self-righteous ilk gain further control.