Jill's latest post makes me sick. Literally physically ill. And to think that there are people in my own country who would be over the moon if we made America more like Nicaragua! All that comes of "pro-life" victories is death and violence.
In summary,
Nicaragua criminalized all abortions, for any reason, in November of 2006. Pro-life groups and the Catholic Church rejoiced. Of course, we know that this does not actually decrease the number of abortions. It just makes doctors stop providing them in safe spaces and makes women have to find them elsewhere. At least 82 women have died because of this law. The article tells the story of one of them. She had four small children and her mother to care for. She got pregnant. It was an ectopic pregnancy. She needed an abortion. There is no provision for abortions for medical reasons in the Nicaraguan law. She went to healers in her town, and she died. Who will care for her already living children now that their mother is dead? How will they earn enough to feed themselves? How is this, in the slightest, "pro-life?" Who's life? Obviously no one cares about the mother's life. No one cares about the lives of her children. No, just the fetus. The fetus is all that matters.
And look at what the "pro-life" side says! "The anti-abortion camp, in contrast, is euphoric. The new law, it says, is a beacon in the fight to protect the unborn. It is time to celebrate. 'Now it is all penalised. And Catholics agree that is should be this way," says Roberto González, 50, a Franciscan priest in Managua. "The population sees the church as behind the law - behind the pressure that succeeded in getting the government to change the law.'" So Catholics agree that women's lives are worthless. Not that I expected much more, to be honest. But celebrating the deaths of 82 women! And the suffering of their children! This is absolutely inhumane. I can't imagine anything more disgusting than this lying, duplicitous stance.
Pro-life. Don't make me laugh.