The War on Women Continues

[gehayi]

You know that it's bad when:

Georgia’s state representative, Terry England, wants to force women to retain dead fetuses in their bodies until it's time to deliver.

New Hampshire's and Kansas's Houses of Representatives have each passed bills stating that doctors MUST tell women seeking abortion that having an abortion increases their risk of

Comments

[asphodeline]

This isn't just frightening, it's horrific. Land of the free unless you have a uterus and use it?

[gehayi]

You don't even have to use a uterus. Just having one and being of childbearing age is enough.

[gehayi]

To quote from the link:

England was speaking on the floor of the Georgia legislature in favor of HB 954, a bill which makes it illegal to obtain an abortion after 20 weeks[...]and many people would even agree with that. However, he was pushing for that law to also apply to women who are carrying a stillborn fetus or one that is likely to die before it reaches term, making it illegal for women to have the dead fetus removed until their bodies do so naturally.

Life gives us many experiences…I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive. Delivering pigs, dead or alive. It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.

***

In other words, women are no different than cows or pigs, and if OTHER barnyard animals can carry dead and rotting fetuses until delivery, why can't a woman? What makes women think that they're any better than any OTHER animals that are property?

[gehayi]

Tons of doctors and nurses have already testified that it's physically dangerous.

England...doesn't appear to believe them.

[ladyhadhafang]

Is it okay if I share your post?

[gehayi]

Feel free.

Even if these bills die, and I pray that they do, they point to a pervasive mindset that I think women should be aware of.

[ladyhadhafang]

I agree, completely.

And this, so very much to your comment, all the way.

[lareinenoire]

It is so horrible, SO horrible, and there's so much of it happening right now that it's beyond overwhelming. I cannot wait to get the hell out of Virginia, even if New Hampshire is apparently also passing idiotic laws.

I don't even understand why, beyond all the usual bullshit about claiming women's bodies because God forbid we have our own desires.

[gehayi]

I'm chalking it up to quite a lot of conservative white men feeling angry that the world isn't catering exclusively to them any longer. This probably contradicts much of what they were raised to believe, especially if they were brought up in a conservative branch of religion AND a conservative community which both told them that they were entitled to have everything their way.

And, like spoiled children discovering that the world does not cater to their every whim, they are now having temper tantrums. Only in their case, the temper tantrums amount to:

"Don't WANT that law! I don't like it and I don't wanna follow it, I don't wanna, I don't WANNA! You make HER follow it instead of me, 'cause she's mean and she gets away with everything! And it's not FAIR!"

It's amazing how much legislation boils down to that.

[gehayi]

I assume that either the voters approve of the craziness (which doesn't bear thinking about) or they don't know about the insanity until the politician is elected. Or perhaps the insane politicians keep getting elected, despite the fact that no one likes them, because no one has ever heard of the opposition and because some people will vote for a party rather than a person.

[morri_delrae]

I think politics tends to get more-than-its-fair-share of religious fanatics, god-complexing bullies hell bent on correcting other people's lives and cynical manipulators willing to say anything to garner attention (reasonable, compassionate well-meaning folks often choose to make a career elsewhere). So, every time you vote, if you don't go over each candidate's programme with a fine-tooth comb to find that one decent person in a dozen*, there's a good chance you're endorsing one of those assholes.

* and most people don't - I tend to spend days obsessing over which candidate to choose, so imagine my horror when I learned about one of the reasons for instituting the "election silence". It's because some people don't pick a candidate until they're actually in the voting booth.