http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/041108abortion.htm
roe, roe, roe
your boat
by
Mistress Rowena
I am eagerly awaiting the day when the Supreme Court, in its infinite
wisdom, opines that the Burger Court was on drugs (I mean, consider
the decade) when it held that the penumbra of privacy that the Court
had recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut (birth control info for
married folks, for those of us who may not remember the days when
telling married couples how to prevent conception was a criminal
offence—Chee-rist, would I have been out of a job then!) applied via
the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection, look it up, you should
know this) to a women's right to terminate her pregnancy for any
reason she damn well pleased (up to then, most states had allowed
abortion only to save the life of the mother).
Justice Scalia has nightly wet dreams about writing this opinion. O
happy day, when the sun will shine brightly on our majestic purple
mountains and words like democracy and freedom will ring out in our
spacious skies!
Have I submitted to our patriarchal overlords and accepted Jesus
Christ as my personal savior? Not bloody likely (although I once had a
near-religious experience when someone was worshipping my feet and
sucking my… never mind). Have I simply taken leave of my senses? Quite
possibly, as this election was enough to drive anyone full-blown
bat-***** crazy. But stick with me for a minute here. The fundies have
been an increasingly crucial part of the New Right since the
Republicans got in bed with the televangelists, and fundies played the
decisive role in this election.
What was the number one issue affecting voter choice at the polls? Was
it Iraq? The war on terrorism? The economy, stupid? Healthcare? Social
security? Nyet, comrade: it was moral issues. The gay marriage
referendums in 11 states (all of which passed overwhelmingly) brought
the frothin' fundies out in rain, sleet and snow because life as we
know it would end if the gay couple who've been living together for 55
years could put a legal stamp on their union.
But the gay marriage thing is relatively recent. Overturning Roe v.
Wade has been the fundie vendetta for over 30 years. It provides the
"litmus test" for all federal court nominees and it is the one issue
that political candidates cannot dance around to their electoral
advantage: you're either with us or against us. The fact that abortion
is legal and OH MY GOD, MILLIONS OF INNOCENT BABIES ARE BEING KILLED
EVERY YEAR gets fundies to the polls like a hot poker up the arse. No
matter what else is going on in the world (a world they are willfully
ignorant of unless their preacher mentions it on Sundays), this is
their number one electoral issue. Fer Chissakes, even the Catholics,
historically not always in lockstep with the fundies, pronounced it a
sin to vote for Kerry thanks to his stance on abortion rights.
So let's give 'em what they want and send 'em home. Let's overturn Roe
v. Wade and see if they remain as virulent an electoral force. Won't
they find other moral issues to thump their Bibles about next
election? (Do you think, "thumping your Bible" could catch on as a new
euphemism for masturbation?)
Sure as sugar on your ***** will give you a yeast infection, of course
they will. Next they'll want a constitutional amendment banning
abortion nationwide. They'll continue to hound gays and lobby for
prayer in schools. They'll seek to replace evolution with creationism
in the classroom, reduce availability of contraception and demand laws
that require women to submit to their husbands.
And that's just for the midterm elections: The fundies are one of the
most organized elements in the polity and they would take any victory
as a mandate to overhaul the country into a theocracy. They've got
their ***** together, even if it stinks to high heaven. So, there isn't
a hope in hell they'll go back to their homeschooling and patriarchy
and leave government the ***** alone. But a supposed victory of this
magnitude would take their attention off the national government
temporarily while they lobbied the red states to pass laws banning
abortion (the ink on many of which will have dried before the Supreme
Court finishes announcing the opinion). Then they'd have to go to work
on the blue states, which should keep them occupied until hell freezes
over and the devil goes ice-skating with Jerry Falwell.
What's more, pursuing a national ban on abortion would force them to
violate the states' rights/limited federal government principle they
so belligerently assert as a reason for why it should be legal for
states to ban abortion. I know, I know, they are not afraid to lie in
bed with hypocrisy, in fact, they blow it, suck it and ***** it every
night while they lobby for a gay marriage ban.
But I am convinced that the fundies are not as homogeneous as they
appear when abortion is on the table (mmm, fried placenta). No other
issue unites all of the different denominations, not to mention the
Catholics, although faggots and lesbos come close.
And overturning Roe v. Wade will wake up any liberals who are still
living in caves and DIDN'T BOTHER TO FUCKING VOTE LAST WEEK. HELLO?!?
YOU MAY NOT HAVE NOTICED BUT THE WORLD JUST ENDED! WAKEY, WAKEY!
Pro-choice voters are more heterogeneous (though not more
heterosexual) and less ideologically-driven than the fundies. It's
much easier to get people motivated when they want something than when
the law is already on their side.
Many pro-choice voters cannot remember a time when abortion was not
legal and the continual clamor of the anti-choice protestors has been
little more than an annoying fly, buzzing at the edges of the smelly
muck heap of politics. They have been lulled into complacency by the
cries of wolf when Reagan was elected, then Bush. I recall that a wake
for abortion rights, complete with coat hangers, was held on my campus
when Bush, Sr. succeeded Reagan. It turned out to be a bit premature.
The backlash following the overturning of Roe might, dare we
contemplate it, produce a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the
right to make any and all reproductive choices, ending the perennial
issue of judicial interpretation.
The last, and most strenuous objection to this deviant strategy must
be the question of what would happen to abortion rights. The
psychological ramifications of overturning Roe would suck ***** but, as
for the practical effects, sadly, most of the states that would
immediately outlaw abortion currently have few or no abortion
providers, so their residents already need to travel long distances to
obtain abortion services. For example, 86% of US counties have no
abortion provider. Eighty-nine out of 320 metropolitan areas have no
abortion provider. The entire state of South Dakota has one freaking
abortion provider. The average distance traveled for an abortion is 50
miles.
To those that say an underground railroad would develop to transport
needy women to blue states, I'm telling ya, it already exists. Also,
only a few states cover abortion for Medicaid recipients, so most poor
women carry their unintended pregnancies to term even though they can
least afford another mouth to feed. (That's why Mickey D's has value
meals.) These figures may vary slightly from year to year but the
point is that access to abortion in the red states is already quite
(read: pretty fucking) limited.
I am willing to entertain the possibility that I could be wrong, and
that certainly doesn't happen every fucking day but, what are our
other options for victory in 2008?
Throw us a lifeline, coat hanger, anything at
mistressrowena@corporatemofo.com
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--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
.
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