Giant Step Backward For Women
Texas Is Only the Beginning
This is a relatively easy one because, as the lawyers say, I have no standing because I haven’t an inkling of how women feel when they are faced with a decision on abortion, although I imagine a woman would be somewhat put off if some old white guy got in her face and told here that she couldn’t go to a doctor and have an abortion because abortions are a sin and the old white guy is running for re-election and even though most Americans favor a woman’s right to choose, that isn’t the case among the loudest right wing, trumpey types and those are the people who vote the most and the loudest in their gerrymandered districts so they count the most, at least to old white guys and their younger, ideologically-compromised partners in crime.
But as it has always been and probably always will be, old white men are deciding on issues over which they have no knowledge, compassion or even a tiny bit of understanding. There’s no news there, as it’s always the old white guys or the rich white guys who decide on when the country will go to war, sealing the fate of young, virile Americans who do what they are told or else. It’s like having a group of old white women telling me that I cannot have my son circumcised because they don’t like the procedure or a group of old white women deciding when I can have a prostate operation because their version of the Bible says it’s not right to have a prostate operation or circumcision.
In Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The ruling unleashed a virtual torrent of opposition, but not from pregnant women, and now in Texas, a new law, the most outlandish, the cruelest and the blatantly politically-driven, restricts abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a time in a woman’s pregnancy where she probably doesn’t even know she’s pregnant. Eleven other states had passed similar laws since 2013 but the courts blocked each one because they violated Roe v. Wade. In the most recent non-decision, the majority conservative Supreme Court punted without making a decision and the new horrific ban went into effect on Wednesday, thank you Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
But that ain’t all, as a result of the new law, any old yahoo, and they breed like lethal cacti in the Lone Star state, can now file a lawsuit for damages against anyone who does anything to abet an abortion, including handing out literature on choice, driving a person to a Planned Parenthood clinic that performs abortions or even just talking about abortions while waiting to check out in the supermarket’s under-20 items line. I’m talking vigilantes, packing guns, checking out the supermarkets, laundromats, beauty parlors and anywhere else women congregate to find one who maybe has violated the new law and that could mean big bucks for said vigilantes.
I’m trying to digest this but it kind of gets stuck in my throat that a man with tattoos about white supremacy blanketing his body can tell my daughter that she better quit talking about abortion or this guy with the wing nut views will march her into court. The thing is they tried this before, to outlaw abortions and they found out their oppressive, inhumane law didn’t cut the number of abortions but it did force women to go to shady doctors to have illegal abortions, often at the cost of a woman’s health or even her life. The Guttmacher Institute reported that researchers from the U.S. Center for Disease Control examined national abortion data from the three years surrounding Roe v. Wade and estimated that the number of illegal procedures in the country plummeted from around 130,000 to 17,000 between 1972 and 1974. The number of deaths associated with illegal abortion decreased from 39 to five in that same time period; women who died as a result of illegal abortions typically were black, were more than 12 weeks pregnant and had self-induced in their own community.
But this time it will be different, say the old white guys and the condescending Bible thumpers who go to gigantic churches where pastors tell people they don’t have to wear masks and then the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets. A friend of mine had a girlfriend in high school who got pregnant and there was no question that she would not have the baby because the pregnancy was an accident, she had big plans that would end with a baby and she was just too young and immature to be a mother. So she had an abortion, I don’t know who did it but I believe it was in another state and I would figure the oversight to insure safety of the mother was non-existent although the doctors probably made a good amount of money.
Who the hell do these pompous, self-aggrandizing chauvinists and religious zealots think they are telling a woman what she can and can’t do regarding her own body. If they are against abortions, they ought to speak with their daughters and wives about it. Texas should pass a law punishing the men who got the women pregnant and not the women for getting pregnant but that isn’t going to happen, not in Texas where men and men and women are inferior. Those who are fighting so self-righteously to halt all abortions have no idea what a pregnant woman goes through before deciding to abort or not. They think a woman cavalierly and easily decides to have an abortion. I can only imagine the deepest agony that comes with such a decision and by young women who will carry the results of the decision for the rest of their lives.
Here are highlights of the latest survey by the Pew Research Center.
* 59 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 39 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
* About three-quarters of White evangelical Protestants (77 percent) think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
* By contrast, 82 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do 64 percent of Black Protestants, 63 percent of White Protestants who are not evangelical, and 55 percent of Catholics.
* About six-in-ten Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party (63 percent) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. By contrast, 80 percent of Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
* Conservative Republicans and Republican leaners are far more likely to say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases than to say that it should be legal (78 percent vs. 22 percent). Among moderate and liberal Republicans, 59 percent say abortion should be legal, while 39 percent say it should be illegal.
* The vast majority of liberal Democrats and Democratic leaners support legal abortion (89 percent), as do seven-in-ten conservative and moderate Democrats (72 percent).
* Majorities of both men and women express support for legal abortion, though women are somewhat more likely than men to hold this view (62 percent vs. 56 percent).
* Among adults under age 30, 67 percent say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do 61 percent of adults in their 30s and 40s. Roughly half of those in their 50s and early 60s express support for legal abortion (53 percent); among those 65 and older 55 percent say the same.