Women Should Have the Right To Choose
Not Be Dictated by a Radical Right
It’s an axiom that never fails: Anything that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., supports, I will oppose.
The latest example is over a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Greene wants abortion to be made illegal, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. She is so wrong but sadly, that may well be the law of the land if the U.S. Supreme Court votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that proclaimed that banning abortion is a violation of a woman’s right to privacy and such issues should be between a woman and her doctor. Period, no pun intended.
I daresay, that Greene’s very existence is the best advertisement yet for a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion or maybe she is a poster child for an abortion gone bad. I’m telling you, if the wise and great justices reject Roe v. Wade, the next law in their sights will be the use of contraceptives, because in the warped view of people like Greene, use of contraceptives like the pill is nothing less than an abortion. Greene said so when she told Congress that the Department of Veteran Affairs should not cover the costs of Plan B, an early contraception pill that prevents pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse.
“Contraception stops a woman from becoming pregnant. The Plan B pill kills a baby in the womb once a woman is already pregnant,” said the QAnon-loving wingnut. Nonsense, Greene was and is wrong. Plan B also known as the Morning After pill stops a woman from ovulating and prevents her from getting pregnant. The question is whether Greene was intentionally lying as part of an agenda to gather support of the far right. Probably.
And if you don’t think the question of contraceptives could be next on the Supreme Court list, you ought to know that the court ruled in 1965 that adults have a constitutional right to sexual privacy and legalized contraception for married couples. Roe v. Wade flowed from this ruling so it is totally possible that the so-called “pro-life” minority would push to prohibit contraception and then point to outlawing same-sex marriages on the grounds that two men are having abortions every time they have sex because they can’t conceive. It ought to be called the Greene argument, otherwise known as lunacy, another part of the far right’s efforts to “Make America Great Again.” Yechh.
If you need further reasons to fear the High Court will conflate abortion and contraception, I also remind you of the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision in which the court voted 5–4 to allow companies to deny birth control coverage to employees for religious reasons. And that ruling came before the court’s makeup shifted to the right during trump’s rule. The case, supported by the three-time divorced, former pro-life trump, had been brought by two privately owned companies, the Hobby Lobby national chain of craft stores, and cabinet manufacturer Conestoga Wood Specialties.
Most recently, yesterday, Greene tweeted that Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is “pro-abort” and a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, after Mace condemned Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Color., for her anti-Muslim remarks. Boebert, a gun-toting rabid anti-abortionist, also told Congress that rape survivors needed a Glock 19 pistol at the time of their assault instead of abortion rights. Boebert and Greene live in the same twisted universe while Mace is a rape survivor who supports an abortion ban except in cases of rape or incest. That really ticked off Greene who doesn’t see why a teenager who is raped or is impregnated by her father should be allowed to end a pregnancy
Don’t be fooled, this is not about a debate over abortion. It is nothing more than a power grab for votes being pushed and funded by a minority of outrageous right wing nuts and their many sanctimonious followers. Can you say Marjorie Taylor Green, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Color., Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, Rep. Matt Goetz, R-Fla., and of course that mother of all hypocrits, trump.
By the way, I always confuse Lauren Boebert and Lorett Bobbit. Boebert is the congresswoman who implied that a Muslim and fellow member of Congress was a terrorist. Bobbit was the woman who used a knife to cut off the penis of her husband, John, in 1993.
If this was about what most Americans support, the debate would be over. This is a nation where the great majority favor a woman’s right to choose, fewer than a third of Americans want Roe to be overturned, according to the latest ABC News / Washington Post poll.
The poll showed that a slim 20 percent of Republicans and conservatives want to ban abortion while 75 percent of Americans generally, believe that abortion should be a woman’s private decision. And 86 percent of the women polled under 40, the group most likely to become pregnant, said the abortion decision should be between a woman and her doctor.
Abortion rights are supported across across racial, gender, regional, and educational lines; almost half of white Evangelicals, the most conservative voting bloc in the country, say abortion should be between a woman and her doctor instead of regulated by law and 62 percent of Catholics favor upholding Roe v. Wade. Only about a quarter of Americans strongly support state laws that make it more difficult for clinics to run, according to the poll.
This is not a culture war, contrary to what you might believe if you watch Fox or other right wing outlets and pundits. Just like the great majority of Americans saw the invasion of the Capitol as an attempted insurrection by trump supporters. But you wouldn’t come away with that conclusion if you relied on Fox and the others for your news. And this is not about religious values but it is about a critical question of health care access and protecting a woman’s physical safety and personal freedom.