The ongoing war against reproductive rights and women

As you may have heard, Kansas voters reasserted the state constitution protects the right to abortion. In Michigan, pro-choice supporters collected more than a million signatures to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in the fall; Republicans on the relevant approval board rejected it because the spacing between words was inconsistent. It’s now up to a judge whether it gets on the fall ballot. No surprise that people who want to assert their dominance over women don’t think women (or anyone) should have a say in refusing.

Abortion restrictions are unpopular so like Blake Masters, many Republican candidates are simply lying about their opposition to abortion. Rep. Michelle Steel in California, for instance, has backed off a no-exemption stance and insists that a nationwide ban is hypothetical so why discuss it? Of course the only reason it’s hypothetical is that Republicans haven’t been able to pass one — yet.

Governor Greg Abbott claimed Texas’ new forced birth law and it’s lack of a rape exemption wasn’t a problem for rape victims because he would see Texas eliminate rape. The arrest rate for rape has dropped by half since he took office but not to worry, rape victims can just take emergency contraception! I’m curious if he sticks to his claim it’s not an abortifacent — after all, despite winning several million in a personal disability lawsuit, he’s fought to immunize Texas from disability lawsuits. And while he says mass shootings are a mental health problem rather than a gun problem, he’s slashed mental health services to spend more fighting illegal immigration.

A number of forced birthers promised that with abortion banned, we’d see a golden age of right-wing legislation to make life easier for mothers, rape victims, children. etc. They lied.  “Sixty-two percent of pregnancies in Mississippi are unplanned, yet Mississippi does not require insurance to cover contraceptives and prohibits educators from demonstrating proper contraceptive use.” Because the only contraception many right-wingers believe in is women refusing sex (unless they’re married, because then they have no choice). However Mississippi was fine taking welfare money and paying Bret Favre to give speeches.

The difficulty of providing abortion training in abortion-ban states may mean some areas lose ob/gyn services.

Even before Dobbs, women, particularly women of color, were often prosecuted for miscarriage because they’d used drugs, whether or not there was a clear connection with the loss of the fetus.

I’ll close with a quote from evangelical writer Norman Geisler (via Slacktivist) that “Birth is not morally necessitated without consent. No woman should be forced to carry a child if she did not consent to intercourse. A violent intrusion into a woman’s womb does not bring with it a moral birthright for the embryo. The mother has a right to refuse that her body be used as an object of sexual intrusion. The violation of her honor and personhood was enough evil without compounding her plight by forcing an unwanted child on her besides. … the right of the potential life (the embryo) is overshadowed by the right of the actual life of the mother. The rights to life, health, and self-determination — i.e., the rights to personhood — of the fully human mother take precedence over that of the potentially human embryo.”

As always, you can find more on this topic in Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. It came out pre-Dobbs, but it’s still timely.