You all know about the various "personhood" laws
passed or advanced in Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada and Missouri. You also know about states which have abortion-related requirements intended to be so burdensome as to discourage women from having one: for example,
in Texas, there's a forced transvaginal ultrasound ("hey, he said 'vagina'!") and a requirement of "informed consent" (informed of a series of blatant falsehoods, of course) for a woman seeking an abortion.
Of course there's a proposed
national "personhood" law. Just as a reminder,
Roe v. Wade was ruled on a
constitutional basis; the Supreme Court proclaimed the right of a woman to control her own body regarding matters as serious as childbirth as a constitutional right... it's not merely a federal law that can be arbitrarily changed by a GOP-dominated Congress. (Of course, later Supreme Courts have chipped away at the right, but they have not overturned it.)
So... who in Congress is behind the national "personhood" movement, favoring a federal "personhood" law or amendment? Watch
Rachel Maddow; she'll tell you. Here's a hint: he not only opposes all abortion, even to save a woman's life... he also opposes all forms of contraception.
Who could that be? what kind of low‑life scum could hate women that much?
It's not hatred or fear of women, or at least, not entirely that.
ReplyDeleteI am now convinced that there is a subset of men (many of whom seek elective office) who believe that sperm is the most sacred substance on earth, and no female must be allowed to reject it. Females must be forced, by law, to accept it, reverence it, and sacrifice their bodies, lives and personhood to it. Call them forced birthers, or conscripted gestationists, or whatever. But their ultimate goal is forced childbirth.
Robert Heinlein wrote a novel called "The Number of the Beast", in which the protagonists found that some books/stories are so fervently believed and beloved by so many readers, that the worlds in those books come into existence. That's why in the course of their travels they meet up with Lazarus Long and his family, holiday on Barsoom and in Oz. I wonder if perhaps Heinlein was right - except it's not the beloved and believed books that we bring into existence. It's the ones we fear - 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid's Tale.
Constance, Ryan is an obsessive ideologue. He does not care whom he hurts, as long as he can live out his Ayn-Rand-style fantasies. As to any real-life likeness to figures in literature, I am confident Ryan has never read Margaret Atwood. He may have read 1984 in school; if so, he was certain it was about Communists.
ReplyDeleteIn my youth I was taught not to demonize my adversaries, and Dog knows I tried. But today, a lot of those people, including Paul Ryan, are manifestly just plain evil. All people of good will and good sense must work together to prevent a Rmoney/Ryan election victory (or, more likely, election theft).
What could one expect from a man who believes a virgin gave birth to god? This belief alone should demonstrate the deep rooted misogyny of Catholic beliefs.
ReplyDeletekarmanot, I've read at least one assertion that "virgin" is a mistranslation of an ancient word for "young woman." I do not know original biblical languages well enough to comment intelligently. But if that is so, that translator surely took us all for a ride!
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly probable Steve. The cannons and literature, however, insist on the 'virginity' of Mary by distinguishing the birth of human Adam from that of Jesus, who was conceived by a Holy Ghost. It still stands absurd, no matter the weight of hair splitting. The Trinity also impresses me as so much nonsense.
ReplyDeletekarmanot - maybe Jesus is an unprecedented human case of parthenogenesis. Hey, some "lower" animals do it...
ReplyDelete