Good Old Missouri

This is from "I Hate The Patriarchy". I do not think anyone could have said it better -- so, here it is;



And they moved to Stars Hollow and lived happily ever after
Published by Jill on May 16, 2010.

This post would have appeared earlier, but I only just now got the gore and debris cleaned up. I allude to the obstreperal lobe tissue dripping from the bunkhouse rafters. That’s right, I blew another lobe, and no doubt you did, too, when you heard about the insane bill that just passed in Missouri.

Missouri’s state legislature, like that of many states, has invaded the personal bodies of its citizenry and enslaved their uteruses. Without compunction of any kind, this cruel and bloated governing body swaggers around the countryside, snapping its fingers, yelling “jump,” and smirking when the captive uteruses ask “how high?”.

There was already an extremely obnoxious law in Missouri forcing women seeking abortions — 24 hours in advance of the procedure — to sit through a lecture (bring a book) on the supposed mental and physical devastation that abortions supposedly cause. The idea being that, after a heartstring-tugging indoctrination with patriarchy-replicating, godsick disinformation about the certainty of a post-abortion lifetime of regret, cancer, depression, infertility, desperate yearning and insanity, women would voluntarily abdicate their personal bodily sovereignty in order to incubate fetuses for the state, which state would then abandon all parties concerned at the conclusion of gestation.

So things were bad enough in Missouri before, but with this new law they’re even worse. Instead of being forced to endure this patronizing abortion-is-bad-for-you crap via telephone, women are now required to audit in person. Providers must also describe the adorable little fingers and toes, the teensy little heartbeat, the precious little turned-up nose of the “unborn child.” Then they have to offer the woman an ultrasound and a chance to hear for herself how adorable the teensy heartbeat is. Then — no shit — they have to hand over “a state-produced brochure proclaiming: ‘The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.’” If the woman is pretty young, they have to show her a couple of seasons’ worth of “Gilmore Girls,” because that’s such a realistic portrayal of the long-term results of teen pregnancy. Then they lock her in a room for an hour or two with a statue of the Blessed Virgin who weeps tears of blood.

This in-person ‘consultation’ means double the trips to the clinic, more time off the job, and, in the case of women who have to travel for their procedures (that is, everyone in Missouri who doesn’t live in Kansas City, Columbia, or the CWE), the time and expense of putting up in a Motel 6 and eating Grand Slam Fried Polyester Combos at Denny’s while they do their 24-hour stretch of state-mandated limbo. In other words, it merely throws more asinine obstacles in the path of any Missouri citizen who wishes to exercise her fucking legal right to an abortion. Not to mention her human right to personal autonomy.

As far as I know, there is no collateral provision in the law requiring abortion providers to detail the risks inherent in not terminating an unwanted pregnancy. For example, which women are most likely to be murdered? Pregnant women, that’s who! Neither is there a requirement that women be apprised of other unpleasant pregnancy-related crap, such as the public monitoring of their personal habits (no smoking! no drinking!); the insipid, infantilizing culture of American “moms-to-be”; life-threatening conditions such as preeclampsia and postpartum depression; 18 years of financial hardship; 18 years of unpaid domestic labor; empty-nest syndrome; and, naturally, the deleterious impact of human reproduction on the environment. Not to mention that women who don’t have children are free from a lifetime of public shaming for their bad mothering skills and from having to incorporate the word “piddle” into their vocabulary. You’d think that people might find all that information at least as useful as the “fact” that parasitic clumps of cells are Jesus’s Mini-Me. But the State of Missouri couldn’t give a flip about actual facts.

It’s just another dastardly case of institutionalized misogyny and oppression disguised as a romantic fascination with adorable fetuses. I puke on the Missouri state legislature. “The life of each human being begins with conception?” Shoot me now. Every time a politician utters this meaningless godsick hate speech he lands another kick in the teeth of Truth and Beauty’s rotting corpse