Browsing the news today, I spotted the headline “Women can say no to sex if Roe falls, says architect of Texas abortion ban” in The Guardian.
What!!??
My first thought was, all women should refuse sex if Roe fails. Obviously that won’t happen. Then, as soon as I realized I was reading about a man (naturally), I thought “I hope he’s married and his wife refuses to have sex with him.” Well, that probably won’t happen either, since he likely would not have married such a woman. Or maybe they’ve already had their kids and pregnancy is no longer a concern for them.
I kept reading and it became apparent that this idiot believes most women just think of abortion as birth control. Seriously? He thinks women are that casual about abortion? That abortions are that quick and easy and easy to come by? That a lot of soul-searching doesn’t go into every abortion, before and after? That those women are solely responsible for their pregnancies!!???
It takes two to tango, you misogynist pig! Pregnant women don’t get that way by themselves. Where’s the male responsibility? If Roe fails, how ’bout the men stop having sex. That, too, would solve the abortion issue.
But I imagine he’s one of those men who think they are entitled to sex whenever they want it, and that if a pregnancy results, it’s entirely the woman’s problem because obviously he’s not the pregnant one!
For the record, the misogynist’s name is Jonathan F. Mitchell, and the media credit/condemn him for devising the Texas abortion bill, the one that forbids any abortion after 6 weeks and lets any citizen sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion. The bill is grotesque and dangerous. As is the man who devised it.
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When I first heard about the abortion vigilante bill in Texas, I immediately thought of the Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes. If all the woman of Texas could band together and employ the same strategy, perhaps the legislature would soon be pressured by their male constituents to change their minds. Probably won’t happen but I had fun imagining it.
I don’t doubt it would work, but these days it’s hard to get any two people to agree on anything. Sure would be fun to see it happen though, wouldn’t it?
That’s one of the biggest things that irk me about the “pro-life” people who are really “pro-fetus”: they really seem married to the idea that most women use abortion as birth control. Few women actually do. For most, it’s a very serious decision that they struggle with; not a single woman I know who had an abortion took it lightly, and at least two of them were ectopic pregnancies (which, despite that effort in Ohio sometime ago to require it), cannot be re-implanted and can kill the woman. Abortions in later pregnancy are nearly always out of necessity, and women who carried those babies that long fully expected to get a child out of the pregnancy. It’s not a clear-cut, black/white, good/evil issue despite the “pro-life” crowd trying to make it that way. The way to get fewer abortions has been paved by other nations: fewer restrictions, easily accessible contraception, and sex education. The women who can afford it in states like Texas will just head elsewhere to have abortions. Will they be reported? Naw. The people who know about it don’t need $10,000.
The minute that Texas law went into effect, Colorado began preparing for an influx of women seeking abortions. There are no restrictions here and nobody will be reported.
Easily accessible contraception and sex education are key, as you said. My dad was an ob/gyn and he understood that when he co-founded the Planned Parenthood chapter in our city. Poor women especially needed those services — contraception and sex education. I don’t know if he actually did abortions; what he was doing was preventing the need for them. That was always the objective. I am decidedly not pro-abortion (despite what pro-lifers want you to believe); I am pro-choice. And that choice belongs to the pregnant woman, not to some third party who doesn’t even know her. The right to choose includes all women — even pro-lifers.
Same for me. I’ve yet to find anyone who’s “rah-rah, yea, abortions!” I wouldn’t have one, but that doesn’t mean I should get to say some other woman can’t have one.
At my age I can only speak hypothetically, but whether or not I opted to have one would depend on the circumstances. And I can think of a lot of different circumstances.
Everybody please remember that jurors can nullify this law.
In Texas? I’m not holding my breath.
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“…you misogynist pig!” LOVE IT!!!
It takes a true, deeply held disdain for women to devise such a law.
Totally not feeling like having sex if I don’t have control over my body.
And I totally understand.