Sunday, September 18, 2005

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities

Time to kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome in the official Judge John Roberts era of forced maternity.

That's where we are now, brought there thanks to Bubble Boy, foreshadowed by repeated heh-heh-heh "Dred Scott decision" heh-heh-heh nudge-nudge wink-wink innuendo moments during his 2004 campaign.

Bubble Boy sure can smirk, but I'm not smirking about his plan to repeal women's reproductive freedom. That's a tragedy.

Not Judge Roberts' simplistic "tragedy of abortion"-type tragedy--alright, he's Roman Catholic, he can get away with it--at least they're consistent within their tradition, well, pretty much, except for that big fat "just war" loophole--but the actual American tragedy is that of post-born women, and their actual post-born kids and their actual post-born families.

Let's welcome, then, the coming upsurge of unwanted babies, thanks a lot.

Let's have more and more babies we can't care for, we can't afford, we can't deal with. Let's have a little more child abuse, because, really, stressed out moms and dads who can't make ends meet, well, they're not going to be the poster boys and girls for patient parenting, are they? Let's up the general quota of maternal/child suffering.

And crime. Let's not forget crime. "Unwantedness leads to high crime," according to economist Stephen Levitt and Steven Dubner. "When a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has good reason. She may be unmarried or in a bad marriage. She may consider herslef too poor to raise a child. She may think her life is too unstable or too unhappy, or she may think that her drinking and drug use will damage the baby's health. . . for any of a hundred reasons, she may feel that she cannot provide a home environment that is conducive to raising a healthy and productive child. . . . Two factors--childhood poverty and a single-parent household--are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future."

But that's ok with the people ordering mothers to bear children against their will.

It's all about being a selfish, black-heart neo-con with no capacity for empathy, much less compassion: as in Bubble Boy, and his anti-choice lynch mobs.

It's about punishing women for being women, punishing the poor for being poor, and punishing the pregnant for the act of conception itself.

The crackpots across the street from Camp Casey said it best: WE DON'T CARE. WE DON'T CARE. WE DON'T CARE.

They don't.

No surprises there.

We'll shriek hysterically about the horror of murdering embryoes, but are fine with sending the grown-up ones to die in Iraq. We'll weep sadly about fetuses, but put our own accumulation of wealth first, putting ourselves always at the head of every line. We'll yap endlessly about culture-of-life, culture-of-life, but we really couldn't give a shit about anyone but ourselves. We'll squawk about culture-of-life, culture-of-life, but we'll cause pain whenever we please, to whomever we please; we'll do anything to anyone whenever we want to--so long as it's not residing in a womb or in a petri dish.

The so-called "culture of life" is really a culture of death; a culture of ego, a culture of me-first, a culture of "gimme," a culture of torture in which your pain is perfectly permissible.

It's not really very Christian at all.



2 comments:

No Blood for Hubris said...

Well, here's the thing. Sending grown-up embryoes to die in Iraq is even more horrible than allowing innocent little fetuses to grow up in homes where they are neither wanted nor well-cared for, and therefore, being impoverished and cruelly treated are thus well motivated to begin a life of crime and abusiveness and violence, living out their own abuse, as projected onto others.

No reason not to be totally nauseated . . .

Anonymous said...

For some so-callled Christians, and perhaps to a great many others, I can personally account for having suffered through an unintended pregnancy many years ago that I considered ending, and with many good reasons. I decided, to eventually have my child, which I do not regret a day of, but I will fight to the death for the right to be able to exercise either option. The declarative truth of the matter is that I was able to make a CHOICE to keep or not, and I refuse to exist in a country that will threaten any choice of a woman to make that decision. The black-hearts clearly don't give a damn about the plight of women or children, it's all about controlling the populace and keep those Christian maternity homes and foster care homes open and making money off the plight of the poor. The stats speak for themselves.