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Is there a Republican War on Women?
Ben Carson recently claimed that there is no Republican war on women, only
a war over what is "inside" women. But that is exactly
the problem: the GOP is trying to play God and dictate
what women can and cannot do with their bodies, when they become pregnant.
Whatever happened to due process? In the United States, even serial killers get
their day in court and are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. But even the
most innocent underage
American girls who become pregnant will be presumed guilty, facing potential
death sentences, if the GOP has its way with them. How
a girl became pregnant makes no difference. The fact that her health
and life may be in danger doesn't matter in the least.
No, she is guilty because the GOP favors fertilized eggs over fully-fledged
human beings, when the human beings happen to be female. (Have no doubt that the
rules would be very different if alpha males could become pregnant.) The GOP has
a simple rule of thumb for all girls and women collectively: "If you become
pregnant, we don't give a damn whether you live or die. We don't care if you
were raped, or were the victim of incest, or if your contraceptive
malfunctioned. We don't care if your doctor says it's dangerous for you to have
a baby. We don't care if the fetus has attached to the wrong part of your body,
and you will both die unless the pregnancy is aborted. None of this matters to
us. We have one simple rule: when an American female becomes pregnant, her egg
has vastly greater rights than she does the instant it becomes fertilized, and
she must carry it to term and deliver it, or die trying."
Believe it or not, this is the official policy of the Republican Party according
to its national platform: no abortions under any circumstances,
even if pregnant girls and women risk death due to complications with a
pregnancy.
Is the Republican party waging war on women? In a word, "yes," because
wars are fought for control and this war will determine who controls women's
bodies: the women themselves, or a government headed by alpha male chauvinists
who never have to worry about waking up pregnant.
I believe the GOP is waging a series of escalating wars against women. In
particular:
There is a general war against every woman's right to choose.
There is also a war of defamation, in which girls and women who become pregnant
unintentionally are portrayed as hussies
unable to control their libidos (as if men control theirs and play no roles in
pregnancies!).
There is also a war on African American women.
There is another war on Hispanic women.
And there is a very deadly war being waged against Muslim women.
The general war is over any woman's right to choose
whether or not to become a mother. The GOP's national platform for many years
has stated that all abortions should be illegal, even in
the case of rape, incest and the woman's life being endangered. This position
was confirmed by Scott Walker and Marco Rubio during the first Republican
presidential debate of the 2015-2016 campaign. The GOP's position is abundantly
clear and is the basis of recent "fetal personhood" legislation. I quote:
"The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life: Faithful to
the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we
assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has
a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.
We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to
make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.
We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund
organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health
care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who
respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We
oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment,
including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as
well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive
euthanasia and assisted suicide."
In other words, religion-mad Republicans want to play God, speak for God, and
rule over other people as if they are "gods" themselves. The "sanctity of human
life" means that a just-fertilized egg which lacks a brain or nerves, and thus
the ability to think or feel, is vastly more important than the life, health and
emotional well-being of a living, breathing girl or woman who certainly
can think and feel. According to these arrogant
self-appointed "gods," if a ten-year-old child
becomes pregnant, even if she was raped and is too young to deliver a child
safely, she has no choice but to attempt to give birth, even if she dies in the
process.
Nor do you and I have the right to decide if we wish to avoid needless suffering
by ending our lives. My father suffered greatly in his declining years and chose
to end his life with dignity, knowing that his health could never improve. These
insufferably arrogant would-be gods would have forced him to prolong his
suffering. Who the fuck are they (please pardon my French), to force other human
beings to suffer needlessly, when there is no possible hope of recovery?
Fuck these stupid, arrogant, compassionless would-be gods. They have no right to
force my father to suffer needlessly, and they have no right to force a
ten-year-old rape victim to bear her rapist's child.
Fuck the would-be gods!
And what about a single working mother of three children, whose contraceptive
malfunctions? What if she becomes pregnant through no fault of her own? Should
she be forced to bear another child that she does not want and cannot afford?
She already has her family. Who has the right to force her to bear a fourth
child because a pill, condom or IUD malfunctioned?
Fuck the would-be gods!
There is a war on African American women, waged by white would-be gods, who
first demand that they bear babies every time they become pregnant, only to
immediately turn their backs on the babies and refuse to pay the taxes necessary
to help raise and educate them. When black women are pregnant, the white
would-be gods weep crocodile tears over the fertilized eggs. But when living,
breathing babies capable of suffering emerge, the white gods become completely
cold and indifferent, refusing to help cover the cost of caring for and
educating black children.
Fuck the would-be gods!
There is a war on Hispanic women and their babies, currently being led by
Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker.
Even though all babies born within the borders of the United States are American
citizens according to the Fourteenth Amendment, the term "anchor baby" is now being
used to deny Hispanic babies the same rights as babies of other (paler)
ethnicities.
Fuck the would-be gods!
There is also a war on Muslim women and their babies. According to white
Christian supremacists, the "rights" of white Christians
supersede the rights of Muslims in their own land. Donald Trump agrees with Dick
Cheney that the US military should be used to rob nations like Iraq and Iran of
their oil. The working theory seems to be that Muslims should pay the United
States to be "liberated" even though in reality there is precious little
"liberation" to be found.
Fuck the would-be gods!
Evidence of the Republican Party's War on
Women
• Republicans are having a tough time shaking the
"war on women" label, probably because they can’t stop themselves from
sounding—and voting—like a bunch of raging misogynists. (Quote from a Salon
article.)
• According to a report compiled by a worldwide
research and policy organization, the Guttmacher Group, since Republicans won
the majority of elections in 2011, "legislators have introduced 916 measures
related to reproductive health and rights in 49 legislatures." These measures
restrict access to abortions, mandate ultrasounds and biased "counseling,"
reduce sex education to abstinence only, etc.
• The current Republican frontrunner for president,
Donald Trump, has called women he deems unattractive "pigs," "dogs," "slobs" and
"disgusting animals."
• After Megyn Kelly quoted Trump's insults above, he
turned into a social media bully, twice calling her a "bimbo" in a series of
attacking, insulting tweets.
• Jeb Bush, another front-runner in the presidential
race, told a Southern Baptist forum in Nashville: "I’m not sure we need a
half-billion dollars for women’s health issues."
• Jeb Bush as governor of Florida tried to use the
legal system to force a rape victim to have a baby, by appointing a "legal
representative" for the fetus.
• Jeb Bush, also as governor of Florida, refused to
veto a "Scarlet Letter" law that humiliated women putting babies up for adoption
by forcing them to publish their sexual histories in newspapers!
• Lindsey Graham, another presidential candidate,
tried to change the focus: "You want to see a war on women? Come with me to Iraq
and Afghanistan, folks ... I will show you what they do to women." In other
words, it's okay if we neglect and murder American women, as long as men in
other nations are treating their women worse.
• Mike Huckabee, another presidential candidate,
adopted a paternalistic attitude: "The fact is the Republicans don’t have a war
on women, they have a war for women, to empower them
to be something other than victims of their gender."
• Huckabee then denounced politicians who act as if
women are "helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a
prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their
libido or their reproductive system without the help of government." But how
well do men control their libidos, and doesn't it take two to tango and create a
pregnancy?
• Rand Paul, another candidate for president,
pooh-poohs the idea because in his opinion women are winning
the war: "I think some of the victimology and all this other stuff is trumped
up."
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