The right-wing is trying like hell to do a number on the minds of American women. You know that thing about abortion being the hardest choice a woman will ever have to make, or the one she most regrets? Bullshit.
In fact 90% of all American women who’ve had an abortion are either glad or simply relieved they did (click here for the research.) And for every woman I know who’s had an abortion (that’s half the women I know, and quite possibly half the women you know too), a safe, routine, minimally invasive procedure was far from the hardest decision of their lives. For many, like me, it was the simple, sane choice. The only hard part was finding the money to pay for it.
You want a hard decision? What about marriage? Or divorce? Taking on a mortgage? Choosing a cancer treatment? Allowing a terminally ill spouse to die with dignity? What about the multitude of hard decisions we all have to make in the course of our lives, men and women?
But right-wingers don’t think women capable of rational decision-making at all. It’s apparently especially hard for us delicate souls, which is presumably why they think we agonize over it and decide wrong. How very Victorian of them. They’re apparently white knights in shining armor, out to save every woman from her own distressingly poor judgment. In their ideal world, no woman would be “allowed” to make a decision without prior permission from the Republican caucus. Certainly not any woman with an income under a million a year.
But it’s not our decision-making that stinks, it’s theirs. Because not only is it morally and ethically bankrupt, it’s full of lies — deliberate lies.
— Like Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina pretending to be near tears as she talked about watching a video that didn’t exist and never had.
— Or the head of the House Oversight Committee trying to play gotcha with the head of Planned Parenthood by using a bogus chart created by an anti-abortion group.
— Or abortion opponents pretending there’s no such thing as an embryo. They’d have us think that every abortion is that of a full-term viable fetus, when none are. The vast majority of abortions are embryonic, medically defined as up to eight weeks from conception. But hey, you can’t see an embryo on a sonogram, let alone wave photographs of it in an attempt to guilt-trip women. So lie, baby, lie — and screw the lives you mess up in the process.
It’s clear by now that nobody cares about facts in the fantasy world of today’s Republicans. Real facts, that is, as opposed to imaginary ones.
Those of us who live in the real world know for a fact that imaginary facts are dangerous. Remember those non-existent weapons of mass destruction used as the reason to invade Iraq? Or those non-existent scientists asserting with great authority that there was no such thing as climate change?
Forget hard decisions for the moment. Here’s an easy one: A year from now, do all you can to make sure we send this gang of women-hating, war-mongering, planet-polluting liars back to whatever slime pit they crawled out of.
Right on Lesley!
But I am afraid that this whole country is blinded with madness and hatred and stepping away from humanity, humility and humanitarianism …The way things are going we could have the republican president representing this country next year and that will be the beginning of dark ages,once again… All my reasons for coming to this country in hope of finding equality, prosperity and freedom will be wiped away… there is less and less concern in this country for minorities, women and suffering of people in other parts of the world. America will turn the corner for worse and will never be the same….
Not the whole country, Amna. Nowhere near. But a warning that we can never take sanity and progress for granted. We always need to stand up and be counted, speak out, and call the bluff of ignorance and bigotry. Each in our own small way.
Here’s Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Not to change the subject…well, OK, to change the subject…do you have any thoughts on the Pope’s personal audience with the Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis? I read Andy Borowitz’s satire on it and thought he was making that part up. But it really happened. But the weird thing is, no one from the Pontiff’s team seems to be willing to say why the abominable Davis was invited, what they talked about and there’s even some speculation that the Heir to the Chair wasn’t entirely aware that the meeting was being set up. That’s pretty hard to believe and maybe by the time you get to pontificalizing on this yourself we’ll have more info.
But in the meantime, I’d love to get your take on this. Maybe His Petership was calling her in to say “STFU,” albeit in more popely terms.
Oh yes, it’s a weird kind of fun to watch Vatican spokesmen trying to spin this! The rationalizations are fascinatingly torturous. Yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/us/pope-francis-kim-davis-kentucky-clerk-washington-same-sex-marriage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 and then today: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/world/europe/pope-francis-kim-davis-meeting.html
Me? No pontif(f)icating for now. I’m just continually amazed at the screwed-up stance of orthodox religion on anything to do with sex (viz abortion, women clergy, gay marriage, contraception, priestly celibacy, pederasty).
Either way, I’d say this was a monumental failure of the Pope and his handlers, an epic miscue whereby either the Pope was under-informed, or misled, or simply had no conception of the political implications of having this notorious and divisive evangelical yahoo anywhere near his midst.
It’s hard to believe that the papal PR machine allowed this to happen. In my view, it spoils much of the goodwill that the entire visit to America had gathered. So so sooooo stupid to let something this obviously misguided to happen.
Agreed. A ton of secular goodwill went out the door the moment Kim Davis entered it. Or maybe it was just a sudden jolt of reality.
Go, Lesley – morons and liars all. Their investigation into PP found nothing but there will be no exoneration because….well, it served their purpose. The slime pit beckons – hope they heed the call.