Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Dancing on the Edge of the Abyss. The Republican War on Women.


That would be the Republican platform on abortion:

The draft official platform strongly supports a "a human life amendment" to the Constitution:
"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," the draft platform declares. "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."
Let's be very, very clear that such an amendment—which Mitt Romney has said unequivocally he would sign—would not only criminalize abortions of any kind for any reason, but also would outlaw many forms of contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and treatment of pregnant women with life-threatening conditions such as cancer. Moreover, it would also criminalize miscarriage.

I know that the Republican powers-that-be don't mean any of this quite seriously.  They rely on someone else pulling them back from the abyss, the one which is the desired destination of the forced-birthers in their party.  But let's look into that abyss, shall we?

What do the most extreme anti-choice forces in the Republican Party say?  They say that raped women must have the child if they become pregnant (even though that's almost impossible, given all those secret weapons women have).  They also say that the contraceptive pill, the Morning After Pill and the coil are all ways to kill a zygote or a fetus, and thus equal to abortion.

That means that in their extreme abyss-world all the ways women could protect themselves against becoming pregnant from rape would be illegal.  All female-managed contraception (except perhaps for the female condom which a rapist would naturally let you insert before rape) would be banned.

Put that all together,  and what do you get?  A world where any fertile woman could be made to carry a child to term without any consent from her.  Yes, this would be an extreme case but the Republican platform draft does not allow any alleviation of it.

Or put in another way, all rapists would have fatherhood rights.  The right to become a father, even if the woman doesn't want to become a mother.

As I mentioned above,  the Republicans don't really mean to enslave women this way.  Or rather, they don't really care, either way.  They are after the votes of the forced-birthers in general, and the forced-birthers do desire women to have no choice at all.  Even keeping your legs firmly crossed will not help you, given that a pregnancy arising from rape Must.  Result.  In.  Giving.  Birth.

Those are the folks the Big Money Republicans are in bed with, and nobody tries to limit what they can do in those bedrooms.