But lately? The Republicans are all up in my lady bits and that has to stop. That's something worth saying something about, even if I'm not the most well versed on the topic.
First of all: The whole Republican ideology fails me. These are money grubbing capitalists who, if on the fiscally conservative side, want less government, yet they're all up in legislating everything we do? I don't get it. If you want to make your money and not give a shit about anyone but yourself, then leave everyone alone and stop sticking your grubby, fat, white hands everywhere.
Also: there's a separation of church and state in this country. It's a pretty clear one. It was created because the founding fathers were wise enough to decide, after watching the English, that they wanted to keep religion out of our politics. They wanted to make sure that we didn't insert what god, an amorphous idea who we don't actually know the thoughts of, would want into what was best for our society. People don't always make the best decisions in the name of god. See: any war ever. And yet here we have "christians" arguing on his behalf to get legislation passed. (I use quotes there because having spent most of my education in Catholic school, the divergence between those who call themselves Christians and those who actually know and follow the teachings of Christ is quite sharp.)
So, Republicans, and really, anyone with designs on legislation in this area: STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY VAGINA. It's none of your business. None. What I do or don't do with my body, whether it carries a child or doesn't, isn't something for you to legislate. At all. Ever. Never ever never.
The fact that the Supreme Court has created, out of a thin air really but now a precedent that continues, a right to privacy would seem to aptly apply to what the hell goes on in my lady parts. It's between me and whatever god I believe in and maybe my doctor and a partner if I have one of those. The entire old boy network of Republican party politics? Not included in decisions regarding my uterus.
Why are women suddenly the popular thing to attack? The Republicans got tired of disenfranchising everyone else? Why is legislating birth control I receive through my health insurance and requiring unnecessary and invasive medical procedures in an effort to scare me out of an abortion suddenly in vogue?
Virginia requiring transvaginal sonograms is to dissuade scared women from having an abortion. Sound logic used in getting this law: "You were penetrated by a penis, shouldn't mind a wand." *headdesk* What I hope most with that law, should it ever come to fruition, is that doctors choose to ignore it. That's a valid option with an unjust law. If people choose not to follow it, and I can hardly imagine who is going to be walking into doctors' offices enforcing it, then the law will fall by the wayside. (Fines for doctors not following the letter of the law seems about as far as enforcing that law can go. And how do you go about finding out they aren't without vast invasions into people's medical charts? I hardly imagine it's a good use of law enforcement resources to set up sting operations on doctors offices for not properly performing ultrasounds.)
But the fact that such a law may even exist is a bit nauseating. When did what and how and when and where I do with my body, while remaining within the established laws, become ANYONE'S damn business? (There's a larger argument I would like to make about slut shaming and prudishness but...that's a rabbit hole. I'll save it for another time.) (There is also a larger argument to be made about who these laws governing reproduction will really effect (poor women), why that is awful, and the long term effects, but I lack the ability to really delve into that either so just a narrow approach and my issues.)
I hate to make the obvious argument here but it seems to me if we were legislating prostate exams or vasectomies, this debate would look a whole lot different. The patriarchal attitude of politicians on this, the tone of protecting us women and forcing us to do what is "right" is so totally not okay.
I fully understand that some laws exist to protect the norms of society. Totally get it. Some things so go against our fabric that to violate the law has repercussions for us all. We protect children and against sexual assault and murder, etc. But when there is no norm, or the norms vary so widely, it flies in the face of logic and on the ethos that founded this country (individual freedoms) to make broad and sweeping laws. In fact, in analysis of constitutionality of a law, a law not being narrowly tailored is a reason for it to fail.
My right to privacy in what I do with my body, a penultimate right grounded in constitutional law, should not to be legislated in any form, even cursory laws that want to seem innocuous and for the greater good. They are neither of those things.
The Republicans and the "christians" don't have any right to legislate what ALL women do with their body. They are absolutely free to decide on an individual basis what they do with THEIR body, no one is stopping them. If they don't "believe" in abortion or taking birth control, that is their call. They have zero right to tell me what to believe or do in regards to my own body though.
Someone posted this and it's kinda perfect, so I'm stealing it:
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