Home > Rayne > Dear @GOPConference & @governorva: Mind your own beeswax!

Dear @GOPConference & @governorva: Mind your own beeswax!

March 6th, 2012

image from Style Weekly - Click for the gallery!

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the personhood laws popping up all over the country, and especially this Virginia bill that would force women to have ultrasounds before they’re allowed to have an abortion. If you haven’t, you can read all about the Virginia Bill here on the SexFeed on SexIs.

The original bill said women would have to have vaginal ultrasounds done but that has since been amended to just a regular ultrasound, which, in some cases, will force the woman to wait longer to have the abortion because normal ultrasounds don’t always work during the first trimester. They never have for me.

The best argument FOR this bill in Virginia that I’ve come across is “informed consent,” and even that doesn’t hold up. Oh, the people screaming about how a woman should know what she’s doing when she has an abortion think it holds up perfectly fine. They’ll talk till they’re blue in the face about how there’s nothing wrong with asking a woman to make an informed decision when it comes to life or death. That, especially in this case, where there has been known mental anguish after the procedure, a woman should know exactly what she’s getting into.

Here’s the thing. If any of these people griping about informed consent live in Virginia, they’re trying to bullshit a bullshitter. What’s worse? They’re trying to bullshit a bullshitter who spent most of her childhood in Virginia, going to Virginia public schools.

When I lived in Virginia, Sex Ed started in 2nd grade and they told us the truth. They prefaced it with, “You’d be better off waiting, but if you’re going to do it anyway…” but the truth is what they told us.

At first, it was just about the changes of puberty. Parents still shied away from this discussion. Not because they didn’t want their kids to know, but because they didn’t want to be the ones to talk about it with them. Like talking about it with their kids would somehow damage each of them, or something.

The school sent home permission slips each year Sex Ed was presented to us kids, and gave our parents the option to keep us out of the classes. Along with the option, they gave their heartfelt support, offering something fun for the kids who were removed from class to tell the kids who weren’t about when they got back.

By the end of ninth grade, we must have looked at a thousand ultrasound images. A couple belonged to our teacher, who had just had a baby, and we even got to meet and hold the child.

By the end of tenth, we’d seen slides of aborted fetuses and dissected fetal pigs. We’d watched a woman give birth on video, and discussed every sexually transmitted disease known to man at the time. Our teachers and school nurses gave out condoms freely, and a LGBT student group was allowed to give out free condoms and dental dams at lunch twice a year to raise awareness.

I know not all Virginia schools were like that, but I lived in the middle of what I like to refer to as Military Hell (the Tidewater region). You couldn’t drive ten miles in any direction without running into a military base. So I knew a lot of kids from other schools through other military brats. And they all learned the same things at their schools.

Believe me. Virginia women are informed. They know what they’re doing. They have their own questions and concerns and emotions and they’re working them out for themselves as they should. And they really don’t need all the pressure of everyone else in the world’s opinion.

I don’t know whether abortion is right or wrong, good or bad. I know that in many cases, it is the best answer for everyone involved, and I feel pretty strongly that this should be taken into consideration when a woman makes this decision for herself. But I think she should make it for herself. Not for her mother, or her father, or the baby’s father, or her deity, or her political party, or… Maybe for the baby, too, but above all for herself. Especially if we’re going to call it a religious and political issue. Or are we now just out-right admitting this country no longer stands for religious and political freedom?

Let me give you a little more to hate me for.

I do believe life starts at conception. I believe Spirit is in all things. And I’m Pro-Choice. Because I believe Pro-Choice is Pro-Life.

There are many animal species that, when faced with offspring they cannot care for, will put the infant out of its misery rather than let it starve to death. Others have been observed “mercy killing” sick or elderly in their pack. Still others have been observed removing neglected or abused offspring from their parents or “adopting” orphans. To me, this suggests all of these actions — abortion (or infanticide in animals … and sometimes humans), child neglect, abandonment, assisted suicide and adoption — are just normal parts of established ecosystems and should be handled according to that group’s moral compass. Which should be decided by that group, and the persons (or animals) within it, rather than people who have never even considered walking a mile in the group’s shoes.

In other words, Governor McDonnell and the rest of the GOP: Butt the fuck out of my reproductive rights. And my sisters’. And my daughters’ and my mothers’ and my friends’ and my strangers’. You have no idea what it’s like to be us. You never even had the chance to try because you were born you. You worry about your afterlife, and we’ll worry about ours. The way it should be, hmmm? Thanks!

Let’s not even get into the riot police carrying tear gas bombs sent after women and children peacefully demonstrating by sitting on the steps of the capitol building in Virginia. You can find a gallery of images here. That whole situation makes me so angry and disgusted. I’m nauseous just thinking about it. What a despicable thing to do.

In much more fun news, Roseanne Barr @ed me on Twitter. For serious. And she didn’t even call me a dumbass. I’m adding that to my “Super Cool Things That Never Would Have Happened to Me Without Twitter” file. Along with writing for Q103Albany’s blog, being blocked by Adam Baldwin from Firefly and Chuck, getting Grunny’s attention and having my ass handed to me in two tweets by Penn Jilette. I so shoulda screencapped those, but I never figured I’d wear it like a badge of honor.

<3

  1. March 7th, 2012 at 04:09 | #1

    Rayne,

    I believe we could have some fairly in depth and intense discussions on abortion without losing the respect we have for each other; but that’s an exchange for another forum.

    I will say that I also believe that there’s no adult in the USA that isn’t aware of just what and who is in the womb of a pregnant woman. Ironically, this is partly due to the (sometimes not so subtle) education efforts of the pro-life groups. Some women make reasoned judgements to abort based on rationals I may or may not agree with. Others may have to lie to themselves to be able to go through with it (and which of us have never lied to ourselves to make a decision easier).

    I guess I’m trying to say that, in spite of being rabidly pro-life, I understand that for some women, the choice is an agonizing one that can only be made all the worse by my moralizing to her. She needs me (assuming I’m an important part of her life) to be supportive and caring while she goes through whatever choice she makes. In spite of my convictions, I’m now convinced that the only way to eliminate abortions is to create a society where no one ever feels like it’s needed.

    Dave

  2. March 7th, 2012 at 05:59 | #2

    Rayne: Dear @GOPConference & @governorva: Mind your own beeswax!: In other words, Governor McDonnell and … http://t.co/XnBcByWe #slave

  3. March 16th, 2012 at 17:57 | #3

    @dweaver999 And wouldn’t that be amazing? Wouldn’t it just be incredible if we lived in a society where everyone gave everyone else a helping hand no matter what the situation, instead of using their neighbor’s weakness to climb over them into that unattainable status of “better than”? Could you imagine? Utopia, here we come!

  4. March 16th, 2012 at 19:40 | #4

    Rayne,

    Yes, that would be a wonderful world to live in. Imagine if everyone in your life did what they could to help you be a better slave to Melen (even if it was just stayiong out of the way)? If I wrote about such a place, readers would scoff at how unbelieveable. Why is a galactic federation with a multitude of strange species more believable than a world of kindness? Sigh…

    Dave

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