Friday, September 3, 2021

Welcome to medieval times, Texas-style

     On Wednesday, in an abrupt cultural shift that would be funny were it not so tragic, our nation veered directly from shedding crocodile tears over the fate of women in Afghanistan— the Taliban, they’re so mean, they might not let girls be robotic engineers — to realizing that Texas, the second-largest state in the union with a population of nearly 30 million, has effectively banned abortion, a right guaranteed in most civilized nations and protected by law in this one for the past 48 years and something most Americans believe should be legal.
     The Texas law criminalizes abortion after six weeks — before most women are even aware they’re pregnant — and imposes a Byzantine system to enforce itself, using not the state that created the law to police it but deputizing third parties, whether religious fanatics, freelance profiteers or self-appointed members of the Texas Taliban who can sue not only abortion providers but anyone aiding the process or even “intending” to aid it: boyfriends bankrolling the procedure, Uber drivers taking women to clinics, counselors providing an address.
     Anyone except — and this gives away the game — the women themselves, who aren’t punished for their supposed crime.

     Why exclude them? Why aren’t the women having abortions responsible? Let’s discuss.
     All religions are cruel, in their original forms, offering some version of a man in the sky demanding unconscionable barbarities. “What Lord? Slay my young son, Isaac, just because you say so, to prove that I’ll do anything you tell me? Why sure!
     Christianity offers a novel spin on this, taking Jesus’ suffering on the cross and using his biblical pain as a springboard to rationalize actual atrocities committed against a wide variety of real people: Jews, Indigenous tribes, non-believers.
     And women.
     When you puff away the fog of obscuring bullshit, the endless frenzy over abortion in the United States is the Passion of the Christ writ small: the notional sufferings of imaginary babies on their tiny intrauterine crosses, seized as pretext to inflict true harm on half the population.
     Not to single out Christianity. Women get the shaft in every fundamentalist faith on earth: female circumcision in Africa, the brutal restrictions in parts of the Muslim world, Hindu honor immolations. Orthodox Jews say a prayer of thanks for not being born a woman, and it’s hard to argue. Men rule because God insists we do. It isn’t our fault. Just following the Big Guy’s orders.

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5 comments:

  1. The Texas Talibsn: delicious phrase that I think we'll hear more of in coming days.


    john

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Afghanistan one week, Texas the next. These bastards work fast.
      But what the hey, Texas will still have freedom of choice...
      Any color coat hanger you like.

      Delete
  2. If you don't like abortion, then don't have one.
    At last we know where the Second American Civil War will begin.
    And what will be the cause of it...the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

    Orangy the Clown was only the symptom, not the disease.
    For more than a decade, I've predicted the coming train wreck.
    I thought it would happen by 2015.
    So I'm off by a few years? Sue me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And that's why I'm outta there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Agree with everything you say, just pointing out comparing abortion to vasectomy doesn't work. People with these beliefs feel life begins at conception, therefore, to them, abortion equals murder. Vasectomy isn't actually "killing a baby." But I hear you. Regardless, they would never outlaw vasectomies because they concern men. Heck, if men got pregnant, they would never outlaw abortion. No matter what woke world we're supposedly living in, sexism and ageism are alive and thriving

    ReplyDelete

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