Thursday, April 19, 2007

Pushing over the Roe v. Wade Coke machine

In an old Seinfeld episode, Jerry and Elaine talk about ending relationships. Jerry uses the metaphor that a relationship is like a Coke machine -- too big to fall over after just one push. You need to take a few runs at, rock it a bit and make it teeter, then once it's destabilized it's easier to push over. So it goes with US fundies and Roe v. Wade.

In 2003, Bush signed into law a ban on late-term abortion (or "partial birth", in the misleading vernacular of the gore-obsessed fundies). *Teeter* Yesterday's SCOTUS ruling, which upheld the ban, was another push at the metaphorical Coke machine, in this case Roe v. Wade. *Teeter*

The ruling yesterday was full of pious pronouncements about the "love of a mother for her child" ad nauseum, completely buying into the fundie propaganda that women will have abortions of perfectly healthy pregnancies as late as 38 weeks along because... well, just because. Because we're crazy, willful, selfish, murderous sluts. When in fact, late-term abortion usually isn't a matter of choice, but it can be a matter of life or death. The court's decision will kill women. Period. What SCOTUS is saying is that if a pregnancy goes so wrong that a late-term abortion is indicated, we've failed in our job as brood mares and we deserve to die, or at least be tortured by carrying a damaged fetus for another 2 or 3 months. It's that simple.


The fundies, always anxious to lay god's own fucking vengeance on dirty sluts, are hailing the SCOTUS ruling as a victory. Another run at the Coke machine. SCOTUS has not only invited itself into the operating room to tell doctors which procedures they can do, but also into the womb of every USian woman. I wonder what they'll do next now that they're in there.