A Pregnant Pause

In literature, when you see the words "pregnant pause" it implies the character has essentially just taken in some info, is processing it, and more often than not, having a serious WTF moment.

It's not much different in real life, especially of late, as anything having to do with a woman's pregnancy capabilities is being legislated out the hoo haa.

Mandatory, unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds.  Businesses being allowed to disallow insurance coverage for birth control should it get their religious testicles in a knot.  Women finding out they have doctors who, by law, are allowed to lie to them about their in utero child's health, lest the truth lead the woman to choose to abort.  Even more legislation which would require a woman to carry a dead fetus until her body managed to expel it, seriously compromising her health - both physical and mental.

Now, Arizona, that bastion of highly enlightened thinking (apply heavy schmear of sarcasm to that word bagel) has passed a bill through their legislature that puts even the most stringent "life begins at conception" views to shame.  In it, gestational age is calculated from "the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman."

I'll stop to allow a very pregnant pause while you let that sink in.  I'll even provide some "hold" music...

Tall and tan, and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking and when she passes, each one she passes goes Ahhhhhhh...

Ready?

Yes, that means Governor Crypt Keeper is ready to sign a bill into law stating that life begins BEFORE you even have sex.  Hell, before you are even thinking about sex.  Before some enchanted evening when your eyes meet across a crowded room.  That you are pregnant while you are inserting a tampon to staunch the flow of the very process indicating you are NOT pregnant.

Always may have wings, but Arizona has batshit crazy ones.

Essentially, Arizona is using a loophole the size of a vaginal opening to crawl through and reduce the number of weeks a woman may have access to an abortion, cutting the 20 weeks down to 18.   

You see, doctors calculate a woman's pregnancy from the first day of her last period BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO WAY OF EXACTLY PINPOINTING WHEN A WOMAN GOT PREGNANT.  Which is why a due date is a ballpark figure, not a hard and fast, reliable day on the calendar around which you may confidently schedule getting your nails done, taking a trip, having your tires rotated. 

It was bad enough when Terry England of Georgia compared women to farm animals - hell, pigs and cows spit out dead babies all the time, heh, heh, heh, you little ladies can do the same, heh, heh, heh - but now this?  Declaring I am pregnant when I am actually on the rag?

Another of AZ's bills-soon-to-be-birthed-into-law would require schools to teach that adoption and and birth are the only acceptable results of pregnancy.  Raped by your uncle?  Gift from God, share it with someone else.  Tests show your fetus has half a head, no intestine, three arms, and no brainstem?  Enjoy the miracle of childbirth!

Fine.  If that's how they wish to play, then these states who are leading the charge in the denial of our reproductive rights and choices had better be ready to start parenting the products of their efforts.  If I get pregnant, find out I am carrying the above descripted fetus and am not allowed an abortion?  Congratulations Texas!  You are now the proud parent of a seriously disabled, terminal, suffering child.  Your law, your child, YOUR expense.

I find it so laughable how these Republicans are trying to say the "war on women" is being manufactured by the Democrats.  LAUGH-A-BULL.

These bills are coming from the right side of the aisle as they try to gin up their Bible banging base.  Cause we all know NO Christian has EVER had an abortion, used birth control, or faced a rape pregnancy.

Hypocrites.  As we have seen, the ones who make the most noise against something typically have, um, the widest stance.

If you don't support abortion rights, don't have one.  Don't support gay marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex.  Don't like birth control?  Don't use it.  But you telling ME how to live my life?  NO. 

How about we turn the tables?  How about we mandate YOU must use birth control?  Or pass a law stating that life begins in the warm cozy confines of the male beanbag?  That masturbation is murder?  That condoms are rubber Holocaust gas chambers?

The bottom line is simple - MY body is not YOUR responsibility.  It is not up to you to decide when I have sex, how I have sex, if I use birth control, what I can do with my ovaries, or how I approach the decision making should I be faced with a pregnancy.

But until every condescending, clueless legislator; every placard carrying Right-To-Lifer; every Westboro Baptasst;  every holier-than-thou hypocrite starts stepping up and paying for the pregnancies and adopting the babies - compromised or not - they need to STFU and get the hell away from my vagina.

It is MY body.  And I wouldn't touch any of you even with a 10 foot transvaginal ultrasound wand.

Comments

[Nikki]

I don't understand why as the country and, indeed, the world, is going to hell in a handbaskset why the biggest issue of the day is my uterus. Maybe now that Santorum is out of the race things will calm down. I find it astonishing that the Right is always ready to cut down on all and any aid to children when they purportedly love them so much. Truthfully, they just love to control women -- and only love a fetus. Once that fetus is a baby -- not so much. Hypocrites and moral jackals.

[Chrissy]

I'm not an OB/GYN but I play one in Congress..

I really hope this doesn't tone down now that Santorum is out. I'm all for exposing this bunch of he-man women haters for what they are. I'd love to see them all voted out of office come November.

[audreyf]

AMEN!!!

[Chicky (Kathy)]

This is such a hot topic with me. I am sick to death of defending my uterus with people who [used to be] my friends. I have unfriended at least 10 people since this whole thing started. And what pisses me off more than anything is - it shouldn't even be an issue. This shit was settled years ago - why on earth are the repubs bringing it up now???

[DeDe]

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how what I wish to do with my body is such a hot button topic. If I want to have 80 abortions, it's my business. Why the heck should anyone else care? Drives me crazy!