Once again, the gold star goes to the funnyman

If I were a dude with any kind of media bandwidth, I would be taking credit for Jon Stewart's correct framing of the Virginia government-mandated rape bill.

 

I'm actually surprised that Jon Stewart got this as right as he did, as he's often as not the one who makes me want to tear my hair out when he tries to undercut factually based-- if eye-popping-- liberal responses to conservative overreach. He equated, for instance, (accurately) citing President Bush as a war criminal with President Obama a socialist. He decried references to the thuggishness of a man who rides with a white supremacist biker gang and was involved in detainee abuse in Iraq. But here, he landed in pretty much the right spot. Once again, Jon Stewart picks up the slack of the mainstream media. One hopes that they'll catch up one day.

On Consent, Informed and Otherwise

I've felt a little stuck where this blog is concerned lately. I'm a little bit tired of politics being the only thing that I could think to sit down and write about. I'm more than a little tired hearing myself use that as an excuse (mostly to myself) to not write anything at all when I have something to say about politics. I've been tired of the bullshit-yet-stubbornly-relevant reasons why I haven't felt comfortable writing about what's interesting about my life in this space leaving me with little alternative. But what tires me infinitely more is the cynical refusal to call a spade a spade because it might sound extreme, and the cost we pay as a society and a culture when our discussion of personal liberties is framed by that sensibility.

So we go on, once again, to politics.

It is truly a relief that the press and the public have come down as hard as they have on the recent skirmishes in the Republican Party's war on women's health, but there's one punch that keeps getting pulled out of what I believe to be a misguided sense of restraint.

As I would imagine anyone still reading this blog knows, the Virginia state legislature has taken up a bill that would mandate, as a purported enhancement to laws regarding informed consent (Paging George Orwell!), that they be given a medically unnecessary ultrasound, and that if imaging requires it, that the ultrasound be administered trans-vaginally.

The second part is what this post is about primarily, but before I get to that, let me note that as the result of  (a purported) resurgence of small-government conservatism, the Teavangelical power base that capitalized on-- among other things--the under-participation of pro-choice women in 2010 to further their ideological agenda by intruding into the normally sacrosanct relationship between doctor and patient and using the force of law to influence the conditions under which the final decision is made to go through with an abortion or not. It's already pretty unacceptable, but understandably, the focus of the discussion has been on what happens if the abortion is being performed before the point in fetal development at which imaging with an external ultrasound is impossible.

So important is it that the views of hypocritical reactionary zealots be reflected in medical procedure that the Republican Party is seeking to coerce those who go in early enough to preclude an ordinary ultrasound into submitting to a forced intrusion that has been described in what often feels like euphemistic language. Let me be clear: the coercive measure by which a pregnant woman is to be made to endure unwanted vaginal penetration by an ultrasound probe is accurately described as rape. And we should call it that.

Not out of sensationalism. Not out of a vengeful desire to hurt the GOP, though given the past three years both would be entirely justified. We should call it what it is because this legislation, whatever its original intent, threatens to take the false and dangerous narrative that rape is punishment for sexual promiscuity and codify it into law. Here, in the 21st century. And if you think that that's a maximalist interpretation, the minimalist one would be that the Republican Party is so determined to have its influence felt in the doctor's office they aren't especially concerned if it's necessary to rape the patient in order to exert it.

So far, the only person I've seen who has used the word on TV was Anna Sterling of Feministing, who appeared this morning on the debut of Melissa Harris-Perry. I've been told that Keith Olbermann did as well. Others have said things that were certainly intended to , but seemed curiously hesitant to actually use the word, which is unfortunate. You need to say the word to fully appreciate the severity of conservatives in Virginia. You need to spell it out that this is the final lifting of the pro-life veil that reveals once and for all that the raison d'etre of the movement is to stamp out a woman's bodily autonomy.

One Virginia legislator referred to abortion as a "lifestyle convenience." Others have said that by consenting to sex, a woman has consented to either having a child or having the government penetrate her with a medical device.

It's gotten me thinking about my lifestyle. I am someone who also consents to sex. A lot. Not always with the same person. I would never want an ultrasound wand shoved inside me unless there was a medical reason for it, nor do I want to have to deal with carrying a fetus to term or being responsible for it after birth. I don't want to take the hit to my health or my career.

Which leads me to conclude:

All things considered, isn't it an awfully nice lifestyle convenience, to have a penis?

Blogging for Choice: 38 Years Later

Tomorrow marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that held that all women have the right to an abortion, provided that the fetus isn't viable outside the womb.

It wasn't the end of the fight.  It was the beginning.  Thirty eight years later, we're somewhere in the middle.

Despite that crucial guarantee of a right to sovereignty over one's own body, notification laws, limited access, a lack of facilities, and the failure to enforce laws designed to protect the practitioners of abortion from threats and intimidation have deigned to pull those rights out from under those to whom they were guaranteed.

In many ways, the entirety of the struggle can be illustrated by the life of one doctor. George Tiller didn't set out to become an abortion provider.  He graduated from Kansas School of Medicine in 1967. He went on to hold a medical internship with the US Navy, serving his country as a flight surgeon. Upon leaving the Navy, he had intended to become a dermatologist. That same year, tragedy struck his family.  His sister died in a plane crash, along with his parents and his brother-in-law.  He found himself responsible for both his sister's child and his father's family medical practice, which local women sometimes relied upon for abortions. He changed his mind about closing the facility when he learned of a woman who died of complications resulting from an illegal abortion.

From then on, George Tiller found himself in the cross-hairs of a dedicated, relentless, hateful movement deadset on stopping abortions by any means necessary.  For those who believe that violent political rhetoric doesn't lead to violence, I need only say the name Operation Rescue. The rabid picketers, the wanted posters with his picture, the speech by Congressman Robert K Dorman on the floor of the House where he was referred to as "Tiller the Baby Killer"... I defy anyone to say with a straight face that they had nothing to do with the fact that in 1986 his clinic was firebombed. That in 1993 he was shot five times while sitting in his car.  Or that last year he was shot through the eye while serving as an usher at his church.

Even gang bangers respect a Sunday morning.

That is the epitome what it means to stand up for a woman's right to choose. To persevere knowing that people want you dead. To contend alike with misguided protesters and those who fall directly within the realm and sphere of domestic terrorism, and never knowing for sure which are which. After the firebombing, Tiller posted a sign outside his clinic that read "hell no, we won't go." as it was being rebuilt. After he was shot the first time, he went right back to work as soon as he could. He was well aware what he was doing. He was laying his life before women in need because nobody else would do the work. In the midst of all manner of heated rhetoric surrounding the abortion debate, his message was simple.

And Tiller wasn't the only one. Only the most notable.

Today, even after progressives were forced to make a sadistic choice between a woman's right to choose and a step towards universal healthcare, and managed to find a third way around it, the House of Representatives has decided to go after abortion rights.

It never ends.

It never.  fucking.  ends.

And so we can't stop either.  Not until there isn't a single woman in America who needs to carry a pregnancy to term if she doesn't want to.  Not until there isn't a single pharmacy that refuses to dispense contraception-- to anyone.  Not until there isn't a single hospital that will turn away a rape victim seeking EC.

Roe v Wade, as strange as it may seem, wasn't just about women's rights.  The abortion debate as a whole isn't just about women's rights, though obviously that's what's most important. Roe v Wade was the first blow struck for an idea whose time still hasn't fully come.  The notion that every one of us has the right to sovereignty over our own bodies, no matter what that means.  There is a bright line that can be drawn between Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas. Who knows?  Maybe one day that same principle will put this senseless, regressive, destructive War on Drugs to an end once and for all. One day soon it will grant us the right to marry whomever we wish.

The moral arc of the Universe is long, and it bends towards Justice.

But we have to bend it.