Strap in, folks because this is going to be a long one.
Apparently, the topic of abortion is hot again with predictions that Roe v. Wade will be overturned this year. This, of course, has many lawmakers and activists across the country shaking in their boots. In recent weeks, we’ve seen Dem governors taking proactive measures by signing various legislation to secure unfettered access to abortion.
A few weeks ago, California’s Gavin Newsom made abortion free (but not free to the California taxpayer, no doubt!).
Not long after, Colorado governor, Jared Polis, signed what is called the Reproductive Health Equity Act into law:
To get a better understanding of how “Colorado is leading the way to protect reproductive health,” I read the bill and here’s the gist: it explicitly states that the unborn have absolutely no rights and does not specify any deadlines or hindrances for a mother seeking to abort her child. Ultimately, this bill allows women to legally terminate their pregnancy up to the birth of their child.
While I’ve got a lot of opinions about abortion - and I will get there, trust me - I’ve got some bones to pick with this particular bill first.
Let’s begin by addressing the enormous elephant in the room:
“Politically motivated, medically inappropriate restrictions on health care have no place in our statutes or our medical offices.”
Oh, we’re not supposed to let politics meddle with the health care industry, are we? This is quite a change of tune from last year when Polis parroted Joe Biden’s talking points about mandating the experimental Covid vaccine onto everyone (or else!):
Well done, Polis. You’ve successfully made yourself look like a moronic ass. All you had to do last September was say “Don’t let big government dictate your medical choices” and you would have remained logically and principally consistent. Can we please vote him out in November? The dude obviously has no spine.
Another part of the bill that I found to be annoying reads:
“Rural populations face limited access to primary care, including
abortion care and other family planning services, and often navigate
increased travel times when seeking health care. There are fewer health-care
providers in rural areas, and providers with rural mailing addresses are
significantly less likely to provide abortion care.”
I may be taking a leap here, but perhaps abortions just aren’t that popular in rural communities because their values differ greatly from the values of urban communities. Take the Colorado 2020 election map as an example:
Often times, conservative folks (i.e. the people living in the red parts here, and the red parts being the more rural areas of the state) are pro-life, so providing abortion services in these areas may not be as in-demand as lawmakers might think. Because of this, Polis’ tweet effectively contradicts this portion of the bill. The tweet’s sentiment is basically: make decisions based on your faith, to hell with big government!* Perhaps health care providers in rural communities do not offer abortion services exactly because of this… and the bill is kind of saying: hey there, ruralites, you’re not hitting your abortion quotas!
*A concept that apparently only applies when it comes to abortion and literally no other medical procedure. Also, why would a woman get an abortion based on her faith that very likely tells her not to get an abortion? Polis is way fucking out of touch. He is not a man of principle. He has shown himself to be nothing more than a line-towing party boy. So, let’s say it again: VOTE. HIM. OUT.
And that’s the general direction I initially planned for this post - to expose Polis for his inconsistencies.
But, as prefaced earlier, this goes so much deeper. It may also be triggering or offensive.
Proceed with caution and at your own risk.
There’s a couple more excerpts from the Colorado bill that got under my skin. Here’s one of them:
“Access to abortion and reproductive health care is currently
under attack across the nation.”
I just want to state the very unpopular idea that abortion and reproductive health care are not the same thing. Abortion is what happens when a woman fails to properly protect her reproductive organs. Reproductive health care is sought out by an individual prior to becoming sexually active and periodically throughout their life. To fully make my point, look at the following two sentences:
I went to get an abortion today.
I went to get a pap smear/breast exam/condoms/birth control today.
Spot any differences? “Abortion” can mean literally only one thing. “Reproductive health care” covers a plethora of services - and when we see phrasing like that from the excerpt above, we begin to associate the two. We begin to understand abortion on the same level as a pap smear or a birth control pill refill, which, of course, really behooves those who wish to “normalize” or “destigmatize” abortion.
I just have a really hard time believing these are the procedures and services are what’s “under attack across the nation.” Abortion, on the other hand, is highly controversial. So, if a person can be made to associate abortion with routine health care, then I find this to be a dishonest, abusive, and manipulative use of language.
And, in case you’re new here, shit like this does not sit well with me.
Finally, this last excerpt from the bill gets at my main gripe with the entire abortion debate:
“Public entity shall not: (a) Deny, restrict, interfere with, or discriminate against an individual’s fundamental right to use or refuse contraception or to continue a pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion.” [Emphasis mine.]
Before I move on, I need to make one thing crystal clear: I find government to be the main hindrance to total freedom, so any bill limiting the scope of government (as the excerpt above effectively does) is a good one in my opinion. I also think that banning abortion altogether has two negative effects: it gets us that much further from total freedom and it opens up a sort of black market for “illegal” and potentially unsafe abortions.
So, yeah, sure. I think that a woman should have the right to be sexually active without taking any sort of pregnancy prevention measures - even if she and her sexual partner are not intending to have children.
Go on and gamble, girl!
But you must remember: you’re playing a risky - perhaps the riskiest - game.
What drives me up the mother fucking wall is this being totally off the hook from any sort of responsibility, this complete elimination of consequence from severe risk taking. This bill basically sends women the message of: go out and bang whoever you want! Don’t even worry about taking any birth control measures either, because we’ve got you in case you regret it. And no rush. Take your time in deciding if you want to “yeetus the fetus” as the kids say. You’re free to choose for the next 9 months!
Again - I’m all for maximizing freedom. But we cannot ignore reality, and a large part of living freely is facing the consequences of your actions. Sure, some women are going to see the consequence (unintended pregnancy) of their actions (unprotected sex) and conclude that abortion is the way to deal with it.
My position on this is quite simple: I support a woman’s right to choose, however, women need to make better choices.
Becoming pregnant is not something that happens accidentally. I am aware, of course, that women can become pregnant as a result of rape; but, it does not seem likely that a large portion of abortions occur because of this. Rather, they occur out of sheer convenience for women who have made bad sexual choices and had a complete lack of foresight.
I’m sure there will be people missing the entire point of this and respond with: well, what about men? Do they just get to dodge any sense of responsibility or blame here? Obviously, it takes one dude and one lady to make a baby - but the abortion argument itself is grounded in the cry for women’s rights specifically. Though I almost don’t even want to address this counter argument because it is mainly used (like abortion) out of convenience, I will do my best.
It does happen in many cases where the man responsible for impregnating the woman does not end up staying to help raise the child, ultimately leaving the woman alone to fend for herself and her child - and this simply isn’t fair! This argument alone surely justifies why women “need” abortion rights as a relief to the burden that would unfairly and inevitably be placed upon women to bear.
Fair enough.
I gotta know, though: did the couple discuss the potential (and highly likely) outcome of procreating prior to their decision to have sex with each other? Logically and almost certainly if they had, then an unintended pregnancy would be prevented.
Further, there is still the (somehow) radical notion that a woman can choose to deny sex to any man who refuses to raise a child with her. Hell, she can even choose to take proper pregnancy prevention measures prior to sleeping with a man who refuses to raise a child with her.
From here, the abortion argument typically veers off to cite the parent’s/s’ socioeconomic status as justification for abortions. After all, won’t the child live a life of squalor if the parents are poor? This is very probable. Raising a child is not a cheap (or simple) task even for a set of parents, let alone just one.
Frankly, it’s a devastating reality that some people grow up in poverty. It really is.
But it goes back to my original position of making better choices. If one wishes to live a life free of government intervention, then they must make decisions more responsibly.
Poor women have access to either free or reasonably priced birth control methods just the same as anyone else. Poor women also have the right to decline sexual advancements, especially if the man has no intentions of sticking around. So, again, if a poor woman is not financially ready to have a child, she’s got at least two better choices before abortion seems like the only one.
To really drive home the counter to the socioeconomic argument, imagine a dog owner who struggles to get by: the basic care, the vet bills, the time invested are all adding up and the owner is barely skating by. As luck would have it, the owner learns that the dog is pregnant. If the owner was barely getting by with just the one dog, then trying to support more is unthinkable.
Would we say, in this scenario, that the owner should take the dog to the vet and abort the puppies? Or do we find this solution to be absurd and cruel?
I’m not sure about y’all, but I’ve never heard of a dog owner going to the vet for a puppy abortion. Typically, here’s what the owner would do in this scenario:
Yell “fuck” at least once
Cry in the shower
Tell literally everyone they know that they’ll have puppies available soon
Wait for the puppies
Care for the puppies until people adopt them
In the worst case scenario where no one adopts them, they find shelters and/or foster parents who will care for them
Finally, they’ll probably look into getting their dog spayed because this scenario was so fucking tiring that they just can’t again.
And before anyone wants to get it into their mind that I just made an insensitive comparison, make sure you’ve got your shit straight first. If you cringe or feel a wave of sadness imagining a puppy abortion, but feel nothing imagining a baby abortion, then it’s you who has the fucked up worldview.
I’m wrapping this up, I swear.
I’m just tired of a woman’s anatomy being seen as some sort of evil intended to victimize us when, in actuality, our anatomy is the one thing we should find the most empowering. With the degradation of morals that has crept up into our society, it seems that women have forgotten this.
We hold the power to create more of us simply because of our biology.
We get to determine which of our male counterparts’ genetics are worthy enough to pass on.
So, why would we trade in that kind of power for bad sexual decisions?
Long winded as this was - all of this is why I find the sorts of legislation that Dem governors like Polis are enacting to be atrocious. It only emboldens women to be even more irresponsible with their decision making.
Not only does the Reproductive Health Equity Act normalize women engaging in unprotected sex, but they’ll face 0 consequences up to the 9 months they have to decide if they want to terminate a pregnancy. Regardless of which side of the argument you’re on, we all have to agree that at some point that “clump of cells” becomes a whole ass baby and we can’t just be normalizing people abort their children all willy nilly.
Women need to be better than this:
And I figured that this next video compilation is likely a joke, but I think people need to be aware of what’s popular with the coming generation:
I get dark humor, but this seems a bit much. And since normalizing and destigmatizing abortion up to birth is the goal of these lefty, spineless, activist governors, it’s not a stretch to predict that aborting a baby based on its potential star sign is next on the agenda.
A reminder for all the women out there: Do. Better.
Too Far Left: A Tale of Two Governors