What It's About

It’s not about the babies.

It never has been.  It never will be.

If the people currently turning Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, and various other American states into blasphemous theocratic hellholes really gave a rat’s ass about children, their states would look very different. 

They’d have programs in place to make sure that every child gets enough to eat.  To make sure they had decent housing.  To make sure they had the basics of life that are so often lacking in a country with the pre-industrial levels of inequality that we have.

There would in fact be strenuous efforts to avoid those unsustainable gaps in wealth, to create affluence for everyone rather than the favored few, and to make sure that those who benefited most from society did not hoard their good fortune but instead gave back to that society so that others might benefit as well, so that those born might have lives not spent in poverty.

Their school systems would be well-funded, with small class sizes, highly trained and paid teachers respected by the lawmakers who set their budgets, so that every child – not just the privileged ones – had the skills and knowledge to get ahead in this world.  That knowledge would be based in reality, in science and scholarship, not hallucinatory ideology or the worship of the cruelest and least worthy version of a deity that the human mind could engineer.

They’d have healthcare systems that were open to all, not reserved as a privilege for the wealthy, the white, and the well connected, systems that preserve life rather than simply extend it for the privileged and deny it to others.

They’d have strict controls on firearms, particularly automatic, semi-automatic, and high-power weaponry.  There would be no controversy over this, and every time some pathetic loser decided to take out his (almost always his, you notice) shortcomings on the innocent those restrictions would get stricter.  There would only be concern for life.

There would be transparency in criminal justice systems so that children and – radical, I know – even adults would not be railroaded into losing their life’s years on false charges and misapplied punishments.

There would be no enthusiasm about putting brown-skinned Spanish-speaking children in cages for claiming the right of asylum – a right guaranteed by American and international law, by the way, not that laws seem to matter to those who have no moral qualms about ripping children from their families and putting them in cages.

There would be no children who have been raped being deliberately traumatized by being forced to bear their rapist’s baby.  The life of the mother would actually mean something and be protected.

You’ll notice that none of this is true.

That’s because none of those people really give a damn about children at all.  That is not now nor has it ever been the point of the “pro-life” movement.  That movement has always been about controlling women.  About reversing the gains of the feminist movement.  About keeping women poor, ignorant, pregnant, and easily controlled.

It’s about treating women as “hosts” (their word, in fact, and they use it freely if you pay attention) rather than people.  As brood mares.  As anything other than actual human beings with rights of their own.  As anything other than equal citizens.

If you are not blisteringly angry about the way women are being treated in this country then there is no hope for you.

It’s not about the babies.

It never has been.  It never will be.

It’s not about small government either. 

There’s nothing small about a government that can reach directly into the body of a citizen and say, “This part here, that’s not yours anymore.  That belongs to us now and you have no right to control it.” 

That’s totalitarianism, and the fact that it’s dressed up in red, white, and blue and drowned in pretty little buzzwords doesn’t change that.

You want religious totalitarianism?  Go to Iran.  Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

It’s not about the babies. 

It never has been.  It never will be.

It’s not even about reducing abortions.

If it were that, there would be comprehensive, medically sound sex education, designed by doctors who understand the science and implemented by educators who teach rather than indoctrinate. 

There would be safe, effective contraception available for free under that inclusive healthcare system that should have been put in place above.

There would be actual medical knowledge being used to make laws instead of basing public policy on the ignorant ravings of dime-store preachers and the quivering hatreds of the jumped up fools who make up such a large percentage of our current crop of state legislators in the US. 

There would be genuine efforts to punish rapists rather than excuse them, coddle them, and let them go free.

There would be systems in place to hold men responsible for the babies they create, systems that would be rigorously enforced.

There aren't these things in those places.  There aren't any of these things in those places.

It’s not about the babies.

It never has been.  It never will be.

And until you recognize this simple fact you will never understand what it really is about.