What health care will you let me choose for you?

Warning: This blog is ranty, it contains sarcasm, anger and profanity. It discusses abortion rights. If you can't handle that, this one isn't for you.

So, I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now. It started with the Ohio and Missouri heart-beat bills, compounded with the travesty coming out of Alabama, and came to a boil with Georgia’s “Hold my beer” bill. Each of these, and mind you this isn’t all of them, are bills that specifically ban abortion care. Each of these is couched as a way to “protect babies”, but treats women like an afterthought—if they think of us, at all! We have been reduced to incubators, to hosts, to objects. And to say I’m angry, or pissed, is probably the understatement of the century.

[NB: You can see an article here, discussing all abortion bills that have passed, or are being taken up, on state level. Not all of them ban it. Some actually protect it. For your edification.]

I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” when I was a kid. I had to hide it from my mother, as she thought Margaret Atwood was <insert every possible thing you can say about a woman>, including a communist. I was taught that the book was “propaganda”, “persecuting Christians” and somehow, “against the Bible”.  You know how to get a curious kid to read something? You tell them not to, and you lay it on with a trowel… which is what she did.

She tried to scare me into not reading it, but all she did was make me want to read it more. I think I was in my mid-teens, maybe 15? 16? I borrowed it from the school library, and kept it in my locker. I know we had just moved back to the States, so I was attending a public school. The book was roughly 10 years old at the time, but it was powerful.

I was leaving Christianity, looking for god, I mean really, really looking for god, and all the book did was solidify my own intuited knowledge that my mother’s particular version of Christianity was about punishing and controlling women. I had been punished for being a female-bodied person my entire life; overlooked, ignored, treated as a non-citizen, and so to see Atwood’s world was to see the dreams of these men who would govern me—who governed the churches I had been raised in since the age of 11 or so. Even 5 or 6 years of this toxic system leaves deep, life-long marks, and I can feel them to this day.

Atwood’s prose is gorgeous; her writing can be by turns graphic and stark, and I loved every stolen moment, reading that “Off Limits Book”. I was rooting for Offred, and I wanted to rescue her, to rescue all of the women imprisoned. Or, better yet, help them rescue themselves, and overthrow Gilead, and ground the leaders of that offensive “country” into the dust.

I read it again in 2017 as part of a book club, and was again struck by the beauty of her words, but the terror and disgust they raised in my heart. I felt, literally felt in my stomach, each description, the places she wrote about, from the gallows, and the wall, where dissidents were shot to death, to the world seen through Offred’s tiny visual space, enclosed as it is by her bonnet. It can be hard for me to wear red sometimes, because of how viscerally I felt the world Atwood wrote.

Since the 2016 election, I’ve thought more and more about Atwood’s work, as well as other research I’ve read into Dominionism, the idea that Christians need to “hold dominion over the earth”. The plan that Dominionists propagate began on the local level, often School Boards, and has grown into the MAGA crowd, the pro-trumpers, the misogynists who think rape is an inconvenience, or at worse, “a bad date”. While I thought the Tea Party was bad, even they seem to think the MAGA crowd has gone too far on a number of things (as can be seen by the fracturing of the GOP, as well as the dearth of Republicans calling themselves Tea Partiers these days).

The last few weeks, however, have brought it closer and closer to my thoughts. How is 2019’s United States channeling Gilead? And why, for fuck’s sake, why? Why use this dystopian novella as a blue print for “more and better ways to hurt people”? Why is women’s health care anyone else’s business? Why is it debated? Paraded as if it’s “national priority number one”? Aren’t the tariff’s and the climate crisis, and children in cages, more important than whether or not I have an IUD in my uterus, or take the pill, or don’t want to be pregnant, but found that I was?

Yes, I know, controlling women, especially the ability to carry or end a pregnancy is a means of controlling the means of production. Controlling the reproductive choices of women means controlling whether we graduate from high school and go on to college. Controlling our choices, our bodies, means controlling whether we can escape abusive relationships, grow as humans and adults, make our own decisions about work and where we want to live. Make our own choices about how many children we want, if we want any. It controls our abilities to raise the children we choose to have, to clothe, feed, protect and educate them.

Controlling the bodies of women means ensuring a permanent under-class of under-paid, under-educated, workers. It ensures that we always have “cannon fodder” for endless wars in the Middle East. It ensures that the cycle of poverty never breaks. It ensures that the cycle of domestic violence never ends. It ensures a continuous crop of ignorant, uneducated, silent, sheep who are easily led to whatever extremes their masters want them to go.

I’d be willing to bet my pay packet, that most (90% perhaps) of anti-choice voters don’t look at the whole picture. To them, there are 3 kinds of OK abortions, 1-rape, 2-incest and 3-theirs (or that of their daughter, who’s a good girl and shouldn’t be punished for one bad decision, she’s not a slut like those other women).

For some (the more affluent), they’ll make it work, if getting an abortion means going to Puerto Rico, or Canada, or Colorado. They fervently believe that most abortions are immoral, and bad, and women who want them deserve to be punished. But not them, not their daughters… they’re good girls.

Upper-middle, and upper-class women have always gotten safe abortions. It’s the poor women who suffer, and they have always suffered. As long as anti-choice supporters consider themselves to be “better than poor/women of colour/LGBT+/different religious groups/insert your own Other, Marginalized group”, they will always support taking choice away from “them”. They believe that They will always have it. As long as the “us” is safe, who gives a flying fuck about “them”?

They fail to see that, in truth, the reasons another person wants an abortion is none of their goddamned business!

They don’t see that girls being uneducated is a bad thing, because many of them are uneducated. To them education is to be reviled. It’s scary, makes for “liberal elitists”. Critical thinking leads to doubts, which leads to abandoning the religious upbringing of one’s youth (whether changing religions, or leaving them altogether). It leads to thinking for one’s self, and a person who is good at critical thinking can’t be lead like a “sheep”—ever wonder why Christians like to be compared to sheep? They need, deeply need, to be led. That’s how authoritarian thinking works. Thinking for yourself is terrifying—it turns things upside down, and therefore, it’s evil, bad and wrong.

At its most basic, people who are actively anti-choice (and this includes Facebook and Twitter keyboard warriors, and social media loud mouths) are unaware that women are human beings, whole in themselves, needing no one to tell them how to live. That an adult woman, is truly an adult. In their world, and often in their own lives, women are over-grown children.* This is encouraged by their fundamentalist religious beliefs, and so they expect that all women should be treated in this manner.

So as I’ve stewed on these thoughts, and listened to both sides of the Choice debate discussing the dangerous new laws, and how the outcomes would harm women (for those of us who understand that abortion is health care!) and the “bay-beeees” (for those who can’t be bothered to give a wet shit about women). I’ve heard about how abortion causes breast cancer (it Abso-Fucking-Lutely DOES NOT), and depression (nope again), or how women should just “give it up” for adoption (as though we’re baby machines for infertile couples?! What the actual fuck?!)

I’ve heard the science behind heart-beat bills, again—I’ve known that the heart sounds heard that early in pregnancy are not true heart beats—the soon-to-be heart cells pulse, yes, but it’s not a heartbeat. I’ve agonized and ranted against 6 week bans, because not everyone knows they’re pregnant that early. I’ve fumed at the hypocrisy of many women, women I KNOW had abortions, but damned if they’re going to admit it, or stand by while other women exercises that same right.

And I’ve come to a pretty radical conclusion. One I think we should start working to get legislated if we can’t get these fuckwits to back off of our reproductive care.**

Let’s legislate all surgeries and medical procedures.

Bear with me now, hear me out…

We set up committees, right? Like they want to do with abortion care. We get a bunch of people together, preferably people who are nothing like the potential-patient, can’t be “a jury of peers”, is what I’m saying.

In these committees, they, the wanna-patient, explains why they need this medical care. Emergency care, well, they go straight to the ER, and if things look like they “helped” or “caused it” then the doctors can alert the investigatory panel—just like they want to do with women who miscarry! Fair is fair.

We want to promote “personal responsibility”, and not “waste tax payer money”, and, it’s against our beliefs to "promote unhealthy life-styles"… we “love the sinner, but hate the sin”, sins like gluttony, sloth, not taking care of yourself, not making good decisions (decisions we, the committee, approve of).

I thought of a few situations for examples:

1. Took bad care of yourself, never ate right, or exercised and now you’re X number of pounds overweight and diabetic? Nope, sorry, no medical care for you… it’s against our “beliefs” to provide medical care for people who don’t take care of themselves.

[Exceptions exist, of course… and they’re very arbitrary (see Rape-Incest-Mine exceptions above). Gestational diabetes? You’re good! Diabetes caused by immunosuppression, or “Hell, we don’t know?”—yep, you’re all good. Too much deep fried food, and we’re denying you treatment]

2. Your dick is broke, and you can’t get hard? Nope, sorry, goddidit… no sexy time for you. Just get a penile sleeve at the local sex shop, and pretend you’re happy with it.

3. Claiming to be disabled because you’re unhealthy? Nope, no help for you. Get to work. The committee doesn't get paid to give you a free ride, you're not special, and you can work, doing something, we're sure of it. Can’t have my taxes paying for that, right? Just like you don’t want your taxes to pay for birth control. Fair is fair, my friend.

4. Need a root canal? Sorry, sucks to be you. Get it yanked at the barber-surgeon, and call it a day. Or, you can pull it yourself, if you’re ballsy. It’s up to you. We won’t take your “personal choice away”.

5. High blood pressure? Heart disease? Did you cause them by living in a way the committee disapproves of? Do you eat junk food, and sit on your ass watching tv? Nope, no medical intervention for you. Feel free to suffocate as your body fills with fluid, and you can always pray for deliverance. We’ll see which happens first, shall we? If god wants you to be healed, it’ll work, right?

6. Find out you have an auto-immune disorder? Oh, step right up! We totally want to help you! I mean, this isn’t something you caused by being a slut, or not eating your veg, or not exercising. Your treatment is absolutely funded! Whatever you need.

7. Cancer in your whatever? Hmmm… this one’s tricky. We’ll have to discuss it with 4 different doctors, 2 oncologists, a handful of other “experts in the field”, and some other people to “offer the other side of the argument”. They’ll be Christian Scientists, faith healers, hypnotists, and some essential oil practitioners. You know, to get alllll of the information. Then we’ll reconvene and let you know—in 6-12 months. Hope you live that long!

8. Need birth control? Well, step right up! We have all these kinds, and you tell us what you need. Our vast line of birth control includes sterilization-- just sign here that you’ve read and understand that once you’re “fixed” you can’t procreate, and we’ll make the appointment. We don’t care if you don’t have kids yet-- you probably don’t want them in this world anyway. The committee loves them some birth control!

9. Need HRT? We’re down, for whatever reason. We don’t care if you’re trans, or just have low T, or your estrogen is out of whack (from PCOS, or otherwise). Let us know if you’re prefer pills, injectables, or whatever. We’re good.

10.—Oh, wait, you don’t like the ideas? I thought it was fucking brilliant!

I mean, if you get to decide what’s health care for me. Then I get to decide for you. That’s how it works, right?

What health care decisions are you willing to give up to committee, or to the legislature, or to any other fucking person than yourself, and your doctor?

Anything?

Anything at all?

I didn’t think so.

So fuck off with your "abortion kills baybeeees" bullshit. Fuck off with your attempts to gain control over my body, and the bodies of other women (and persons with uteri).

A uterus isn’t a public work. It’s a personal organ.

And remember, I can’t donate your organs without your explicit consent. If you said no while you were alive, I can’t change that. If you said yes, and only if you said yes, can I donate your organs as your heir/medical power of attorney. What these bills seek to do, is give me less control over my living body, than I have over my dead one.

If you believe that a carcass of a human has more rights than a living, breathing woman, you need to fuck right off. No dead body should have more rights than a living woman.

Not one, not ever… and I’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent that from happening. I don’t care who you are, or what relation we have.

If you believe that having a working uterus make me beholden to some man who can make decisions for me, as to what I can and can’t do with it, you need to fuck off.

Fuck Right Off.

This is my hill to die on, and I will fight for the rights of women everywhere. I have a right to my body. To my health care. To my autonomy. My uterus does not define me… and it doesn’t define anyone else. And you don’t get to tell me what I have to do with it. Not today, not ever.

  

* In some cases, and I’m sure it’s common in many families, the older women actually are in charge of everything, while pretending that “the menfolk” are in charge. If you need anything, you ask Granny, Auntie, or whoever is the oldest woman… but the men all think they’re “The Boss”. The women knowingly wink as if everyone’s in on the joke, but play along “because you know how [the men] are”. Even in these households (overwhelmingly white, poorer and religious, in my experience) are utterly anti-choice, because younger women (those of childbearing age) aren’t old enough, or adult enough, to make their own decisions. Any decisions about children, and sometimes including whether to seek fertility treatments, are made “by committee”, with all of the matriarchs weighing in. It’s fucking weird. Queue #NotAllFamilies in 3…2….

**In addition to giving to the ACLU and PP, and supporting women’s choices, even if you don’t like them. And voting anti-choice reps and senators OUT of office—on the state and federal level. And protesting, calling, writing, and generally being disorderly. Be fucking Disorderly. Women’s Lives depend on it!

***If you want to stop abortion, promote comprehensive, medically-accurate, sex ed, and contraception distribution. Promote social programs like free day care and head-start; medical care for kids should be covered; SNAP assistance for all. Make sure that women who want to carry to term have the help they need to do so. Make sure that the kids, of all colours and races, will be protected—not just the white ones. Work to remove the “mommy gap” in pay rates, housing, health care, and everywhere else. Stop punishing women who do have kids. Demand good programs for women and children. Demand change to promote healthy kids. Demand Good Things!

Otherwise, you’re not pro-life, you’re pro-forced birth, and again, you can fuck off.