The Abortion Wars
By: Ramona Grigg
Tags: Abortion, Politics, Life, Feminism, Religion

The Abortion Wars

A lawmaker thinks executing women is the answer

Photo by Asdrubal luna on Unsplash

The headline read: A Texas bill would make it possible to put women to death for having abortions

It’s not a passage from a dystopian novel. It didn’t come from a religious leader in a Middle Eastern country noted for crimes against women. It wasn’t a headline on an old yellowed newspaper in an archive somewhere. It happened this year, in April, and it happened in Texas. In the United States.

The legislation is the brainchild of state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, a Republican from Arlington, Tex., who was placed under state protection because of death threats he received when he first introduced the bill in 2017. The Air Force veteran, who has been married five times, argues that the measure is necessary to make women “more personally responsible.” He said Tuesday that his intention is to guarantee “equal protection” for life inside and “outside the womb.”

And life goes on. No tremors, no lightning bolts, no cutting in for Breaking News. No consternation, no rage, not even a bump. Because this isn’t the first time. It’s not even the second time.

Last year, again in april, the headline read: GOP Candidate Suggests Giving Women The Death Penalty Would Reduce Abortions.

It was in Idaho, not Texas, but the sentiment was the same, and so was the party affiliation.

In March, 2016, while he was still a candidate, Donald Trump, pandering to his new pals on the Religious Right, told Chris Matthews he believed women should be punished for having abortions. The man, as you might know, is now president.

In South Korea abortions are illegal, and the women seeking them (and doctors aiding them) are subject to fines and possible jail time. But that may soon change, because women in that country, after battling over their rights for some 66 years, are rebelling and fighting against draconian, male-inflicted laws that force them to the back alleys where many of them die. They’re winning the right to make their own choices, not because their male leaders finally saw the light but because the women found their power.

Meanwhile, 45 years after Roe v Wade became law, harsher laws against abortion are becoming the norm here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Those same government leaders who never gave up the fight against legality are back in full battle regalia, reveling in the newfound misogynistic pseudo-religious atmosphere that could well become their ace in the hole. Promising to force women to bear children is what wins them elections.

In the fantasy that is fundamentalist biblical dogma, Old Testament writings treated women as second- and third-class citizens, giving them Godly respect only as long as they understood they’d never be anything more than chattel. If they wouldn’t accept their place in that male-dominated society it was on them that they were shamed or stoned to death. It’s not like they weren’t warned.

In the bible women didn’t have careers outside their homes. Their only roles were as mothers and helpmeets. But it’s a myth that they knew nothing about abortion. Throughout the ages, even among the most primitive tribes, women have helped women abort fetuses.

Every male-dominated society (meaning every society throughout the ages, including right here, right now) has turned a blind eye to the methods necessary to keep women from becoming perennially pregnant brood mares. No society, they understood, could sustain that many people.

At the same time, no male-dominated society was ever foolish enough to consider abstinence as an option for controlling population growth.

Not going to happen.

So in the days before prophylactics or pills, abortion was an accepted method of birth control. Even in biblical times. The truth is, abortion is rarely mentioned in the bible, and when it is, it isn’t a sin. It isn’t called murder. It was an accepted form of birth control.

So can we stop the hypocrisy? Can we draw the line at letting men in power call for death penalties for women making the decision to abort? Can we show some outrage and be the ones to call them out for the monsters they are?

Children are our precious gifts and should be our foremost obligation. There is something crushing and terrible about the fact that lawmakers across the country are consciously and systematically defunding social programs currently helping families to build a life and keep their children safe.

Many of those same lawmakers vigorously support anti-abortion groups without once considering the damage they’re doing to the children we need to protect. These children, no longer fetuses, need us. Those millions of dollars working to stop Planned Parenthood and end abortions could better be spent on the quality of life for millions of endangered children. Including those separated from their families, being held in cages, or missing because nobody in charge cares about them.

Women have wombs and men don’t. We’re not brood mares or chattel. The women who make the decision to terminate a pregnancy are not pariahs.

This is the 21st Century. The days of executing women for disobeying men are long past.