America, you exhaust me with your meanness. I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps the best place to begin is with the self-righteous rhetoric that thinly disguises the newest Christian crusade against women, children and the poor.
In Louisiana, the Republicans put forth a bill that equates abortion with homicide. (It was later pulled.) This from a state that has historically allowed companies to pollute its residents with chemicals and poisons in the name of jobs, giving Louisiana the honor of having one of the highest cancer rates in the nation. Reproductive rights lawyer Ellie Schilling said: “This (bill) is saying that people can be charged with murder for any act that they take against their own pregnancy.” Experts cited in a Washington Post article believed the bill could have also been used to “restrict in vitro fertilization and emergency contraception because it would grant constitutional rights to a person ‘from the moment of fertilization.'”
The distinction of having the highest rate of cancer in the U.S. goes to Kentucky, the state where its senior U.S. senator, Mitch McConnell, recently said a national abortion ban is a distinct possibility in light of the leaked draft opinion that indicates the Supreme Court will strike down Roe v. Wade. “If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies — not only at the state level but at the federal level — certainly could legislate in that area,” McConnell said.
More than 10,000 residents of Kentucky die of cancer each year — a figure that is at least three times the number of abortions that were performed in the state in 2017. Why is the cancer rate so high? A Louisville doctor in 2015 cited these factors: “It’s really been driven by three major things: obesity, smoking and lack of screening,” Dr. Whitney Jones said. “Our state is completely inundated with risk factors.”
Fun fact: Also recently, a photo circulated on social media of uber-conservative, anti-choice Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his Jan. 6 insurrectionist-supporting-and-legitimate-election-results-denying wife, Ginni, about to open a $5,135 bottle of wine. They look so happy.
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More news! Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee just signed into law House Bill 2416, which criminalizes mail-order abortion-inducing drugs. The bill states: “An individual who intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly violates this bill commits a Class E felony and, upon conviction, will be fined an amount not to exceed $50,000, be imprisoned for a term not to exceed 20 years, or both.”
The recipient of the drug would not be penalized, and only a qualified in-state doctor can prescribe the drug. (Yeah, good luck with that, ladies.) However, if a patient does the get the OK to use the drug, the authorized doctor must “inform the patient that the patient may see the remains of the unborn child in the process of completing the abortion.” What’s next on the Tennessee docket — tar and feathering?
So far, there are no bills being put forth by these men to support single mothers; to help lift poor women and their children out of poverty through free college education; or to provide free and safe child care and health care for working mothers. No sirree, not on their watch.
Let us not forget that other part of this pregnancy equation: men. I know most Christians believe in immaculate conception, but in the real world where we all reside, it takes two to conceive a baby. Where are the increased penalties for failure to provide child support? Why do women descend into penury while the “fathers” remain unscathed?
These angry Southern legislators say they are “pro-life,” but in actuality they are the newest incarnations of 19th century slave owners. In her book “Burning Questions,” Margaret Atwood, who predicted the forced pregnancies of women in her 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” writes: “No one is forcing women to have abortions. No one either should force them to undergo childbirth. Enforce childbirth if you wish but at least call that enforcing by what it is. It is slavery: the claim to own and control another’s body, and to profit by that claim.”
Atwood calls these punitive laws for what they really are: slavery. She writes: “Women who cannot make their own decisions about whether or not to have babies are enslaved because the state claims ownership of their bodies and the right to dictate the use to which their bodies must be put.”
So once again, here we are, America: a half step forward, two steps back. Government by minority, in this latest case, a forthcoming ruling by five activist judges, three of whom were appointed by the worst president in my lifetime, that will drag women back into the bowels of illegal backroom abortion stalls or pull them down further into poverty as they are saddled with children they cannot support and a country that not only turns its back on the poor but also punishes them.
Yet, we are supposed to stand at attention, place our hands over our hearts and sing along with Lee Greenwood, “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.”
Sorry, Lee, I think I’ll sit this one out. I never did like fairy tales.
Stephen J. Lyons is the author of five books of essays and journalism. His most recent book is “West of East.”
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