Anger as Energy

I’m glad I came here to update my blog; I’ve been meaning to do it for a few days. But why did I suddenly get the energy to write blog posts? Why have I not taken my traditional nap yet today? Why am I not reading or working on a story?

I’ll tell you why. It’s the fucking news. Today the SCOTUS heard arguments in a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. The conservatives seemed to indicate, during oral arguments, that they were ready to uphold Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks, at minimum, and possibly overturn Roe completely.

When Bill and Hillary came to Burlington, Iowa, on a whistlestop in 1992, I went to the rally with three of my girl friends and another friend. At that time, I did not believe in abortion, because I was a teenage boy who didn’t know jack shit about shit. Notably, all three of my girl friends (one of whom was my girlfriend at the time) strongly supported abortion rights.

As a result of listening to my friends’ arguments and Bill Clinton’s line about “making abortions less necessary,” my views began to change. By the election, I had rethought my position and I’ve been pro-abortion ever since. I think the pro- “Choice” versus “Life” distinction is, at this point, rhetorically worse than useless, as both sides constantly use these terms as cudgels with which to beat the other. I do not think the concept of “when is a fetus a person” matters at all—we all know it’s a potential person. Insisting on not admitting that is stupid, and irrelevant.

It simply comes down to women’s health. A person’s “health” includes their healthcare choices, and their right to privacy in all health matters. Whether you call it a fetus, or a baby, or a boa constrictor, or the spawn of Satan, it cannot survive outside of the womb until the 23rd or 24th week. Therefore, to say a woman cannot have an abortion pre-viability is The State determining the course of a woman’s healthcare and private medical choices. If The State can control your body in this way—and take a breath and think it through and tell me if there’s simply any other way to say it—you are a slave of the State. Think about it. Can you think of another natural, legal, personal physical situation in which an entity outside of yourself, without your consent, controls your body? The word for that is slavery.

This is the conclusion I’ve reached. When I say, “Eliminating abortion rights is the enslavement of women by the State,” people blanch at the extremity of my language. But I think that’s just because most people haven’t actually thought this stuff through honestly. If so, on the one hand we’d have people who would effectively be saying, “When it comes to pregnancy, women should be temporarily enslaved to the State, to ensure they carry the baby to term, because the alternative is the killing of potential babies” while, on the other hand, saying, “Slavery is always wrong, even if you end up killing potential babies.” At least then we could be honest about it.

I also believe that, post-viability, there should be a ban on elective abortion—ONLY elective, not medically necessary abortion. Arguing otherwise, in my view, shows as much medical illiteracy as so-called heartbeat laws. If you were to have an abortion post-viability (medically necessary or not) the process is much like birth. It’s not at all the far-easier and -faster procedure that’s done in the first trimester, when nearly all abortions actually happen. I know that many people would reflexively disagree with this stance, arguing that I’m still interfering with a woman’s rights. That may well be true—but it seems to me the need for post-viability abortions by healthy mothers of healthy babies is vanishingly small, if it exists at all. This is, of course, where Roe draws the line, too, a fact that many people seem not to know.

But SCOTUS is going to take it away, whether by upholding the Mississippi law or by striking down Roe entirely. Donald Trump gets the credit, but I think that’s a little unfair considering how hard the left fought to not nominate Hillary Clinton and then not give her enough support in the election. I screamed endlessly about this all 2016, but everybody just got pissed at me for dissing Bernie. Well, the chickens are roosting, you stupid assholes. Elections have consequences.

But so what? I’m a super-privileged cis-het white man who has already reproduced. Why should anyone have ever listened to me? None of this effects me at all.

Except for the advantage my inchoate rage at the GOP confers upon my energy level! I’m really cooking today.