The following rant started as a comment to Dartagnan’s We Must Never Allow Forced Birth to Become Normal or Ordinary. It got to be way too long for a comment so I am making it a diary. I can be long winded in my rants. Sorry.
We are just a few weeks into the horror story that is the overturning of Roe v Wade. We have no way of knowing how exactly the fallout will look. There was a comment on another forum to the effect that this will actually not affect very many people at all and we should all stop flipping out. I beg to differ. Aside from the obvious suffering that has already begun which I will not belabor here, what is this going to look like a couple of years down the road? Because if the extremist faction of the GOP has its way, is this where they stop? No. This is where they begin and the ripple effects will touch all of us.
Here’s one---How about everyone with a functional uterus has to pee on a stick at the airport in order to prove they are not trying to get an out of state abortion. If a woman’s right to travel out of state is curtailed due to abortion bans, does she have to prove she’s not pregnant every time she goes on a business trip or vacation? Better get to the airport 5-6 hours early because that line is gonna be LONG.
If you don’t have a functional uterus you can probably jump the line but if you are travelling with someone who does—bring a book.
Here’s another—I imagine the number of women forced to bear children will mean more and more children will be brought up by their grandparents. It already happens more often than you might realize, up to 6 percent at any given time for a variety of reasons. If you think your days of raising children are done and can sit back and enjoy your retirement, believing this has nothing to do with you, think again. Of course daughters and mistresses of the rich white and powerful probably won’t have to worry as they will always be able to get their abortions. This will mostly affect those grandparents on a fixed income who can least afford it.
And what about all those uppity women who think they are past their child bearing years? How can we punish them? Well if the above example doesn’t quite do it fer ya, are there treatments that delay menopause? In a few years could menopause be reversed so women could be indefinitely fertile? Is someone working on this? Could such treatments be forced on women since the government and the Supreme Courts are already deciding what medical treatments we can and cannot have? Then, not only would we be forcing 10- year-olds to bear children but 70-year-olds as well. Won’t that be fun?
Speaking of fun, how is all of this going to be enforced? Under what circumstances would the RCMP show up at the door? Sorry, that’s the law enforcement entity that would show up at my door. I’m not sure who would show up at yours. State police? The FBI? Imperial Stormtroopers? Please let me know how that would work for you.
I reference the RCMP because I’m sure one Conservative government away from the same nonsense happening here. We have our fair share of right wing extremists here. But I digress.
Would the police show up every time a woman miscarries? We are already heading in that direction but how would they know? Monitoring Google searches? Period tracking apps? Mandatory reporting by the doctors? That is bad enough as far as it goes but it’s not far enough.
If life begins at conception how do you know that there aren’t fertilized eggs that don’t attach to the uterine wall being flushed out with the period. It happens all the time but how will you know if this is happening naturally or if she is taking illegal birth control?
Implantation can be completed as early as eight days or as late as 18 days after fertilization, but usually takes about 14 days. Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. A pregnancy is considered to be established only after implantation is complete.
Source: American College of Obstetricans and Gynecologists.
Will we have to put our tampons or pads in little baggies and send them in to the government for analysis because the government has nothing better to do? Well, they could be processing all those backlogged rape kits, but---nah. If there are any anomalies in the menstrual flow, the RCMP (or Imperial Stormtroopers) shows up at the door.
Of course women can’t be trusted to report accurately so as the nearest male relative the job of putting tampons in baggies could fall to you. Are we having fun yet?
And speaking of illegal birth control, does that apply to condoms and vasectomies? Will pharmacies that sell condoms get bomb threats and providers of vasectomies be held criminally liable?
Could men be arrested for jerking off? Coz that’s a lot of potential babies being murdered. Just sayin.
Walgreens has already taken it upon themselves to decide if you can purchase condoms or fill birth control prescriptions based on their moral values. Will this become federal law?
I don’t mean to make fun of the coming shit storm by reductio ad adsurdum. It seems that every time I think of something just too ridiculous to be considered, someone somewhere is considering it.
In 2019 I made a little film about the absurdity of restricting access to condoms because I figured that can never happen, but here we are.
And this is just what I can come up with. I hate to imagine what someone with actual evil intent can.
And while I realize having to pee on a stick at the airport pales in comparison to potentially forcing a 10 year old rape victim to birth her rapist’s baby, it amuses me somewhat that these same folks who just a year ago were screaming MY BODY MY CHOICE!! about vaccines would be subject to the same inconveniences that this legislation would impose on the rest of us. Maybe we would be on the same side for once.