Don’t Think for a Second it’s about Saving Babies
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – its about punishing women and it always has been.
It’s not that there aren’t people who identify as pro-life who believe the issues at hand today are about saving babies – but the political movement fueled by wealthy men in power is and always has been about controlling and vilifying women.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – its about punishing women for fulfilling a basic human survival need – sex. As a society we have ignored the fact that sex is a survival need for the species – without it we would go extinct. As far as I can tell, our brain don’t know the difference between survival needs for the individual (food, water, rest, shelter) and survival needs for the species (sex, community, relationships and support). Our bodies will yearn for all of these as if our survival depends on it – because in the big picture, it does.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – its about men turning a universal human need into a male commodity – they want exclusive control over when and how and how often they get it – and they do that by punishing women and making sex male-centric.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – if it was, those pushing for “pro-life” legislation would also be pushing for a living wage, closing the gender pay gap, paid parental leave, better welfare programs, and free parenting classes, childcare, diapers, and formula.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – or it would equally be about supporting the children and adults those babies grow into. The women and families affected most by reproductive laws are overwhelmingly lower income and people of color. If it was about saving those babies, it would also be about fighting for equity for people of all ages within those demographics.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – believe me, I was on the inside. They told us that’s what it was about, and we believed them. But over time as I started waking up, the rhetoric became obvious – it was about revenge on free women.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – I heard it all: “Women need to own up to the consequences of having sex!”, “Women today view children as a burden instead of a blessing.”, “Women just want to have fun while abandoning their god-given calling to motherhood.”, “Well, if she doesn’t want babies she should keep her legs closed!”
Don’t think for a second there haven’t been thousands of “pro-life” Christian women who have run to Planned Parenthood the minute they needed to.
Don’t think for a second that these extremely judgmental religious communities haven’t put thousands of women in positions where they felt they needed to secretly have an abortion so they didn’t end up ostracized and excommunicated.
Don’t think for a second the “pro-life” movement is anything more than “pro-birth” – if this wasn’t the case, then “pro-lifers” would be anti-dealth penalty, anti-war, pro-gun control, pro-social systems, and pro-reforming the police.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – It’s about the wealthy white religious men staying in power by populating churches from the inside. Believe me, I’ve heard it with my own ears: “The Muslims are having more kids than us! We should be very concerned! Christians have forgotten our calling to populate the earth! We need to start having LOTS of Christian babies!”
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – its about devaluing women’s lives. Its about ignoring the fact that thousands of women with risky pregnancies and health conditions will die. It’s about downplaying pregnancy-related health issues because childbearing is the woman’s curse for all of humanity’s sin – it’s “supposed” to be hard, painful and dangerous to be a woman! After all, Eve ate the apple. It’s about expanding male dominion as far as possible – women who experience miscarriages could be (and have been) investigated, jailed, and charged with murder. It’s about ignoring a deeper problem that makes parenthood seem so impossible and financially overwhelming to so many young people today. It’s about hiding the fact that it is illegal to extract organs from a corpse unless the individual gave pre-mortem consent, even if a person who needs an organ transplant will die – its about giving women less bodily autonomy than a corpse.
Don’t think for a second its about saving babies – it’s about power, punishment and control. It always has been and always will be.