With overthrow of Roe, the GOP clearly wants women barefoot and pregnant
Despite what our protest marches and rallies shout out, despite what our posters, our political cartoons and editorials declare, there really is not a war on women – because women are expendable, insignificant and obviously have no rights.
The majority of Republican men it seems, especially those in office, are firmly planted in 1700’s when women were legal property. Women could not vote, own land, have a bank account, and were dying from being pregnant. Domestic violence, rape and incest were legal, tolerated and even celebrated by men. The white males, especially the elected officials, like that arrangement in the 18th Century, and they like that now in our 21st Century.
The patriarchal decree remains that women don’t have the mental or physical capacity for determining what is best for them, particularly when it comes to their own bodies.
Nothing will sway these legislators – no statistics, no expert testimonies, no handmaiden costumes or coat hangers, and for sure, no horrific descriptions of life-threatening pregnancy complications that the lawmakers brush off as “sob stories”.
There is no “Aha” moment, no tipping point, no realization on how utterly absurd and ludicrous it is for men, who don’t even know a cervix from a vagina, are making laws regulating women’s reproductive organs.
Their first crusade on women’s bodies was about abortion, now it is about legislating contraceptives, morning after pills, even IVF.
Women, and men, are scared. And rightly so. In the upcoming Kentucky General Assembly, the gauntlet has already been thrown down that legislation will be introduced to regulated (even forbid) contraceptives and that no reproductive medicine will be allowed to be sent through the mail or bought over the internet. One can only deduce why these same men want women to be pregnant. Keeping women “with child” is a way for these men to show off their prize breeding stock and take pride in what their sperm can do.
A woman in most of America today has no right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, despite being rape, incest, or having a myriad of medical complications. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), pregnancy and childbirth kills 700 U.S. women each year. Kentucky is at the top of the states of women dying with nearly 100 each year. But then again, what is another female death to a “pro-lifer”.
A person who performs an abortion can be sentence in some states to decades in prison while a rapist gets one to five years or becomes a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Even worse are the white Kentucky women who voted these legislators into office. Do the wives, daughters, sisters of these legislators really vote for these husbands, fathers and brothers? These foolish women are in the never-neverland of “not gonna happen to me or my daughters”. They shut their eyes and shove their minds into denial while hoping that they and their daughters will survive this reproductive ban horror.
“Prochoice” means that women and pregnant people have decision-making rights because they are equal under the law. Today women are not equal under our nations’ laws, and tomorrow, even more rights that women have, plus the rights of minorities and LGBTQ+ individuals, are at risk of being taken away. The U.S. Supreme Court, Republican elected officials and the white voters, are not finished putting women and minorities “back in their place”.
So Kentucky voters, what is your tipping point? Will your vote in November be on the economy or for taking back rights for all women? To start, vote no in this November election on the harmful proposed amendment to the Constitution of Kentucky that would mandate that nothing shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion.
Mary Lou Marzian, a Democrat, is the Kentucky House Representative for District 34.