I, for one, do not welcome our new Uterus Gestapo Overlords

I'm going to break my own rule by quoting our own resident troll, Braden, who responded to The Other Political Junkie's post "An Abortion Question" with this comment:

Or, how about women who use abortion as a literal tool because they don't want to be inconvenienced by a child on account of her addiction to screwing?

Considering that there are some eleven states now that have either banned almost all abortions outright, or are trying to ban them or are passing even more restrictive anti-choice legislation, I have been meaning to write this post for some time now. (And, no, this rash of anti-choice laws couldn't possibly have anything to do with Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court because it was impossible for him to say where he stood on the subject -- you know, he just doesn't really have his own opinion on the matter. [gag])

In that same comments section Axinar first posted the following:

Of course it's a foregone conclusion that all this banning abortion silliness is just to try to discourage people from deriving pleasure from sex.

So is it about wantonly "killing babies" or about some religions trying to discourage pleasure, or is it somewhere in between? Well, lets take an honest look at what Christianity teaches on the subject. And, yes, it must be Christianity that we take a look at because it is the Christian Bible that the hard-core anti-choice religionists and politicians refer to when making their arguments. (And, in case anyone wants to know: yes, I'm including Catholics here -- I once had a Baptist boyfriend who was surprised to find out that Catholics were Christians.)

According to the Bible we know that:

1. God the FATHER (no MOMMY needed) created a perfectly innocent man and woman. 2. Life was SWEET 3. But EVE (the woman -- all women) are WEAK and EASILY SEDUCED by the first SNAKE that comes along. 4. Woman ate the forbidden fruit (KNOWLEDGE -- a BAD thing!), and not being happy just to defy God herself, dragged along the poor dumb SCHLUB of a man with her because we just can't leave shit alone. 5. SHITSTORM ensues (Pandora's BOX -- it always the same old story) and now we have to wear clothes, file taxes, kill each other, and stuff. 6. And because the woman (all women) are such weak-willed, easily seduced, unclean things, we must bear our children in pain (this does not have anything to do with like, say, trying to pass something like a grapefruit through a nostril -- nope -- it's our badness that causes the pain). 7. The woman, having introduced SIN into the world now means that all BABIES are born with SIN (hell, the sin is right there with them from the moment of conception -- and isn't SIN what you see when you look at a newborn's face?).

8. Jesus had to be born to die on the cross just to give women and men the chance not to BURN FOREVER IN HELL. (See, it wasn't "The Jews" who are ultimately responsible for making Jesus suffer -- it's the chicks.)

9. BABIES (children/adults -- check your sect's owner's manual) must be BAPTISED/BORN AGAIN (check your sect's owner's manual) in order to REMOVE SIN from them or they will BURN IN HELL/GO TO PURGATORY/BE LOST IN LIMBO/BE LOST TO GOD (check your sect's owner's manual -- published date of manual especially important on this one).

10. If the weak-willed, easily seduced woman/evil baby-killer abortionist ABORTS the BABY before it can be BAPTISED/BORN AGAIN, the BABY will BURN IN HELL/GO TO PURGATORY/BE LOST IN LIMBO/BE LOST TO GOD and never reach HEAVEN.

NOTE: I acknowledge that there exist some people who may not be particularly religious who believe that abortion may be murder/find abortion icky/ and think that it should be ILLEGAL/HIGHLY RESTRICTED/LEFT TO "THE STATES" but the ones that I have come across who believe this seem to be almost always staunch LIBERTARIANS (GREEDY ANARCHISTS), who will HOWL when THE STATE wants to touch a penny of their money but have little/no problem when THE STATE want to OWN A WOMAN'S UTERUS, so fuck 'em.

Now if you believe the above, you believe that a BLASTULA (early stage of an embryo produced by cleavage of an ovum; a liquid-filled sphere whose wall is composed of a single layer of cells; during this stage [about eight days after fertilization] implantation in the wall of the uterus occurs) has the exact same rights as a BORN WOMAN/GIRL because they can all go to HELL.

And if you do believe this, it logically follows, that you MUST BELIEVE the following:

1. All non-barrier methods of birth control (including NORPLANT, IUD'S, THE PILL, and EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION) can result in KILLING BABIES AND CONDEMNING THEM TO HELL. 2. Having EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE and INCEST will result in KILLING BABIES AND CONDEMNING THEM TO HELL. 3. IN VITRO FERTILIZATION will result in KILLING BABIES AND CONDEMNING THEM TO HELL.

4. Stem-cell research will result in KILLING BABIES AND CONDEMNING THEM TO HELL.

5. If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic, you must give equal weight towards saving a PETRI DISH with five blastula in it as you would a two year-old child -- in fact, since the two year old has a chance of walking out on their own steam, you should probably save the PETRI DISH first.

And, yet, I know plenty of people (and I'll bet you do too) who are opposed to abortion who use the pill and/or have gotten pregnant as the result of in vitro fertilization.

And, while there are those who do want an end to the Pill and emergency contraception, I have yet to see the same kind of protests outside a fertility clinic that I see outside of an abortion clinic.

Why is that?

Now if we leave religion for a moment and get to the biology/science (KNOWLEDGE -- a BAD thing!) side of things for a moment, what do we find? Well, this seems significant:

When John M. Opitz of the University of Utah testified before the President's council on Bioethics in 2003, he noted that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in a woman's normal menstrual cycle in the first 7 days after fertilization, and that women never even know that conception has taken place.

(As a side note, at the same meeting, Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, also a member of the Bioethics council, noted that "If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined."

And yet, there are those who will continue to insist on FORCED PREGNANCIES here, much in the same way that China insists on forced abortions there. There are those who will go so far to insist that even a microscopic clump of cells has the same rights as a woman.

They know full well that without the right to fully control her own body and keep her reproductive freedoms, a woman truly cannot have control of her own life. But they cannot wait to wrest that control away.

Since both major parties in my very own Pennsylvania has seen fit to run candidates (Casey & Swann) who do not believe in reproductive freedom for women and have stated publicly that they are for putting an end to legal abortions in almost all cases, I ask demand that they take their role as the new Uterus Gestapo Overlords seriously. To that end they must pledge the following:

IF YOU ARE AGAINST ABORTION, YOU CANNOT:

...use "the Pill' or have sex with women who use "the Pill' ...have in vitro fertilization or have a partner who uses in vitro fertilization ...use any medical procedure that is the result of stem cell research ...have sex at anytime unless you are actively trying to have children ...allow exceptions for rape and incest (no matter what sick, creepy hurdles you set) ...take your own daughter to have an abortion

AND, IF YOU ARE AGAINST ABORTION, YOU MUST:

...insist on jail time for the woman having/seeking the abortion, not just the doctor who performs abortions ...protest outside fertility clinics ...insist on outlawing in vitro fertilization ...insist on outlawing stem-cell research ...hold funerals for all used female sanitary products lest even one "BABY" be flushed down a toilet (I propose they put Braden in charge of this one)