I suspect that pro-lifers are starting to worry, now that they've realised who their "friends" are. There isn't any "between" (as in, between the South Dakota abortion ban and Jeb Bush) because there's only the two major incidents (thus far) but there's a rock and a hard place there, and pro-lifers are smack in between them.

And I am laughing my ass off.

See, let's get past the whole thing about how I hate being told that because THEY are pro-life, I am not, actually, pro-choice, I am pro-death. The opposite of life is not choice, the opposite of life is death - and apparently that logic holds true, even when you add pro and a hyphen to it.

Let's get past the part where I'm absolutely shocked that some of the workers in the abortion clinics are kind enough to provide abortions to women that they KNOW (in many cases because they are either picketing outside the clinic or providing anti-abortion literature while waiting to be seen) are pro-life and therefore totally opposed to the work that these people choose to do - not only are they opposed, they try to make it harder for them.

Let's get past the part where I hate that some (fortunately, not all) women can say, with a straight face, that all women should be in the home, taking care of their husbands and children - and they do not notice the hypocrisy with which they speak, as they speak in their political or business capacities. Because they're doing that so their "sisters" (you're no sister of mine if you believe that sort of horseshit, sister) don't have to. How noble of them, to take that bullet for the rest of us - I do believe I'll run right out and get married and pregnant. On the way back to the home, where I will be for the rest of my life, I'll throw all my shoes into the trash because I won't need them.

Let's, in short, get past all the bullshit that a lot of women (and some men - and by the way, if you are an extremist "let's kill all the men" feminist and you're male, you might want to either give some more thought to that (but I forgot, all men are assholes, right) or you might want to suit actions to words and just top your fat ass) spout about how they're actually feminists, even though they don't believe that other women have the right to make decisions about their lives and their bodies, or they don't believe that women have to achieve anything more than learning how to screw casually, because that's what men do. Let's just set all those morons to one side, and concentrate on the point at hand.

With friends like they've got, the anti-choicers (because let's call a spade a spade, and until I am dragging women into alleys and giving them pre-abortions, now that we're all pre-pregnant, I am not pro-death) have got to be getting a wee bit nervous.

See, it's not to their benefit to have the South Dakota abortion ban come in like this. One of the things that you can learn, if you read Freakonomics, which I recommend, is that until women had the right to choose to abort, most children were born. Logical, so far. But in the 1990s, lots and lots of supposedly-smart social scientists were predicting crime like you would not believe, based on the fact that the crime rates, for all violent crimes, were reaching levels unseen previously in America. They were predicting just awesome rates of violence.

And then, before everything could tip into the bloodbath that they'd predicted, the whole thing...stopped.

No one could figure that out for a while. For all I know, the authors of Freakonomics were the first people to draw the conclusion, which certainly rings accurately to me.

They looked at the numbers and said "Abortion." All these people committing these crimes in the late eighties and early nineties were the children born before Roe v. Wade. Before women who felt that they could not raise a child could legally abort that child. Before children who would be disadvantaged economically (because let's face it, if a woman decides she can't raise a child well, she usually knows what she's talking about, and even if she makes that decision frivolously, she's proving her own point) and socially and otherwise were not being born.

And when that group passed, either by means of incarceration or death or simply growing up (if it can happen in A Clockwork Orange, it can happen in real life) the crime rate dropped. Because the children that were born in that situation wouldn't be born again. They were aborted, instead.

Not that I am touting the efficacy of abortion. However, I am pro-choice, and I believe that every woman has the right to make the decision as to whether she can care for a child, and she will almost always make the right one.

So. Back to South Dakota. I think they're going to start seeing the effects of the ban as soon as next year, and if it goes on long enough, they'll see it in major ways in about fifteen years. It's unfortunate, actually, that South Dakota doesn't have a population equivalent to that of Florida - then they'd really see it. But it is a state with significant levels of poverty, and bringing children into that sort of environment doesn't change the fact that they need to be fed, etc. And the number of women on welfare is going to go up. If the senators decide that that's a bad idea and these sluts should have to suffer, I do not even want to think what sort of dystopia could be created there. But the state will start suffering as soon as next year, and in the long term, if the ban isn't overruled, it'll suffer more. It'll actually feel the effects, even if the ban is overturned in a few years - it just won't be as obvious as a nationwide ban.

But people who support the fact that women have actually got brains in their heads are watching.

And then there's Jeb. Good old Jeb, who learned how to be a doctor from Terry Schiavo's death. Good old Jeb, who knows what's best for a severely mentally-disabled young woman who has the mental capacity of a one year old and who was raped in the group home she is living in, in the state of Florida's care, and who is now pregnant.

Good old Jeb. He knows what the right thing to do is, and clearly it is not to provide an abortion to this young woman, who, apparently, faces severe, life-threatening risks (and let's be realistic, she's living in a group home for mentally disabled individuals - the fetus isn't likely to be that well off, and may not be viable, given the degree of handicapping of its mother) if she carries the fetus to term. But Jeb Knows Better. This is, undoubtedly, why he has chosen to, rather than appoint a guardian for the woman, who would be able to provide her with some advocacy and some ability to deal with the system and get an abortion for her and thereby save her life, appoint a guardian for the fetus.

That's right. The child conceived by the rape of a disabled woman is more important than the woman is. The child who poses a threat to the life of the mother is more important than she is. Let me just point out that anyone who didn't think that there was a war on women at the present time is delusional.

But both Jeb and the senator from South Dakota know better than any dumb-bitch woman. And I know better than either of them, because what I know is that they are scared, sad, pathetic little men who have defined themselves entirely around the idea that women are less than them, and there is no room in their worldview for equality because equality means that they are wrong. Women are sex objects and objects of shame, not people. And it is always a woman's fault if a man can't keep it in his pants. Clearly.

But as I say, with friends like these, who are willing to take such steps to indicate that, in their opinions, women shouldn't even be taxed enough to be allowed to be educated, the anti-choicers have got a lot more problems than trying to figure out where the Supreme Court is going to go if Roe v. Wade comes up for overturning. The one that can be drawn from these incidents is that the nation is getting a glimpse of what a country that doesn't allow abortion looks like.

The one thing I will point out to the anti-choicers is that it's hard to go backwards. There's no one advocating slavery be reinstated, even though it's obvious that a lot of businesses would like to see that relationship formalised. It's obvious that if Social Security goes bust we won't just say "Well that crazy commie experiment didn't work - sorry, you're going to have to work until you die!" - we'll come up with another way of doing business. It's hard to turn the clock back - and it just makes you look weak, rather than Deeply Concerned With The Fates Of Children And The Women Who Misguidedly Get Abortions. It makes you look like you can't live your life to be an example to me because I might decide that your life sucks (and thereby prove you totally wrong), instead you have to live your life to tell me what to do - because you'd appreciate it so much if I told you that you were, essentially, a fucking idiot.

And yet, I haven't felt the need to descend to that level, because I am able to live my life without reference to yours, and I don't care - as long as you don't harm others - how you live your life. Live it to the best of your ability - and get on the side of the pro-choicers before Jeb and whatshisname from South Dakota totally discredit the anti-choicers.

Shocking the chimpanzees,

Channon