A continuing series of posts that I wish didn’t have to be written. Last week I did a quick hit comparing the recent attacks on reproductive justice to the fictional quasi-fascist theocratic state of Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s dystopic novel The Handmaid’s Tale. The attacks appear to be getting worse and even more blatant in their outright misogyny.
Thanks to governor Rick Perry’s new law that cuts out Planned Parenthood from the state’s Women’s Health program, all medicaid funding for family planning in the state of Texas has ceased. Of course, working-class and impoverished women will suffer the brunt of this, and of course, these are usually the people that matter least to those in power. Don’t mess with Texas, it does a good enough job interefering with its citizens’ lives.
In an absolutely disgusting display of woman-hating, Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett has told women who must now be subjected to ultrasounds in order to have an abortion (transvaginal or abdominal is at the doctor’s discretion, the law does not clarify either procedure) that during the procedure to “close their eyes” (for Gilead, I assume.)
A very brave woman in Texas has come forward with her story about her traumatic experience with a state mandated sonogram stacked on top of the news that the child that she wanted suffered from fatal birth defects.
To continue to read these attacks as isolated incidences or as the work of ignorant, backwards states is a grave misreading of what is moving beyond a political “talking-heads” trend into reality. Its also important to remember that these laws are not only circumventing access to a legal medical procedure but that when these laws infringe upon access to any form of healthcare, like in Texas, the state is in violation of basic Human Rights.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 