Another nausea-inducing week, bracketed by a heated discussion of “abortion-inducing drugs.” If you’ve been too nauseous to follow along, the phrase “abortion-inducing drugs” was used by the Nightmare-Who-Would-Be-A-Supreme-Court-Justice Brett Kavanaugh to describe fucking BIRTH CONTROL!
Exactly why that assertion is so full of shit (besides the obvious stench of the shit) has been analyzed in full-on Zapruder-film-frame-by-frame detail in extensive posts on both Monday and Thursday. Both are highly recommended for their zeal, rhetorical skill, and thorough attention to detail. And it needs to be looked at in detail, because it was a telling moment in a “hearing” that was deliberately designed to tell you as little as possible. It was an exercise in evasion that told the Kave-Man’s supporters “Don’t worry, I’m everything they told you I was” while telling the rest of us to go suck an egg, but make sure it’s not a fertilized egg.
For a second, Kavanaugh deviated from the script of strategic silence and let drop a nugget that showed what he really thinks about abortion and birth control and reproductive rights in general. SPOILER ALERT—all three are the spawn of Satan!
By referring to birth control as involving “abortion-inducing drugs,” he momentarily slipped into the language of uterus-controllers everywhere—his native tongue! It was like the moment in the old World War II movie where the German spy gets careless and says “Jawohl!” instead of “Yes.” What was that again, Fritz?
To the fire-breathing anti-choice extremists, there’s no difference between homicide, third-trimester abortion, medical abortion, morning-after pills, birth control, or sex that isn’t intended to make babies to populate the pews. They’re all part of a continuum of sex-is-bad-punish-fornicators-with-a-lifetime-of-poverty-and-involuntary-breeding.
They’re against abortion. They’re against birth control. They’re against sex outside of marriage, and they’re not all that keen on the sex inside of marriage. And they want to turn their twisted Hester Prynne fantasies into real laws. If that sounds insane, A) It Is, and B) They Don’t Care. And C) They Could End Up Doing It. It wasn’t until 1972 that birth control was legalized for unmarried people in Eisenstadt v Baird. We know damn well that they want to turn the clock back to 1973 to undo Roe v. Wade. Well, once they get the clock going backwards, they’re not going to let it stop.
In 1983, Monty Python mocked that bizarre overreach with the classic “Every Sperm is Sacred.” Their foil was the Catholic Church since the laws by that time were relatively sane. But it’s the exact same attitude of stopping at nothing to control everything. And it’s back. Despite the passing of so many years, Monty Python is still funny, and what they were mocking is still dangerous. Restricting abortion rights is just the beginning.
For the millionth time—call your Senators.
While we’re fighting that Kavanaugh wildfire, we’re still having to deal with blazes at the state level, as we highlighted in midweek. And we found time to tell you that September is PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) Awareness Month! So remember to take care of yourself as we keep trying to heal the world.
