I know I’m Canadian, and I’ve not had to live under George Bush, but as a girl next door, I have spent much of the last eight years comprehensively alarmed by the steady erosion of freedom under this current American administration, and the assault on the sexual choices and options of the voting public, among many other questionable policies enacted over much of this last decade.
But this one takes the motherfucking cake, and it’s not getting enough press yet.
A draft regulation is circulating the Department of Health and Human services in which it seeks to redefine abortion to INCLUDE BIRTH CONTROL PILLS AND IUDs.
That’s right, by taking a birth control pill — just any old 21-days-a-month pill — or having an IUD implanted, you would legally be “participating in abortion”.
Now, this isn’t law, yet. May never be. May never even hit the floor. But it’s out there. And all those little religious-righters are wringing their fingers in glee, hoping like hell it happens, while the rest of a country that supposedly purports to separate church from state may have to pay the price for a motherfuckin’ religion-fuelled dumb policy like this hitting the books.
Now those in the administration are calling the folks (like me) on the left “reactionaries” who are overblowing the whole thing, that it won’t create difficulties for women taking the pill. Oh, really? But it’ll redefine it as abortion. It’ll redefine it as the “taking” of a life, rather than the prevention of life forming.
If the definition doesn’t DO anything, then WHY REDEFINE IT? See, that’s the thing. If you’re not DOING anything, then why are you doing it at all? Right? Because, even if you claim it’s not doing anything, but you’re doing it anyways, then…
Because, psst, you know you really ARE DOING something. Continue reading →