From Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains:

An Abortion Ban Bill Comes to Colorado

Senate Bill 143 (Renfroe, Lambert), “End Freedom of Choice,” would ban all abortions in Colorado except those performed to save the life of the pregnant woman. There are no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. [Emphasis mine.]

This unconstitutional measure forces women to carry a pregnancy to term as the consequence of rape or contraceptive failure.

Colorado does not need extremist bills like SB 143 to distract us from the real solutions. We know that only increased access to family planning and comprehensive sex ed can reduce abortion. Our representatives need to look forward and find commonsense answers, like SB 60 “EC in the ER”, not backward to the dark days when women’s bodies were governed by the state, not themselves.

If you’re in Colorado, send a message to your representatives! I know a lot of women here who will fight tooth and nail against this thing no matter what. If you’re in Colorado, PLEASE take any action possible to help fight this terrifying bill.

1. Why is liking to cook a gendered behavior and why is it unfeminist to take care of my house? Because, really, these are practical life skills and something that needs to be done by someone. This isn’t abstract theory. I’d be lying if I claimed there was no pressure whatsoever to take care of my house, but when I’m the only one with the free time to do it and I don’t actually mind, and if my siblings do their chores also and the boys do as much if not more housework than the girls, what exactly is the problem? Christ. You’d think wanting to eat decent home-cooked food or not wanting the kitchen to be buried in dirty dishes was some sort of crime against feminism. (And I’m not even supportive of so-called “choice feminism”!) I mean…really, people, it’s just something that needs to be taken care of, preferably by someone who doesn’t mind taking care of it.

Now when everyone else refuses to clean the litter box, that’s what pisses me off. Which reminds me…ugh.

2. Why are there no decent candidates running for…well, anything? The gubernatorial election in Colorado is specifically what I’m talking about. So there’s the Republican candidate, terrifying in most every way, and the Democrat who, true to the party line, is less evil and doesn’t seem to actually stand for anything without scowling about how he disapproves personally first (see: stance on abortion), and then there’s the Libertarian who is great on women’s issues and gay rights but is, well, Libertarian, and thus whom I cannot vote for in good conscience as the commie I am.

Okay, that’s oversimplifying. Her stance on immigration terrifies me, as does the general Libertarian philosophy regarding social welfare programs, which she definitely supports. Which brings me to the big point: all the candidates have fairly inadequate platforms regarding immigration. This is a big deal to me. I get to hear people using “immigration” as a thinly-veiled pretense for their racism every single day. “Immigration” as an excuse to ignore the complex race and class issues that are actually at the core of the matter. “Immigration” as a front to promote hate speech against not only undocumented workers, but pretty much anyone who vaguely resembles what they imagine lurks south of the border (where everything is Mexico), which includes anyone with darker skin, a Spanish-sounding last name, and/or a funny accent — because if you’re not white you must be “illegal”. No other explanation for it.

And I’m sick to death of this. Beauprez’s the worst; his website from what I’ve seen (and I didn’t linger very long) seems to be fairly tame compared to the propaganda his campaign’s been plastering all over Denver. It’s all xenophobic, reactionary hate speech. That’s all it is. At least Ritter’s only committed to enforcing the laws we already have, punishing companies who hire undocumented workers and the like, which I can support from a legal perspective even if it isn’t particularly useful or humane. (My personal opinions and proposed solutions? Maybe another time.)

I hate feeling these split loyalties. I can’t find a candidate who seems anywhere near decent on all the issues personally important to me: gay rights, women’s rights, immigration, and a general commitment to helping people in poverty you know, not starve or die from preventable illnesses and that kind of thing. The one that’s okay on the first two is terrible on the others. The one that’s more moderate on the last two is not that great on the first two. There was recently a post on the feminist community on LiveJournal urging people to vote for Winkler because she’s unabashedly pro-choice…without realizing that, for some of us affected by other issues, that’s not enough on its own. When I hear people talking about how “Mexicans are less than human” (actual quote) and about what they want to do to “those Hispanics”, you know what? Whether I, the queer Latina girl who mostly doesn’t like guys and isn’t sexually active, can get an abortion is the lesser threat to my immediate wellbeing.

3. If you have to preface a statement with “I’m not racist…” whatever comes out of your mouth next is almost certainly racist, and if not, it’s at the least going to be ignorant, poorly thought-out, problematic, or insensitive. Ditto for “I’m not sexist”, “I’m not homophobic”, etc. I know it’s been said before but it bears repeating.

3. a) If you feel the need to include someone’s race when talking about them in a situation where you would never think of attaching a racial slur if they were white, you’re racist. Sorry. (Or not. Yeah, not sorry.)

3. b) If you don’t want to be around me because you feel “judged” because I think you’re racist, maybe you shouldn’t say racist things. No, I’m not going to feel bad for leveling judgement after you just said something horribly offensive about the ethnic group I happen to, um, belong to. Especially if by “horribly offensive” I’m just trying to be polite about the fact that you just told me you want to commit what would legally constitute a hate crime.

4. Okay, I think I feel better until something else comes to mind.

5. Oh yeah, and I’m going to see the Dalai Lama speak tomorrow and that’s going to be really, really awesome. This isn’t an annoyance…unless maybe we start talking about how I feel about Tibet. I guess that’s another discussion for another time.

I want to live in a world where abortion is just another medical procedure, about as morally-charged as treating a cold or getting your wisdom teeth removed.

Does a tumor have a right to life? It’s the same thing. It’s a clump of cells that siphons off your body’s resources so it can grow. Sure, sometimes a fetus is a wanted parasite, welcomed, even, and I have no issue with that. That’s great. But even when it’s wanted it can take a toll. The body sees a baby as a foreign invader and does everything it can to try to kill it off. Plenty of fertilized eggs don’t even implant. (If we take conception as the moment life begins it means lots of sexually active women have a miscarriage without even realizing it.) A tumor is alive. It has human DNA, even.

The fact is, especially early-on, it’s something that happens all the time, purposely or no. And the baby’s not really a living, thinking thing in anything other than the strictest sense — a glob of cells the size of a pencil eraser. Can you tell me removing an unwanted embryo at that stage is comparable to murder? (As an aside, I think that comparison really minimizes the gravity of murder. A person who has lived years of life is different from something that’s existed for a few weeks or months and hasn’t even experienced anything yet.) It’s not a big deal at this stage. I really believe this.

This is not a “callous” attitude and it’s not disrespect for life. I have an immense respect for all life, which is why I’m anti-war and against the death penalty and try to buy cruelty-free meat and won’t kill a freaking mosquito if I don’t have to, for god’s sake. I have respect for the life of the woman carrying the fetus. I have respect for that woman’s autonomy. And that is why I say it’s not a big deal. People kill bugs all the time and I wish they wouldn’t and it’s something I don’t do, but it’s not a big deal so I don’t try to pass legislation telling them that killing living things just because they’re “pests” is wrong and they can’t do it. Because if you don’t swat that fly, a spider will eat it or something anyway. Everything dies. Small lives are not worth more than large lives, and the converse, respectively. All life is worth immeasurably much. But it’s also not the end of the world when something dies, either, though it can feel like it.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen. Our fear of our own mortality is what makes us feel it is. If we accept that all things die, that we will die, one more death upon the billions this world is built on doesn’t seem so awful. Torture concerns me. Disregard for human rights concerns me. Destruction of the environment concerns me. Injustice concerns me. Rape concerns me. Abuse concerns me. Oppression concerns me. Genocide and murder concern me.

Against those things? A woman deciding she doesn’t want to dedicate the rest of her life to caring for another creature doesn’t really phase me. Some people can’t or don’t want to take care of pets. I respect that decision and encourage them not to purchase one. Having a child is a much heavier and deeper responsibility with lasting repercussions that impact generations of lives. I strongly encourage some people not to have kids, ever.

Mind you, I know it’s a slippery slope, and that’s why I’m not placing conditions. I don’t think one can be pro-choice with conditions or caveats. As long as the thing is still in a woman’s body, I support her right to do whatever the hell she wants with it. I don’t care how far along she is. There are circumstances that sometimes prevent a woman from getting an abortion until it’s too late, until after the point when it’s no longer legal, when their intention was never to carry it to term. I think these women should not be punished due to factors which prevented them from aborting sooner. Some people will cut off at a certain date, when they think abortion is no longer permissible, and I think this is usually arbitrary. It’s often based on exactly when that particular person thinks an embryo is human enough for its death to qualify as murder.

I think an embryo’s always human. (Now, when it becomes a person, that’s debatable.) To deny that would be silly. And abortion is always killing a living thing, but I don’t see why that’s a huge issue given the undeniable realities of physical existence — living things always die. (We cannot live without killing. Even vegans eat plants. Even if we could invent a machine to synthesize food that’s never been alive, chances are it would have an environmental impact. There’s no way around this. As far as I’m concerned, there doesn’t need to be. Curing any disease is killing something, usually millions of microscopic somethings.) Life isn’t perfect and it’s not lasting and it’s really not as huge a deal as people make it out to be. Life at all costs is a short-sighted philosophy that ignores, I think, the impact of what’s really important: quality of life.

Living life by a rigid standard of ethics, denying relativism and pragmatism entirely…it may survive some philosopher’s purely logical standard of what is absolutely morally acceptable, but what is right is not always what is Absolutely Good. Nothing can ever be perfect. Utilitarianism isn’t any better a standard than this, either, and neither is hedonism, so I’m not endorsing either. I just think what is right depends. It depends on the situation, the circumstance, the people.

All we can do is what causes the least suffering, if in fact such a thing is feasible or practical. If not, we’re not perfect and we’re not all-powerful. We just are. We’re animals with an inflated sense of self-worth and our impact on the universe around us. If a God existed, would ze care, really, what we do and do not do? Does ze care about morals and ethics, if ze is really all-knowing, unconditionally loving, all-powerful? I doubt it. Everything can be forgiven. Better yet, mistakes in an absolute moral sense don’t need to be forgiven. There’s nothing, in a great cosmic sense, wrong with them.

We participate in and condone killing every day and it’s not in the sense of cold-blooded murder, it just is. Why is this any different? There is no reason it should be different that doesn’t buy into the idea that humans are inherently superior to animals, plants, bacteria. And I honestly don’t think we are. This attitude of mine is only a disregard for life if you accept that smaller lives don’t matter. As I don’t…what’s the problem? Where is the moral dilemma?

As for my unconditional support of choice, don’t give me that I-support-abortion-but-not-as-birth-control bullshit. What else is it? It’s a form of birth control. Did you mean to say “in place of contraception”? And if so, why? What about women who can’t take hormonal birth control (my sisters, my mother, me)? What about women who can’t afford it (again, were I in a position to be having penis-in-vagina sex, probably me)? What’s the litmus test here to see if a woman is deserving? If she used multiple forms of birth control perfectly and they all failed? It’s okay then? Is it only okay once? If birth control fails twice in ten years is that okay?

You can’t know another’s circumstances. Don’t judge. It’s not up to you to decide. The choice, in all likelihood, has absolutely nothing to do with you. Keep your nose out of it.

And if it is because a woman just didn’t take precautions…just because she doesn’t want a child, even if she could afford to care for it… So? Why is a woman obligated to become a mother? Why is anybody who does not want a child for any reason obligated to have one? Aren’t there enough people in the world? Do we need more? Why is this an issue, other than as a form of control over women’s bodies, women’s lives?

I want to live in a world where a woman’s decision to have an abortion is nobody’s business. I want to live in a world where anti-choice attitudes are not the accepted norm and are instead a radical fringe philosophy that normal people find horrifying. I want to live in a world where abortion is cheap, easy to access, and available whenever a woman needs one.

That is not the world we live in now, no matter what the anti-choice propaganda says.

I’m not in a good mood, and I’m just musing and venting. I do not want to debate this, and this post is not an invitation to debate. Thank you.