How did you do with this week’s IQ test? Pass or fail?
You may have failed if you’ve recently started a post on social media with the words, “As a <insert inherent characteristic you have no control over> person, my opinion on the overturning of Roe vs Wade is….”, or words of a similar sentiment.
Newsflash: nobody gives a fuck what you think, especially if you haven’t actually read the Supreme Court ruling and are opining on the newspaper reports of it instead.
Yes, I am aware of the irony of that statement on a blog post about it but, in my defence, people come here by choice for my opinions.
I’ve written about abortion twice before here. First time about an individual, second time specifically about New South Wales. My opinion hasn’t changed; I’d prefer to live in a world where abortion didn’t happen for factors of convenience but only for safety reasons.
Many of those who loudly champion abortion on demand leverage that last reason, stating the mental healths risks to the mother, inferring the risk of suicide. But that same logic has resulting in several thousand teenage breasts being sliced off in the last decade and, frankly, piss off with that as a justification.
If your best argument for taking a physical action with extreme consequences is a possible risk of suicide, perhaps you might want to investigate psychiatry and the possibility of dedicated round the clock nursing care.
But I digress.
Despite what the public statements of organisations such as Dick’s Sporting Goods or Atlassian might suggest, abortion is still legal in the USA, it’s just been downgraded from a Federal right enshrined in the Constitution, to a matter each State’s legislative body can write laws about. If you think this means California is about to ban or limit abortion next week, you’ve not been paying much attention to the changes in political mood of that State since Ronald Reagan was Governor.
But think about this for a moment; those who are wailing about the end of the world following this ruling are questioning that it should be a democratically-decided matter.
How confident must one be of the moral certainty of your position if you’d prefer it if your fellow citizens weren’t given a choice?
As for the front page coverage of the lesbian Wendyball player, Megan Rapainoe’s rambling and incoherent unsolicited Zoom broadcast (sorry, “press conference”); we’ve truly gone down the rabbithole. What next, A ten minute monologue from Elton John on his favourite brand of tampon?
Bill’s Opinion
Cool yer jets, everyone.
Abortion has not been made illegal in the USA. It may, in future, become so in a couple of states. If so, it adds yet another to our list of choices for those who are “pro-choice”:
- Abstain from having sex.
- Abstain from having sex with someone you know you don’t want to be be with for the rest of your life.
- Use contraception, but be aware this carries a residual risk.
- If an “accident” happens, carry the baby to term and decide whether you can cope with parenthood after it’s born.
- Offer the child up for adoption to one of the desperate couples who can’t conceive naturally.
- Drive across the border.
- Kill the damn thing like a virus.