Where's the Respect?

So. The odious bill I talked about the day before yesterday has been passed, and is on its way to Governor Brewer's desk.

I find it interesting (in a sick peering-at-a-car-wreck way) that criminal penalties have now been added to the bill, making it a felony violation for anyone to knowingly perform a race- or sex-based abortion. This, of course, would apply to the doctor, who could face up to seven years in jail and the loss of their medical license.

I also find it interesting that no penalties are put upon the woman, who presumably made the decision to have an abortion in the first place.

This is nothing new, of course. Bills like these inevitably treat women as little more than disobedient children who really didn't know what they were doing, so of course us All-Wise Male Legislators have to "protect" them. A more condescending, patronizing attitude I have rarely run across.

A good example of said attitude, as well as outright ignorance, is Republican Representative Steve Montenegro, who stated that "he pushed the legislation to protect against bigotry and prejudice, saying he fears women would choose to abort because they didn't like the gender or the race of the baby." Never mind that roughly 90% of abortions are performed at or before (mostly before) the 12th week of pregnancy, before the sex of the fetus can be known. Perhaps Mr. Montenegro believes women are psychic.

Also, he must think women are, as a class, genuinely rotten people, if they would make such a decision as that. What a respectful way to speak about half of the human race.

The people who write these bills certainly don't consider women to be fully-fledged human beings who have the legal right to choose abortion, no matter what the All-Wise Male Legislators think of it. Do we put these restrictions on any other commonly performed medical procedure? No, we do not. For other medical procedures, we consider the recipient to be an adult human who has made up his or her mind, and we let them proceed as they wish (no matter if we personally disagree with what they are doing).

The fact that conservative legislators keep pushing these bills proves they do not consider women to be adult human beings with rights. They are obsessed with overturning Roe v. Wade and reducing women to the status of uterine chattel. After all, if you're constantly pregnant and burdened with children, you can't compete with the All-Wise Males.

And so, one step--one more restrictive abortion bill--at a time, thus brings us closer and closer to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. A religious dictatorship. For the good of the women and children, of course.