"NOT ONE MORE, Y'ALL!!"
Gdansk and Austin have more in common than you might think
Q: How is Texas like Poland? A: This. So much this.
A Polish hospital has said that doctors and midwives did everything they could to save the lives of a pregnant woman and her foetus in a case that has put the spotlight on the country’s new stricter abortion law.
The 30-year-old woman died of septic shock in her 22nd week of pregnancy. Doctors did not perform an abortion, even though her foetus was lacking amniotic fluid, according to a lawyer for the family.
Reproductive rights activists say she is the first person to die as a result of a recent restriction of Poland’s abortion law.
The woman, identified only as Izabela, died in September but her case was made public on Friday, triggering anger among some Poles and protests in Warsaw, Krakow and elsewhere on Monday evening. People lit candles for her in an evening vigil.
Listen to Texas Republicans talk about SB 8, the anti-abortion bill intended to kill Roe v. Wade in the most cynical way imaginable, and what you’ll hear is that it’s about women. It’s about protecting them, saving them from evil abortionists, and ensuring that their unborn children are allowed to be born.
Never mind that once a child is born, anti-choice zealots lose all interest in the kiddo because he/she/it is now the responsibility of the parent. AND THAT SLUT BETTER NOT COME BACK TO THE GOVERNMENT FOR HELP FEEDING AND RAISING HER CHILD!!
In Poland, it’s the Catholic Church. In Texas, it’s the Texas Taliban (The Texas Republican Party). In the end, though, the result is pretty much the same- a cabal of self-righteous, overly officious, hyper-Jesus-y White men telling women what they can and can’t do with their bodies.
Because it’s not like women are real people or anything- especially when it comes to their lady parts.
Of course, it’s not as if anyone could ever accuse Poland of having had “liberal” abortion laws. No, the Church has kept Polish uteri under lock and key even during the best of circumstances.
Before the new restriction, women in Poland could have abortions only in three cases: if the pregnancy resulted from a crime such as rape, if the woman’s life was at risk, or in the case of severe foetal deformities. The constitutional tribunal, which is influenced by Poland’s conservative ruling party, ruled last year that abortions for congenital defects were not constitutional.
Women’s rights activists say doctors in Poland now wait for a foetus with no chance of survival to die in the womb rather than perform an abortion.
The hospital where the woman died issued a statement on Tuesday saying they were “joined in pain” with her loved ones and others mourning her, and saying its staff had done everything to save her and the foetus. The family’s lawyer said she left behind a husband and a daughter.
“The only factor guiding the medical procedure was concern for the health and life of the patient and the foetus. Doctors and midwives did everything in their power, they fought a difficult battle for the patient and her child,” said the statement from the County hospital in Pszczyna in southern Poland.
Now close your eyes, substitute “Texas” for every instance of “Poland” in the previous passage, and you’d think you were talking about SB 8. Instead, it’s what happens when women (at least their reproductive functions) become property of the State.
In both cases, women can’t act as agents of their futures because the State has a de facto lien on their uterus. They aren’t free agents. Their sex life and lady parts are no longer wholly their own, and they must filter their choices through the prejudices of self-righteous zealots. Most of these extremists are in it for the prurient interest- because they probably haven’t been laid since the first Bush Administration.
And it’s not sad enough that a woman died because Polish law denied her access to a relatively safe procedure that almost certainly would’ve saved her life. It’s likely her baby wouldn’t have survived, so why compound the tragedy?
That’s the thing, of course. There IS no point to it. It’s just another example of gratuitous cruelty visited upon a woman by the State because it has the power and inclination to do so.
As a shrewd person once told me, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Perhaps someone could explain the logic behind this nonsense to her husband, who’s forced to contemplate life as a single parent. Or her daughter, who’s condemned to growing up without a mother.
Hi, we’re from the government, and we’re here to…oh, never mind….
“Not one more!” Really? Trust me on this when I say that there will be plenty more- because when you’re in it for the cruelty, one more is NEVER enough.
Sadly, Poland’s ruling party seems OK with the status quo. Hey, if it ain’t broke…. Besides, as the Catholic Church would happily tell anyone willing to listen, all women need to do is stop having sex, and this conversation would no longer be necessary.
Boom…there it is, eh?
An ultra-conservative organisation that lobbied for the abortion restriction, Ordo Iuris, faced accusations of responsibility for the woman’s death. Its president, Jerzy Kwaśniewski, said people should not jump to conclusions about what happened.
Both Kwaśniewski and Radosław Fogiel, a spokesman for Poland’s conservative ruling party, said that under the existing law a woman whose life was at risk had the right to legally terminate her pregnancy.
Fogiel said the ruling Law and Justice party did not plan to make changes to the abortion law due to the case.
Of course, it’s not the LAW that’s the problem, silly wabbit. It’s the fact that women insist on having sex. And until they learn to control their sinful libidos and limit sexual activities to procreation (It’s OK, honey; lie on your back, spread your legs, and think of England….), this sort of thing will continue.
Perhaps I’m missing something in all of this, but one thing I’m not hearing from anyone is anything that has to do with the man’s role in this travesty. You know, the owner of the penis, the sperm donor, the two-pump chump without whom this discussion would be purely academic?
Both Poland’s Catholic Church and the Texas Taliban insist on blaming women for the sex that leads to abortions, but they’re only half the equation. If not for men inserting themselves inside the problem (see what I did there?) and leaving a donation at the door, we wouldn’t even have to talk about abortion.
Yet men in positions of power continue to act if women (those Jezebels!!!) are the ones responsible for leading men astray and trying to entrap them with their feminine wiles.
Of course, it’s SO much easier to be a man if you never have to worry about being held responsible for thinking with the wrong head.
It’s like the title of a book someone once used to explain the importance of proper comma usage (as if I didn’t already know this as a writer, but whatever). “EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES” has a meaning significantly different from “EATS, SHOOTS, AND LEAVES.”
Door #2 is what men get to do.
Ah, it’s good to have a penis.
Though I’m trying (poorly) to make light of a tragic situation, it spotlights the hypocrisy behind Conservative White men setting up the world to their advantage. It’s not only unfair to women, who really should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding their bodies, but the belief that women are property of the State can occasionally turn deadly. That can happen when the men who make the rules don’t understand how women’s bodies work.
It’s OK, though; a woman’s body has a way of shutting that whole thing down…right??
It’s happening in Poland. It may soon begin happening again in Texas.
Hey, 1973’s holding on line two. They want their back-alley abortions back.
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