I don’t know how I missed this — Katha Pollitt describes a bill currently in the Wisconsin legislature:
Co-sponsored by two GOP state legislators, Senator Glenn Grothman and Representative Don Pridemore, it directs the state to prepare educational materials that blame “nonmarital parenthood†for child abuse and neglect and “emphasize the role of fathers in the primary prevention†of same. Don’t be fooled by that gender-neutral abstraction “parenthood.†This bill is clearly aimed at shaming and blaming single mothers. “Fathers†after all prevent harm to children, so logically the only parents left to cause it are… yes, those unmentionable women who have the babies without a wedding ring to show for it. You might think that even in Wisconsin it takes two to tango down the aisle, but not according to Senator Grothman, who says, “There’s been a huge change over the last 30 years, and a lot of that change has been the choice of the women.”
Now they’re just plain trying to give the votes to us!
On a related note, a friend posted this article to facebook, (http://rt.com/usa/news/arizona-bill-conception-abortion-387/, about a law in Arizona that would classify life beginning TWO WEEKS BEFORE conception. Didn’t know if you heard about it so I thought I’d pass it along. It’s too nuts for me to even begin to wrap my brain around it.
Shock and Awe? The Repug’s offensive of over a thousand bills attacking women is as intense as the artillery barrages of Verdun.
Senator Grothman, who says, “There’s been a huge change over the last 30 years, and a lot of that change has been the choice of the women.â€
Left unsaid:
‘So, you see, little ladies, you’ve had a series of choices to make, including “choice,” over the last 30-40 years, so you’ve brought this all on your little lady selves. We men had nothing to do with it, and now you leave us no choice but to take some responsibility. For your own good, of course.’
Well, in a Fascist country, which is the goal here, women are to be subservient dolls for men, who house the mans fetus for a 9-month term, then take care of the mans children.
Women are to be nothing more than infant-popping PEZ dispensers, globs of protoplasm in semi-human form, performing household chores, with no rights, except the rights that men give them – when they’re not hitting them with their left hand.
Their “Jobs Plan” is obvious:
Women who work can be said to be neglecting their children, ‘abusing’ them by not being there providing maternal care 24 hours a day. So, women have to leave any jobs they get and let men do the work, so the little ladies can stay home.
JOBS!
Oh, and NO welfare for you and the children, single-mom – find a man, or else!
To call people like Senator Grothman pigs is an insult to real pigs.
VOTE!!!
Science-based Sex Education (early)
Free Contraception (early)
First-term abortion option w/out harasment
Free Pre-natal care (it just became late)
Free day care (you want mom to work?)
Free After-school care
If you want to address child abuse and neglect, stop pointing your finger and take out your wallet.
Isn’t it obvious: one has to start taking the pill for +/- two weeks before it begins to offer reliable protection against pregnancy…
Also, the Morning After pill can be taken before a pregnancy is detected (but suspected), offering the little ladies an out… Therefore a two week window, just to be sure!
Clever. Stupid, but clever.
Elements of the anti-abortion rights movement calculate conception from the beginning date of a woman’s last period (when she clearly was not pregnant) rather than by the most likely ovulation date, roughly 14 days later. (Ovulation and conception can occur during menstruation, but it’s very unusual.) This also allows them to argue that a fetus can be viable after 21 weeks’ gestation rather than the medically standard 23 weeks’ gestation.